Tag: tim kaine

Sen. Tim Kaine (D, Virginia) tries to be sneaky about a gun-grabbing bill.

Emphasis on ‘tries.’ It wasn’t that hard to suss out, bless his heart. Essentially, Tim Kaine wants to make private gun sellers as criminally liable as licensed gun sellers, without giving the former the tools to do the job:

While current federal gun law imposes a criminal liability only on those institutions with authority to conduct criminal background checks, Kaine’s bill does no such thing.

Instead, Kaine’s proposal criminalizes a private individual’s failure to conduct a federal background check while refusing to give that individual the right to conduct the federal background check in the first place. Kaine’s office confirmed that his bill does not give private individuals the authority or ability to conduct federal background checks in order to avoid the federal criminal liability imposed by his proposal. Federal law currentlyrestricts NICS access to FFLs or state law enforcement agencies.

I swear, somebody should do a memetic study to determine whether having the gun-control meme in your head causes long-term cognitive damage. As gun-control tactics go, this was remarkably unsubtle and crude.  Not to mention utterly unworkable, but that’s par for the course.

Moe Lane

PS: Seriously, Senator Kaine: make an appointment with your neurologist. If you don’t have a neurologist, get one. I’m being perfectly serious, here.

Yet one more reason why the Democrats will lose Virginia.

Shad planking.

To summarize the video: every year this event goes on in Virginia where people get together at the Wakefield Ruritan Club and eat shad that’s been smoked on wooden planks (thus, ‘shad planking’).  This is one of those big-time political social events for Virginia, and usually it’s pretty bipartisan because, you know, shad on wooden planks.  Anyway: according to the video, the organizers (as per their usual custom) twice extended an invite to Tim Kaine’s campaign for him to speak; they were twice ignored; they extended a similar (and perfectly standard) invitation to George Allen; and when Allen ended up being keynote speaker by default, the same Kaine people that shrugged off the invites in the first place got huffy and started an informal boycott.

Well.  I guess that means more shad for the Republicans, then.  More votes, too.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Note that I did not call this the primary reason why the Democrats will lose Virginia.  But state politicians ignore – or worse, dismiss – local events like this at their peril.  The Kaine campaign is claiming that they chose not to attend because it’s a small event and not a necessary stop on the campaign trail, yadda yadda: that attitude is interesting, considering that it had now-Governor McDonnell speaking in 2009, now-Senator Mark Warner speaking in 2008… and Tim Kaine in 2005, when he was running (successfully) for Governor.

Oh, well, I suppose that Kaine thinks that those grapes were probably sour anyway.

Tim Kaine running for VA-SEN, because God loves me.

Jim Geraghty has the report.

And it is my devout hope that Tim Kaine brings the same competence and drive to the upcoming Senate election in Virginia that Tim Kaine previously brought to the Chris Christie, Bob McDonnell, Scott Brown, Martha Roby, Mo Brooks, Rick Crawford, Tim Griffin, Steve Womack, Paul Gosar, Ben Quayle, David Schweikert, Jeff Denham, Scott Tipton, Cory Gardner, Steve Southerland, Rich Nugent, Daniel Webster, Dennis A. Ross, Allen West, Sandy Adams, David Rivera, Rob Woodall, Austin Scott, Raúl Labrador, Joe Walsh, Robert Dold, Adam Kinzinger, Randy Hultgren, Bobby Schilling, Todd Rokita, Larry Bucshon, Todd Young, Tim Huelskamp, Kevin Yoder, Mike Pompeo, Jeff Landry, Andy Harris, Dan Benishek, Bill Huizenga, Justin Amash, Tim Walberg, Chip Cravaack, Alan Nunnelee, Steven Palazzo, Vicky Hartzler, Billy Long, Joe Heck, Frank Guinta, Charles Bass, Jon Runyan, Steve Pearce, Michael Grimm, Nan Hayworth, Chris Gibson, Richard Hanna, Ann Marie Buerkle, Renee Ellmers, Rick Berg, Steve Chabot, Bill Johnson, Steve Stivers, Jim Renacci, Bob Gibbs, James Lankford, Mike Kelly, Pat Meehan, Mike Fitzpatrick, Tom Marino, Lou Barletta, Tim Scott, Jeff Duncan, Trey Gowdy, Mick Mulvaney, Kristi Noem, Chuck Fleischmann, Scott DesJarlais, Diane Black, Stephen Fincher, Bill Flores, Quico Canseco, Blake Farenthold, Scott Rigell, Robert Hurt, Morgan Griffith, Jaime Herrera Beutler, David McKinley, Sean Duffy, Reid Ribble, John Boozman, Marco Rubio, Dan Coats, Jerry Moran, Rand Paul, Roy Blunt, Kelly Ayotte, John Hoeven, Rob Portman, Pat Toomey, Mike Lee, Mark Kirk, Ron Johnson, Rick Scott, Terry Branstad, Sam Brownback, Paul LePage, Rick Snyder, Susana Martinez, John Kasich, Mary Fallin, Tom Corbett, Bill Halsam, Matt Mead, and Scott Walker races.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Tim Kaine should run for VA-SEN.

