Progressive Democrat Issue 35: VIRGINIA FOCUS

Taken from a Daily Kos diary:

The race is starting to heat up as national politicians get involved and more issues arise. On Wednesday Barack Obama came to Arlington in a large rally (1,000 people) and small dollar fundraiser. At the same time John Kerry sent out emails asking for donations to Tim Kaine. Of course the republicans jumped on this one saying Kaine was Kerry "with a richmond address". Yesterday in my town, Bush came to a $2 million dollar "intimate" dinner fundraiser with 100 corporate fatcats who gave at least $15,000 each. Having Kilgore was bad enough but Bush created massive backups. More below.

The July 15th fundraising reports came in and Kaine has an overall edge in money though Kilgore closed much of the gap thanks to the fundraiser mentioned above. Kilgore also continues to be reluctant to debate Kaine on TV or basically anywhere else.

Then yesterday the state reported a $544 million dollar surplus. You see, the surplus was a result of a tax raise supported by Warner, Kaine, and a bunch of moderate republicans. Kilgore is claiming that the tax raise was unnessecary because of the economy. Kaine pointed out some taxes were cut and we had to save our services and state credit. He is also using fiscal responsbility as a theme and using the budget to prove it. The tax issue may work in our favor as people were not angered by it (except for the Club for Growth people) and it did save the state from a budget deficit.

Another issue that came up was abortion. At last saturday's debate, Kaine said he would support ways to reduce abortion while not criminalzing it. Kilgore, who in the past supported banning abortion except in cases or rape or incest (and only if it was done in 7 days of pregnancy) refused to say whether he would criminalize it or not. His rationale was that the case was "hypothetical" and that we didn't know who Bush was going to appoint. Well we found out that Bush would appoint Roberts who would likely vote to overturn Roe V. Wade. So now Kilgore is refusing to say anything and the anti-choice people want him to speak. Kaine and the democrats are pressing him to speak and the press is questioning him. This could also work in our favor.

The main unpredictable factor is Russ Potts. He is a rockefeller republican type who is pro-choice but fairly conservative elsewhere. Potts could attract pro-choice women who would otherwise vote for Kaine or he could attract moderate republicans disenchanted with the party. No one really knows what he will do or say. So far he has raised about $450,000 dollars and has attracted at least 3% support. However Kaine has said that Potts takes away 2 votes from Kilgore for every vote taken from himself.

The race will be hard fought and most likely very close. However we have Warner, a surplus, and a good economy on our side.

I keep saying this: Virginia is one of the key races this year. Please give this race your attention!