Posted on 07/17/2005 8:24:50 AM PDT by LdSentinal
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va.--Virginia’s two major-party candidates for governor agreed Saturday that they offer vastly different visions for the state’s next chief executive, but found little other common ground in a feisty 90-minute debate in which Republican Jerry W. Kilgore proved more aggressive.
Kilgore asserted several times during the Virginia Bar Association-sponsored event that Democrat Timothy M. Kaine would issue blanket clemency to death row inmates because he is opposed to capital punishment for philosophical and religious reasons.
The Republican, a supporter of the death penalty and an abortion opponent, said Kaine has called for a moratorium on the death penalty and said the Democrat’s personal opposition to executions and abortions clashes with Kaine’s repeated vows to enforce Virginia’s capital punishment and abortion laws.
Kaine shot back that Kilgore is questioning his religious views and is wrongly doubting his ability to uphold the laws. “Jerry’s point is simply this: You can’t trust a person of faith to follow his oath of office,” Kaine said.
“I believe life is sacred and I have stated again and again over the years that I am against abortion and the death penalty,” Kaine said. “And, I have stated since I first got into public life that I am not going to change my religious view to get elected, and I won’t let anybody push me around for my religious views or question them.”
Kaine said the charge that he would issue blanket clemencies is “flat wrong. I would use the clemency power of the governor in exactly the same way that earlier governors have - in instances where there is grave doubt about somebody’s [guilt or] innocence.”
Debate moderator Robert D. Holsworth, director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Center for Public Policy, elicited quite different views when he asked both candidates if they would veto further restrictions on abortion that could result from upcoming changes in the Supreme Court.
Kaine insisted that he would veto any bill to outlaw abortion if a reconstituted Supreme Court allows reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing the procedure, but Kilgore declined to give a yes-or-no answer and said the question called for “total speculation.”
“We don’t need to criminalize the health-care decisions of women and doctors,” Kaine said.
Kilgore followed by saying, “I support a culture of life, always have and always will.”
“My opponent can’t be trusted on this important issue,” Kilgore added. “He claimed in 2001 to be pro-choice” and now calls himself personally pro-life.
Kaine and Kilgore clashed over affirmative action in higher education and whether race should be considered, as it is now, as a factor in bolstering black enrollments.
Kilgore said he favors diversity, especially from rural, urban and suburban high schools, and added, “You can accomplish that without looking at the color of our skin or whether we are male or female.”
Kaine said Kilgore had tried as attorney general to “muscle the colleges to drop their diversity programs - and in the case of Virginia Tech, it worked” until the Tech Board of Visitors reversed what Kaine called the Republican’s “bad legal advice.”
Saturday’s debate was one of only two such side-by-side events this year that Kilgore has agreed to, as the Republican has insisted that independent candidate H. Russell Potts Jr., a four-term Republican state senator from Winchester, not be included.
Potts said late Saturday in a telephone interview from Roanoke that the testy tone of the Kilgore and Kaine campaigns “is like two kids in a sandbox, and I think their inexperience clearly shows.”
Potts said that he and Kaine have accepted nine debates “and I’m not going to give [Kilgore’s] empty chair a free ride.”
Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said that Kilgore won Saturday’s debate by being more assertive than Kaine and by amply exceeding the low expectations the Republican’s campaign had set for him.
“In my view, Kilgore did the best he had ever done” by pushing differences with Kaine on guns, gay rights and taxes, Sabato said. “He was very aggressive. He was articulate. He pushed Kaine into certain liberal boxes, corners, that are tough to get out of in Virginia for a Democrat.”
Robert E. Denton Jr., director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Leadership Development, also gave the edge on style to Kilgore for being “much more aggressive. He put Kaine on the defensive [and] basically had Kaine responding, especially on all the follow-ups.”
Kaine presented himself as the logical successor to Gov. Mark R. Warner, an Alexandria Democrat who leaves office in January, and the only candidate to “continue on that path,” while asserting that Kilgore opposed Warner’s “every reform.”
Kilgore said he had worked with Warner for higher education bonds and to combat gangs. The Republican said he is the only candidate to oppose tax increases and to trust Virginians by insisting that tax increases, especially any increase for transportation, first go to voters in regional referendums.
“I trust the people, always have, always will,” Kilgore said several times during the debate.