The word is that Tim Kaine (former governor of Virginia and current head of the DNC) is on the verge of declaring his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Virginia Senator, and I for one support that move thoroughly.  Why?  Well, because of his record.  Below is a chart comparing the number of Democrats (and Democratic-controlled legislatures) at the start of Kaine’s tenure in January 2009 with the number of Democrats now (March 2011):

Jan 2009 Mar 2011
House 256 192
Senate 59 53
Governor 28 20
State Leg. 62 43

That is precisely the kind of campaigning record that I like to see from a Democratic nominee.  Especially the state legislature numbers: the first three categories all had their own dedicated groups entrusted with Embracing The Fail for the Democrats, but the DNC neglected the state houses in a Census year. And goodness gracious, but it showed.  So run, Timmy.  Please.

Please.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Tim Kaine continues the Democrats’ Great Circle of Fail.

If you were wondering whether or not the Democrats learned anything – anything at all – from their recent shellacking, stop wondering: they have not. 

They are keeping Tim Kaine on as DNC chairman.

Because he did ever-so-well in the last election cycle… although I’d like to correct Jim Geraghty’s count slightly on Tim Kaine’s Litany of Failure: Jim was only looking at the 2010 results.  If you add in everything since the 2008 election cycle then you can add 2 governorships lost to the GOP and one Senate seat (the special election House results were pretty much a wash).  This despite the DNC out-raising the RNC in 2010 by almost 40 million dollars, mind you; which makes it even more embarrassing, if such a thing is really possible.

Continue reading Tim Kaine continues the Democrats’ Great Circle of Fail.

#rsrh Please, God, let Gibbs be the next DNC chair.

Ed Morrissey and I will be very grateful if You could let this happen.  And it’s certainly true that the Democrats deserve this, after all:

Democratic insiders are taking the temperature of some top party donors about the possibility of naming White House press secretary Robert Gibbs as chairman of the Democratic National Committee heading into President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, senior officials tell POLITICO.

Under the scenario being tested, Tim Kaine, the current DNC chairman and former governor of Virginia, would be named to a top administration post, perhaps in the Cabinet, the officials said.

Especially the part where Kaine comes in and does to the executive branch what he did to the DNC. Just don’t let them make Kaine Secretary of State: the last thing that we need is Hillary Clinton suddenly free from her entanglement with this administration…

Moe Lane

PS: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

#rsrh Kaine Commands Cadre.

‘Don’t run against your own party head in the election.’ You’d think that this would be elementary political wisdom, much like ‘never get caught with a dead girl in your bed,’ ‘never pick a fight with a group that can plausibly use a ten year old precocious moppet as a spokesperson,’ and/or ‘never use the American flag to strangle a three-legged puppy on national television.’ But apparently Tim Kaine – nominal head of the DNC – feels the need to warn his own party’s legislators to ix-nay on the unning-ray against Obama-way:

“Democrats who kind of are afraid to be who they are, or are pushing back on their leaders, I think they’re crazy,” said Kaine during an appearance on “Fox & Friends.” “You can’t win as a Democrat without energizing Democratic voters, and if you pour cold water on them and think you’re going to win, it’s tough….The good news is this is not what I’m seeing generally, as I travel around.”

Apparently Fox News felt like being helpful, because the rest of the article provided amusing selections from all those politicians that Kaine didn’t see running away from the President (but felt the need to lecture anyway).  And if that wasn’t enough, Kimberly Strassel (H/T: Hot Air Headlines) looked at the three House Democrats who have most successfully pretended to be conservatives*: not unsurprisingly, they’re also doing distinctly better than their colleagues in equally at-risk districts.  I understand that Kaine needs to spin this, and he certainly needs to spin this now that it’s becoming increasingly clear that the DNC’s disastrous performance in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts was an appetizer for Democratic disaster in November, and not the main course; but he could have come up with something better, surely.  Something not so evocative of panic.

Hey, what about calling Republicans racist?  It’s not like the Democrats go often to that particular well.

Moe Lane

*There is no such thing as a conservative Democrat.  A ‘conservative’ Democrat will happily caucus with a party that puts its doctrinaire liberals in leadership positions, and that particular vote invalidates any supposedly ‘principled’ stances later.  Walt Minnick, Bobby Bright, and Gene Taylor (the three mentioned by Strassel) are as much enablers of Pelosi/Waxman/Frank as are Charlie Rangel, Alan Grayson, and Carol Shea-Porter.

Never forget this.

Tim Kaine apparently surprised over Bennett loss.

Kaine was in such a rush to get things going on that he forgot to check the press release:

“If there was any question before, there should now be no doubt that the Republican leadership has handed the reigns to the Tea Party.”

(Head’s-up from @AlexPappasDC.)

It was precisely this keen attention to detail and level of preparation on the DNC’s part that caused such dramatic results in NJ and VA last year, and promises to do the same in HI-01 and PA-12 later this month.

Moe Lane

*I had a number of more bad puns here originally, until I realized that I was indulging in ad homonym attacks…

Crossposted to RedState.

Governor Kaine signs law permitting “Choose Life” license plates.

Via Riehl World View:

DNC chair infuriates abortion backers

Tim Kaine, the Virginia governor and President Barack Obama’s hand-picked choice as the head of the Democratic National Committee, infuriated abortion-rights groups Monday by signing legislation that gives abortion foes a long-sought victory.

Kaine brushed off intense lobbying by abortion rights supporters in Richmond to sign a bill that allows Virginia motorists to advertise their anti-abortion views by sporting “Choose Life” specialty license plates.

Infuriated. How… brittle of them.

Crossposted to RedState.