Kaine Is Able: Sí Se Puede al DNC

By Al Giordano

There's a predictable flutter of puffed-up "outrage" from some blogger sectors about President-elect Obama's choice of Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to chair the Democratic National Committee. But I'm with Nate:

Kaine does strike me as being a pretty good fit for this position, though. He oozes a certain sort of optimistic sincerity that ought to play pretty well on television, where he's liable to be deployed ubiquitously on the Sunday Morning talk circuit, perhaps sometimes playing "good cop" to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. It seems probable that Kaine's role is going to be more about public relations than tactics, with the latter function to be fulfilled in large part by elements of the Obama apparatus itself.

And here's another point that most seem to be missing so far. The biggest challenge for the Democratic Party in the years to come - especially if, as promised by candidate Obama, immigration reform gives twelve million (mostly) Mexican-Americans a path to citizenship and voting - will be to consolidate those voters as base Democrats. That, alone, would cement former swing states Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada into the D column, and bring along Arizona and, gasp, Texas, too, and turn Obama's 2008 victory into a long-term generational shift.

Nobody should presume that the Democrats have the Hispanic-American vote locked up for the future. Republicans are making their own plays toward millions of economically liberal but socially conservative Hispanic-American voters (which is why George W. Bush himself pushed hard for immigration reform in 2007). Kaine provides the perfect profile for accomplishing that task.

For starters, Kaine speaks Spanish, and fluently (during my September interview with him in the Virginia governor's office we conversed in Spanish for part of it, leading his press secretary Gordon Hickey to comment "well, I guess I don't have to be here now").

Not since Senator Chris Dodd chaired the DNC (1995-1997) has that position been filled by someone who could communicate in that language.

Ambinder calls the pending Kaine appointment a prelude to "Howard Dean's 50 state strategy on steroids."

And if there's any doubt as to whether the community-organizer-in-chief is going to remain hands-on his national political organization, two top aids have drawn up a 500 page memo "of what went right and what went wrong in each state's field operation. A book-length treatment was given to Obama to read over the holidays."

The smattering of negativism from some corners toward Kaine's appointment (although not a single one of 300+ DNC members has so far displayed any displeasure at all with the pick) is based on the kind of stupid distortions of his positions from some self-proclaimed progressives that mimic the Sean Hannity types on the right: they claim he's "anti-gay" (he's not) and "anti-choice" (while his personal views - like those of Obama, Biden, John Kerry and others are a matter, they all say, of their religious faith, all, like Kaine, are governmentally pro-choice).

What they seem to object to is the suggestion, distasteful to them, that anybody should be appointed to any position - even if it's not a government or policy position, which DNC chair assuredly is not - who argues "I'm personally against abortion but will enforce Roe v. Wade" or who defends gay rights without being for gay marriage.

It's a particularly poor argument in this case, since the DNC chair's role is to advocate for whatever positions are held by the Democratic president, and what Kaine's critics fail to see is that his personal views will make him a more effective advocate supporting Obama's stance in favor of gay civil unions and abortion rights than if the DNC chair were someone more ideologically bent that way. It's far more powerful when someone like Kaine argues, as he has, for defending the right to abortion on legal grounds, and when he condemns discrimination against gays and lesbians, precisely because those on the other side of the divide can see somebody who is nuanced on these questions giving them, too, permission to support Democratic policies and politicians despite disagreement with them over some social issues.

Here's an example. The moderate National Catholic Weekly is swayed:

I never thought I would live to see the day. If anyone had any doubts about Barack Obama's willingness to listen to pro-life Democrats, his selection of Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to head the Democratic National Committee should settle those doubts. Obama means business.

Governor Kaine is clearly one of the president-elect's favorite fellow politicians. He was on the short-list for the vice-presidency but his lack of foreign policy credentials was deemed an insurmountable hurdle. But, Kaine is also pro-life. There are those in the GOP who will contest the point. They correctly point out that Kaine said during his campaign that he would enforce the law and the law is Roe v. Wade. Of course, this was a mere statement of fact. The Governor of Virginia, like the Governor of any other state, must abide by the laws of the United States. We fought a great and terrible civil war, much of it on the soil of Virginia, on precisely this point.

But, Kaine said more than that he would enforce the laws. He took the time to explain his opposition to abortion and to capital punishment. In historically Republican and conservative Virginia, Kaine's opposition to capital punishment was even more of an impediment to his election than his opposition to abortion! He explained why his Catholic views were important to him, and how he saw those views making different claims upon his conscience and upon his veto power. Most importantly, he was not afraid to admit that there is some ambivalence about how religious views intersect with the duties of public office. NARAL refused to endorse his candidacy.

Meanwhile, the radical Pro Life News finds Kaine's views to be operationally pro-choice:

"Obama is naming pro-abortion Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine to serve as the next chairman of the national Democratic Party."

An appointment like this drives a stake between moderate and radical sectors of the Republican (and Independent) social right wing and is devastating to their previous coalition.

It's part and parcel of Obama's mission to disarm the time bomb of social issues and neutralize them as weapons for the right.

US News & World Report notes:

Barack Obama's decision to tap Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine to be the next Democratic National Committee chairman is a sign that the party will very likely continue and perhaps expand on the unprecedented faith outreach initiatives that Howard Dean launched during his tenure as chair.

