Tim Kaine wears his progressive/Catholic values on his sleeves. Yet when he got the unique opportunity to save a few lives he sheet his pants.
He made sure five 13 people were executed when he was governor.
Why? I’m not sure why. Only reason I can come up with is he a phony. Why would he refuse to call off executions? Political expediency, right?
At least Pontus Pilot never proclaimed he was anti-death penalty.
All Kaine had to do was say “no”. But some voters will be mad.Poor Timmy. Can anyone blame him? Profiles in courage are for the other guys.
No real sacrifice. Save his job? He’s a Harvard lawyer, he’ll find something.
I’m not digging this guy right now. He may have more Hillary in him than Hillary. Can you imagine if Hillary had this on her resume?
This guy seems to be all about his image.
If he really had the moral high ground he’s claimed than he would have stopped the executions.
He may have a reputation of being ethical but he sure didn’t pass the test of being moral.
Yet he has the hutzpa to say he is anti-death penalty. That’s like Bill Gates being anti-computer. Talk about having it both ways.
BTW, being mayor of Richmond is like being mayor of Cambridge. Ribbon cutting job with no power.
New York Times:
I’m sympathetic to his legal position,the law being the law … but nobody forced him to be Governor either. He could be, say, an anti-death penalty activist.
He choose death and political expediency over justice.
Kaine would not have been violating any laws by stopping the 13 executions.
13 people dies at his hands.
He spent 17 years practicing public interest law in equal access to housing and he’s a fraud? Do you know what an uphill near-hopeless slog that is? No that’s right. You don’t.
He chose not to work 80 hours a week for a big time law firm. He was still lawyering and getting paid for it.
He had the opportunity to live what he preaches. He chose the easy route.
If you were governor terry would you stop the executions? Only answer if you are a strong anti-death penalty advocate like Kaine says he is.
…I don’t think it is appropriate for a Governor to commute every death sentence simply because he is opposed to it. That should be saved for miscarriages of justice or if new doubts about one’s guilt arise.
SAs governor he did not need a legal reason to do it although I’m sure he could have done it. He was all powerful in deciding whether these people live or die.
Never ever an easier choice for a anti-death penalty “Jesuit educated” politician to save a life.
I’m bothered by this.
It’s the same point I made above, though Christopher puts it better. The governor probably shouldn’t commute a sentence just because he disagrees with it.
He could of course, as governor, work toward repeal of the death penalty. He could also, as I said above, choose another line of work.
he has the power then use it. No different than a veto really.
Are there any contingencies on the VA law?
The governor was given an easy test and failed. He was afraid people would be mad at him. So he let 13 people die as he proclaimed he’s against the death penalty.
WTF is that?
Once he becomes governor, he takes an oath to uphold the laws of the state. He can’t ignore them.
One could argue that he has a moral imperative, but that’s a different discussion.
At minimum, if he opposes the death penalty, he should work against it, and not put himself in a position where he has to enforce it.
Besides the courts make him upload the law. Not telling him to go rogue. Why didn’t he use the law he had?
Is there a standard in the law? Or does he have carte blanche?
If Tim Kaine went whichever way the wind blows, it’s hard to imagine him taking a firm stance on gun control. That’s not a recent development, either — it’s since 2007.
Not sureI follow what ur saying
A) apples and oranges comparison. These issues are unrelated. And even so, he took a hard political stance on an issue where he had no power and refused to take a hard political stance on an issue where he had all the power, how is that courage? A symbolic stance that was morally right and unpopular on one issue doesn’t wash away the sin of omission on a different issue where he had direct control and choose to do nothing. I am reminded of that WW episode where Bartlett let’s an execution go through and then confesses to Karl Malden who played his priest. It’s truly appalling and tragic he didn’t do more. Especially with what Terry McAuliffr is doing personally singing over 200,000 clemency requests a judge wouldn’t let him do as a bulk clemency. That’s a real leader. Kaine was not.
