Not So Honest Leadership for Virginia
I came home tonight to find several messages waiting for me. This isn’t really a surprise being the day before the election. What was a surprise was one of them claiming that Democratic candidate for governor, Tim Kaine was against gay marriage, against a woman’s right to choose and that I should support Independent candidate Russ Potts for governor.
It claimed to be paid for by the Honest Leadership for Virginia PAC. I was curious, so I did a web search on this PAC and found that it’s a political action committee formed to elect conservative Republicans in Virginia. In fact, it’s given over two million dollars to the Kilgore campaign! So, what they are trying to do is to draw votes away from Kaine to Potts. They know that Potts doesn’t have a real chance to be elected and hope that if they can siphon off some votes from Kaine to Potts they can get Kilgore elected.
If this is an example of honest leadership then I think the Kilgore campaign and its supporters need to start actually funding education in Virginia because they need some remedial lessons in the word “honesty.”
After I read your article, I went back to see who published the nice slicky for Russ Potts that I received a few days before the election. The catch phrase on the front of the pamphlet was “Learn which candidate for Governor truly shares your progressive principles.” I remember when I first got the paper and read through it, I was reminded of how far from progressive Tim Kaine really is. But I knew the only reasonable approach was to vote for him anyway.
Sigh.
So, today I examined the pamphlet in more detail for find out who paid for it. In fine print, running vertically, next to a nice picture of Tim Kaine was the sentence: “Paid for and authorized by Virginians for Jerry Kilgore”
I can’t say that this surprises me, given the really negative campaign that Kilgore ran. But, I think that this is just another example of the Republican’s thirst for power and control. This divide-and-conquer mentality is indicative of a party that has a weak position, and has to resort to trickery to hold onto and gain more power.