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Tim Kaine: Beliefs running politics

Washington's Voz

 


Daniela Bastos,
Special for Washington's Voz
08/05/2005

A Democrat is running for Governor in so called red Virginia.

He has the full backing of his party, but he has also gone great lengths to make himself comfortable in his party's label, not by shrinking himself, but by redefining “Democrat,” and going public talking about faith, religion and education as well as prevention of crime, violence and youth pregnancy.

Tim Kaine, the current Lieutenant Governor, is a former mayor from Richmond, and the choice of the Democrats to follow the path of governor Mark Warner, who may enter the race for the White House in 2008.

It can be a tough position to assume, being a Democrat and talking like a conservative person of values. But Kaine seems to understand the complexities of a State that has not gone for a Democratic presidential candidate in four decades.

Is it a bad or a good thing for his campaign? Nobody knows for sure, but he believes

in being true to himself and the people. He speaks his mind and shows the voters what he really stands for, while not allowing Republicans to encapsulate him in a narrow definition of Democrat.

His campaign is based on cutting taxes for homeowners, improving education and transportation, and making the economy stronger for Virginians.

While studying law at Harvard, he began wondering what he believed in and what he wanted from life. So he decided to take some time off to find out. Instead of going to a big city to work at a Law firm, he went to Central America.

That is the main reason to his interest for the Hispanic Community. He lived in Honduras for a year.

“My student life had been pretty self-absorbed, but when I walked by homeless people sleeping on the streets in the cold of winter, it made me question my path. I started working in a little town called El Progreso with the Jesuit missionaries and my job was to run a small vocational school, teaching teenagers basic carpentry skills,” the candidate said in an interview with Washington's Voz.

The immigrant issue worries him because he is more familiar with the Latin culture. He still wants to help people to have better opportunities.

“I look forward to bringing people together to find common sense solutions to Virginia's most important priorities and not to exclude them.”. He wants to guarantee that immigrants can be allowed to study and have financial aid to pay for school, provided that these schools who talk about being proud of cultural diversities really change their politics and start making school affordable for immigrants as they do for Americans students.

Kaine believes that he can prevent a lot of problems like youth pregnancies and crime with a better level of education.. In this matter, he believes that information in reproductive health issues and easier access to legal contraception could prevent unwanted pregnancies and avoid abortion.

As a devoted Catholic, the candidate is personally against abortion, but he wants to guarantee women's right to choose.

But he is emphatic that the best way to change things is try to prevent pregnancies from happening.In addition he would not make the actions of doctors and patients involved in abortions a legal crime.

“I believe there are very common-sensible things that we can do to reduce abortion. For example, enforce the restrictions we have, pass a ban on partial-birth abortion, and insure that women have access to health care, including contraception. I don't believe we should criminalize women's health care choices.”

A family man , Tim Kaine defends sexual abstinence before marriage:
“It could prevent a lot of issues.” He also believes that creating alternative ways for young people to engage in the community by practicing sports and participating in cultural and religious activities could be effective in avoiding juvenile delinquency.

Virginia has this view of “tough in crime”, and one of the issues that concerns the Lieutenant Governor is that the death penalty is not a measure to avoid crime, but rather is just a punishment. This is another subject that represents a challenge for him and is constantly used by his adversaries to attack him, questioning his values and his faith.

As Richmond's Mayor, Kaine developed a tough anti-crime strategy based on sending to jail for at least 5 years those who used deadly weapons in a crime. This award-winning project called Exile Program helped reduce the crime rate by 55%.

This project became the law enforcement model for President Bush and won national recognition from law enforcement groups, gun safety organizations and the National Rifle Association.

Jerry Kilgore, the Republican candidate for Governor, is in support of legislation to expand Virginia's death penalty “to say that gang leaders who order gang members to carry out murders should get the same penalty as that trigger man or the gang member that actually carries it out.”

The state crime commission is currently studying this legislation and will provide the legislation to the General Assembly next session. Kilgore consistently attacks Kaine for not being tough on crime.

Regarding this expansion, Kaine said he will see “what the legislative commission reports, but I generally don't believe that expansion of the death penalty is a way to fight crime. I am a crime fighter. That is the way to reduce crime. I fought for funding, when [Kilgore] was against it in the budget reform of 2004 . I was fighting for funding for prosecutors, for deputy sheriffs, for state police.”

Kaine concludes: “on death penalty that is the law of the land for the most serious crimes, and on abortion, the law of the United States is that women have the freedom to make their own reproductive decisions early in pregnancy, and I will honor those laws.”