Tim Kaine steps in a big pile of macaca and his union buddies try to bail him out…with the race card. In a Fairfax debate with George Allen, Kaine finally admitted publicly that he wants to raise taxes on everyone.
We knew Jerry Kilgore was right in October 2005 when he said that Tim Kaine was going to raise your taxes. But here’s Kaine’s response:
So, on the same week that the “Tim Kaine Betrayed Coal” campaign is launched in Southwest Virginia, Kaine’s desperate buddies at the labor-backed super PAC Workers’ Voice launched a vile, false, negative, nasty, dirty, disgusting, reprehensible…hold on whilst I get my thesaurus…well, you get the idea…an ad of desperation calling George Allen a racist.
Other bloggers have been on this all day, here’s what they have to say:
Shaun Kenney at Bearing Drift: Given the horrific blowback Kaine suffered as he helicoptered around Virginia City’s new coal-fired plant Ben Bernanke-style and the hostile reaction from Southwest Virginia miners and businesses reliant upon Virginia’s single greatest natural resource — it’s no small wonder why Kaine wants folks to look the other way.
Jim Riley at Virginia Virtucon: Fearmongering and name calling doesn’t create a single job. Neither Kaine nor his union buddies have any idea how to create jobs, so they fall back on what they know best — attack and demagogue. Kaine showed he is quite capable of doing that as the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Alton Foley at Bearing Drift: I can find no interview, no statement on his website that leads me to believe that Tim Kaine actually supports the 9th District and its coal energy resources. Despite his expensive helicopter ad, where he claimed to be a moving force behind the Wise County Dominion clean coal plant. A claim that was quickly disproved.
“If Tim Kaine had his way it [plant] wouldn’t even have been built. He supports lower emissions [standards], and that plant wouldn’t have even been built. He’s betrayed coal. You cannot be a friend of coal and support the policies and politicians who want to bankrupt coal,” [Ben] Marchi said.
Kat Wilton at Cathouse Chat: Anyway, so George Allen is focusing on jobs (“It’s the economy, stupid!”), reining in DC’s insane spending, and getting this country back on track to being the economic powerhouse we naturally should be… And Tim Kaine wants to talk alternative energies and… “Macaca”?!!
Meanwhile the The Virginia Black Conservative Forum said in a release:
VBC President Terrence Boulden said, “I became a Republican because of Allen’s common sense leadership as governor. I’ve come to know him over the years, and the Allen these ads portray is not the Allen I have come to know.”
“Whenever you have to resort to calling someone a “racist” to justify why people shouldn’t vote for them, it’s because you can’t win on your own record and your own policies,” said Coby W. Dillard, the founder of VBC. “When you have to hide behind a third party to launch that attack, it says much more about your character than it does about the person you’re attacking. Gov. Kaine is hoping that this ad campaign will distract Virginia’s voters from the failed policies of the Obama administration, which he championed as the handpicked chairman of the DNC.”
“VBC calls for the Kaine campaign to join us in denouncing the vile and despicable web ads released by the super PAC Workers’ Voice accusing Governor Allen of racism,” said Carl Tate. “This Senate campaign should be about job creation and economic growth and we hope Governor Kaine agrees. That’s the debate the people of the Commonwealth deserve.”
Paul Bedard writes in the Washington Examiner: Labor’s race card against Allen may backfire
Bedard says: The labor attack, however, has given Allen’s campaign a chance to use labor against Kaine, recently head of the Democratic Party which is closely allied with Big Labor. When asked about the new ads, the Allen campaign was quick to point out the Kaine-labor relationship to use it against him in the right-to-work state that bars workers from being forced to join unions.
Back at Bearing Drift, Norm Leahy connects the dots:
This is all coordinated, folks. The WaPo was merely (though willingly) playing the role of useful idiot.
It also shows that Kaine’s admission of being open to slapping an income tax on everyone has shaken his campaign. He has to change the subject. Or in this case, he has to rely on his surrogates to throw as much mud as they can at Allen in hopes that we’ll forget about his tax gaffe in Fairfax.
Kaine is losing the debate. He knows it. Big labor knows it. And, just like their fearless leader, they’re willing to do anything to gain and keep power.
Here’s the thing that makes me the most angry and makes it difficult to even write this post.
I know George Allen. I’ve known him for almost 30 years.
I’ve campaigned for him. I’ve worked for him. My wife has worked for him.
The racist charges are totally bogus.
Tim Kaine should renounce these ads right now and call for them to be pulled down. ‘
But he won’t. Because to Tim Kaine, stuck there in that well, winning is more important than the truth.