Kaine's 2005 run for governor was one of the few statewide races in the year following the Democrats' landslide defeat among so-called values voters, and his bid became a test case for many of the faith-based tactics that have now become commonplace among Democrats.

For instance, some of the first ads that Kaine-a Catholic who spent nine months as a missionary in Honduras-ran in 2005 were on Christian radio, a format that had been ignored by most Democratic candidates before that time. The Kaine campaign wanted to establish the candidate's Christian identity early, so that he could talk about his faith closer to Election Day without appearing opportunistic or disingenuous, a major fear of Democrats at the time.

MyDD front-pager Bob Brigham outlined five absolutely spurious and unconvincing arguments against Kaine at DNC:

1. We need a full time DNC Chair, not a part-time Chair. Kaine apparently intends to half-ass it for the first year, which should be a deal-breaker.

2. His one real moment on the national stage, giving the rebuttal to Bush's 2008 2006 state of the union, was an unmitigated failure.

3. He's Anti-Choice!

4. The Virginia bloggers who know him best have been very unsatisfied with his gubernatorial term.Raising Kaine, the blog that bears his name, should have been renamed Razing Kaine before it shut down and Not Larry Sabato has been on a twitter-tear (but has a great backgrounder re-posted on Tim Kain and Jim Gilmore).

5. Terry McAuliffe, the last DLC'er from Virginia who ran the DNC, literally ran the Democratic Party into the ground.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid and the fifth point is even stupider, especially because Brigham's claims are dreadfully errant on the real facts.

One, Obama is installing his own team as DNC staff, to be headed by 31-year-old Jennifer Brigid O'Malley Dillon, whose role as Battleground States Director for Obama's presidential campaign (after her original candidate, John Edwards, left the race) is described here:

(started April 2008)  Deputy campaign manager on John Edwards for President after serving as state director on his Iowa caucus campaign.  Campaign manager on Rep. Jim Davis' 2006 gubernatorial campaign in Florida.  Deputy campaign manager for Sen. Tom Daschle's 2004 Senate re-election campaign in South Dakota.  Field director on Sen. Edwards' 2003-04 Iowa caucus campaign.  In 2002 O'Malley served as field director for the South Dakota Democratic Coordinated Campaign, then as field director for Sen. Mary Landrieu's runoff campaign.  In 2001 she was campaign manager for St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay.  In 1999-2000 O'Malley was volunteer coordinator for Gore in the NH primary, then worked as a field organizer in New York and Pennsylvania, and in the general election, she was regional field director for the Missouri Coordinated Campaign in the St. Louis Metro area.  O'Malley is a 1998 graduate of Tufts University and hails from Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts.

Got it? She's a field organizer! And she'll be running the shop, day to day. When has that ever happened?

Two, Brigham's suggestion that Kaine isn't good on TV is beyond ignorant. Here he is last summer with Charlie Rose (and that interview provides clues as to the "new politics" style with which Kaine will lead the DNC, including his undeniable enthusiasm for the 50 state strategy and for declining PAC and lobbyist money). Kaine's capacity to humanize politics and take it out of the realm of cartoon caricature makes him uniquely skilled on television:

And here he is smacking down Karl Rove on Meet the Press last August:

More like Obama on television than perhaps any other major Democratic official, Kaine smiles as he sticks the knife in his adversaries, and makes it seem like he's being the kindest most decent sort from your neighborhood while he absolutely massacres them with niceness.

Three, Brigham's claim that Kaine is "anti-choice" is a gross distortion, unworthy of serious blog punditry - a typical deception that comes from not disclosing the whole truth - about a governor that did not interfere with a single woman's right to terminate a pregnancy during his tenure in Virginia and did not block a single medical procedure. We really must denounce and reject such dishonesty when it comes from those purporting to come from the progressive side of the aisle. I disassociate myself from such nonsense because it would embarrass me for anyone to presume that the kind of thoughtless ranting of Brigham's diary in any way represents me. It doesn't. And it probably doesn't represent most of you either.

Four, bloggers in his home state are upset with Kaine. Big whoop and so what? Bloggers in the home states of every other major elected official are upset with them, too.

And five, that he comes from the same state as the nefarious Terry McAuliffe is the kind of BS argument one would expect from a barstool at closing time. Does that mean that anybody from Virginia should be disqualified? Heck, I come from the same state as Son of Sam and David Rockefeller. Brigham comes from the same state as Charlie Manson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. ‘Nuff said. It's such a non-argument that it doesn't even dignify a response.

Tim Kaine is a leader uniquely in tune with the times we live in and with the new politics that Obama has ushered in. I can't think of anybody more suited to the task of being the public face and voice of Obama's party - a party that now seeks to include those of us without a party - than Kaine, who, I wrote at the time, would have been a great choice for vice president or for attorney general (and we may see him in one or the other in the future, once his gubernatorial term is up in early 2010). I'd rather work with people like him than with the stuck-in-the-seventies politically-correct crowd that lost every battle it ever claimed to fight and that is whining about this pick.

Expect a press conference in the coming days making Kaine's ascension to DNC chair official, and let the new order of the ages begin.