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Hinkle exposed
Tim Kaine’s
tortured positions on a variety of issues: Abortion is bad, and should not be restricted; gun
ownership is good, but should be restricted; gay
individuals should be able to adopt, but not gay
couples; and human life is sacred, but not worth
exercising an existing gubernatorial power - nor
nearly so sacred as lowering real-estate taxes or
locking up the road fund, which merit amending
Virginia's Constitution.
While calling
the Democrat “fundamentally decent,” Hinkle
asked, “Does Kaine really expect anyone to believe
this is what he truly believes?”
On
Kilgore, he zeroed in on the Republican’s desire
to “have it both ways” on money: “Kilgore is
running as a big-government conservative tax-cutter
whose primary fiscal strategy is hope.”
After reviewing Kilgore’s numerous proposals,
Hinkle found “a gap between revenue and expenses
big enough to accommodate a sumo-wrestlers'
convention.”
Hinkle also noted Kilgore’s
silence “on proposals to limit state budget
increases to population growth plus
inflation.”
Hopefully, Hinkle will not
stop at Kaine and Kilgore. An examination of
Russ Potts is already overdue.
The Only
Poll That Counts?
Margaret Edds of the
Virginian-Pilot went gaga over the Mason-Dixon poll
that showed the Virginia gubernatorial campaign as
dead heat. She casually dismissed previous
Rasmussen or Survey USA polls that had consistently
shown (and continue to show) a lead for Jerry
Kilgore: “The quality of those polls, which depend
on computerized telephoning, isn’t the same [as
Mason-Dixon].”
It only took blogger
Norm
Leahy of One Man’s Trash a flick of the mouse to
find a Slate article that demonstrated equal or
better quality with computerized polling.
Pundit Discretion
Jeff Schapiro of the
Richmond Times-Dispatch reported on the big news
story of the week, Republican Delegate Brad Marr’s
fundraising letter that called a donor to his
opponent a “homosexual.” The story created
a firestorm and Schapiro took criticism from some
Republicans for his reporting.
Wisely,
Schapiro did not explore the controversy in much
detail for his by-lined op-ed column, instead
offering a history lesson on similar controversies
involving gubernatorial candidates.
Looking Out for Republicans
At the
Daily Progress, Bob Gibson looks out for Republicans.
He asked why the GOP had revived the Ed Matricardi
eavesdropping scandal with a lawsuit against an
insurer. He also pointed out differences
between Jerry Kilgore and President Bush on the
teaching of creationism; not that anyone else had
noticed or much cared.
The
latter column was
noteworthy for Gibson’s continuing interest in
blogging. He highlighted two local
Charlottesville blogs and quoted a frequent blog
commenter.
Transportation and Land
Use
Bacon’s Rebellion pundit
Patrick
McSweeney performed a useful service this week.
In his column, also published in the Daily Press, he
clearly and succinctly described what linking
transportation and land use, long the Holy Grail of
policy wonks, would require. He presented it
as a choice:
We must either give a
state agency such as the Virginia Department of
Transportation the power to make land-use decisions
or give local governing bodies the power to decide
when and where transportation facilities will be
built, as well as the responsibility for funding
those facilities, even if that means giving
localities a share of the Highway Maintenance
Fund.
McSweeney’s larger point is that
campaigns should be about issues and that candidates
should tell the people where they stand.
NOVA Man Walking
Marc Fisher
of the
Washington Post profiled Stewart Schwartz, director
of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Schwartz,
an Old Town Alexandria resident, works to “make a
car-oriented society just a bit friendlier to people
who walk.” Sadly, Schwartz would move to DC
“in a flash” if he could afford it.
Share the Wealth
The
Richmond
Times-Dispatch has printed a series of op-eds over
the past few months on the subject of
“regionalism,” the effort to unite the City of
Richmond and the adjoining counties in common cause.
Most of the efforts have been eminently forgettable
Rodney King-like pleas “to get along.” Finally, though,
George Nyfeler, a land surveyor and
Virginia Commonwealth University urban studies
students, has offered a concrete proposal. He
suggested partial revenue-sharing similar to a
Minnesota plan where “40 percent of real-estate
tax revenue from new commercial and industrial
development [would] be set aside for redistribution
to member governments based inversely on relative
commercial/industrial development figures.”
Bear Market
Kerry Dougherty of the
Virginian-Pilot had tons of fun with a Department of
Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) outreach effort to
educate Asians on Virginia laws regarding bear
parts. It seems that bear gallbladders and
paws can fetch thousands of dollars in Asia, but a
“nutty” law in Virginia allows bear hunting, but
not the sale of bear parts. Given recent DGIF
globetrotting to Zimbabwe, Dougherty smelled a
possible junket to Asia.
--
August 8, 2005
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