Kaine said he has worked for bipartisanship and accused Kilgore of being a hard-line partisan who shirks leadership and opposed regional referendums for transportation tax increases while attorney general.
Kilgore said the tax increases that Warner engineered in last year’s General Assembly were not needed. “Every time my opponent has held a position of leadership, he has raised taxes,” Kilgore said.
When Kaine asked repeatedly where Kilgore would pull the $700 million in revenue provided each year by the tax boosts, Kilgore did not directly respond.
"The Republican, a supporter of the death penalty and an abortion opponent..."
Don't you love the way the media tries to create a contradiction by putting these two subjects together.
The media has a hard time understanding that the death penalty is used against the worst of our society after they are found guilty by our courts.
On the other hand, abortion kills the most innocent, the defenseless.
His most loyal followers are foul-mouthed socialists.
Kilgore ping.
Watch for increasing nastiness out of the Kaine Kamp. Being a "better debater" was Kaine's ace in the hole.
He's got nothing left.
Shouldn't his name be spelled KillGore? :^)
“We don’t need to criminalize the health-care decisions of women and doctors,” Kaine said... Kilgore followed by saying, “I support a culture of life, always have and always will.”
Corin...Kilgore isn't hedging his bets, is he? Why do you suppose he wouldn't respond directly? Is this being reported accurately?
I'd have to see the transcript to be sure.
If memory serves, Kaine as Lt. Gov cast the tie-breaking vote in the VA Senate to allow ballots to be multi-lingual. Do you know or remember?
http://www.jerrykilgore.com/cgi-data/press/files/114.shtml
Kilgore Shines in Virginia Bar Association Debate
- Republican Wins Debate and Presents Vision for Virginia's Future -
July 16, 2005
Contact: Tim Murtaugh (804) 640-3747
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, WV - Former Attorney General and Republican nominee for Governor Jerry Kilgore clearly won today's debate and displayed his positive vision and pointed out time after time inconsistencies in Tim Kaine's stances on various issues. While Kilgore laid out his proposals to move Virginia forward, he also drew a sharp contrast between his conservative record of success and Kaine's liberal record going back to his days as Mayor of Richmond. Kilgore also highlighted Kaine's recent efforts to remake himself in a failed attempt to run away from his liberal record. The face-off was hosted by the Virginia Bar Association, which traditionally hosts the debate at the Greenbrier Resort.
"I've been looking forward to this debate," Kilgore said. "It went very well and it showed the stark contrast between my opponent and me. While I was explaining my positive vision for Virginia, all Tim Kaine could do was attack and go negative. I think he is getting desperate, because as this campaign rolls on, he is falling farther and farther behind."
Kilgore drew strong distinctions between Kaine and himself on a variety of key issues, including the death penalty, Second Amendment rights, tax issues, transportation proposals and education.
While Kaine has a long-established record of being on the liberal side of a variety of issues, he spent a great deal of his debate time attempting to remake his own record. On the death penalty, he claimed he would enforce death sentences, despite a lifetime of opposition and a previous call for a moratorium. On the Second Amendment, he claimed he would protect gun rights, despite having tried to send anti-gun protestors to Washington, DC with taxpayer money before the press noticed. By the end, it was clear that Kaine was running away from his record and staking out positions he has never before occupied.
"This was a good chance to contrast who we are and what we stand for," Kilgore said. "I'm a proud conservative, and he has called himself a proud liberal. That's an important difference."
Kilgore recited a number of pieces of Kaine's liberal and failed record. Kilgore pointed out that while Kaine was Mayor of Richmond, the city's schools were ranked second-worst in the Commonwealth even though they were spending more money per pupil than almost any other locality. Kilgore also noted that while Kaine was Mayor of Richmond, Governing Magazine gave the city's management leadership a "C +" rating. In addition Kilgore said that Kaine supports civil unions for gay couples. In each instance, Kaine failed to refute or even address the charge.
-30-
Grant it, Lord.
I almost forgot one more thing......
Subject: Online poll on Kilgore vs. Kaine
The link to the poll is as follows:
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FPage%2FRTD_SectionFront&c=Page&cid=1058750344173
NOW is the time to REALLY pour it on!!
You can vote once per hour, so let's get started voting !!!
If we ALL get out and vote, this too will be granted!!! :-)
Take NOTHING for granted!! V O T E !!!
Voted.
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