Former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder delivered a broadside to the White House Tuesday in an online column calling for President Barack Obama to remove former Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
 
Wilder said Kaine should be fired as part of a larger house cleaning Obama should perform within his administration.
 
Despite supporting Kaine in the past, Wilder wrote in a column posted on Politico.com that Kaine's current position atop the national Democratic Party "is the wrong job for him."
 
Wilder, a Democrat and the first African American elected governor of a state, said Obama also should replace some West Wing staffers.
 
Obama is surrounded by "people who are in their jobs because of their Chicago connections or because they signed on with Obama early during the presidential campaign" but lack "sufficient experience at governing at the executive branch level."
 
Tuesday's column is hardly the first time Wilder has flashed his maverick tendencies.
 
Last fall, the former governor refused to endorse fellow Democrat Creigh Deeds gubernatorial candidacy in a race he ultimately lost to Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell.
 
Writing about why Kaine should be ousted, Wilder pointed to recent election losses by the Democrats in Virginia and other states.
 
He also denounced Kaine's outgoing budget that featured a proposed individual income tax surcharge and his late term recommendation to federal authorities that convicted murderer Jens Soering be transferred to Germany, where he could be paroled in a few years.
 
Republicans can use those examples to negatively portray Democrats as a "tax and spend" party that is "soft on crime," Wilder said.
 
Messages left with Wilder's office and the Democratic National Committee were not immediately returned.