B) he didn’t have a strong gun control stance! He asked for a slew of messed background checks and got crushed, then settled for a weak EO addressing “mental health” which essentially concedes the NRA its biggest talking point. People keep asserting he did something but I haven’t found anything of substance on it.
If he was afraid to go against the will of the voters, he wouldn’t have taken any form of gun control stance in Virginia. That he took a public stance against the NRA, in Virginia suggests that he’s not simply beholden to the direction of the wind.
The issues are different; their relationship is whether or not Mr. Kaine is willing to stand against the politically popular position. On the topic of guns, he clearly is.
That makes his stance on the death penalty even more craven and bizarre. If he could stand up to the BRA, why not stand up for the 13 lives he believed the state was unjust to take and he had the power to save? It makes his decision on the latter even worse since he did show courage on the former, which is just as unpopular in Virginia.
He has said he struggled with his conscience in these death penalty cases. As I understand it, he did overturn one death penalty sentence imposed on a mentally ill man. In fact, Virginia has a death penalty statute, and as governor of the state, Kaine had an obligation to uphold the law. He couldn’t disregard that obligation simply as a matter of principle, but would have had to have found serious misapplications of the law in order to overturn those cases.
Kaine is not a perfect candidate, but he’s no fraud. He earned the trust of the black community in Richmond for his public interest legal work against housing discrimination. He defied the National Rifle Association, which is headquartered in his own state.
Let’s confine epithets in political discourse to those who deserve them. Donald Trump is a fraud, not Tim Kaine.
the law says he can commute. That law has as much weight as the death penalty law.
Can you show me where it’s said he has to favor one over the other.
Sorry, this should have been a lay-up. He was governor from 2006 -2010. Modern times on the anti-death penalty front. Not like we are talking about a 1970s irish catholic politician who is a against the death penalty.
Kaine is a guy who had the legal power to stop 13 executions and did not. Kudos to him I guess for putting th kibosh on frying a retarded guy. So I guess he has at least an eighth of a testicle.
He’s selling bullshit when he says he had to follow the law. He had the law and he ignored it.
It paid off I guess,because he is the perfect chump for Hillary tops around the next few months and then win or lose never heard from again.
Plus he speaks Spanish.In Hillary’s world that’s like having a friend with a boat..
I speak Spanish, and I have a boat.
In not arguing he isn’t a good person and hasn’t been a good mayor or senator, I just don’t get the whole “he’s such a man of principle who took unpopular stances” when his ads literally said “I won’t let my personal principles get in the way of upholding our (me: totally racist and unjust) laws”. Would we want a 1950s VA governor upholding the unjust laws of that state at that time because that’s what the voters want? Is that our new standard?
Deval Patrick (quite frankly another mediocrity who’s primary legacy is dead kids at DCF, charters and casinos) still gets justly praised around here for preventing the voters from imposing an unjust law against marriage equality. We defend that, but we praise another Governor who ran the opposite at the same time and embraced doing nothing to fight voter backed laws against gay marriage bans, choice and for the death penalty as a selling point?
Great Tim Kaine goes to a black church and was a good white mayor of a majority black city. He also felt black lives on death row didn’t matter. Worse, he felt they did matter and personallt opposed it but he still choose to do nothing to save them. Hardly a profile in courage. His successor Terry McAuliffe wouldn’t let the legislature or courts stop him from vacating the unjust sentences of over 200,000 prisoners, most of them black. That is a profile in courage, Tim Kaine is a profile in cowardice.
Tim Kaine struggled with his conscience in these death penalty cases. To call Tim Kaine a profile in cowardice is way over the top and plays into Donald Trump’s tiny hands.
when was the struggle?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/tim-kaine-death-penalty-percy-walton_us_5793ce92e4b02d5d5ed1da9d
I agree he should have done more to stop executions in Virginia, but I take him at his word that he struggled with this issue.
Struggle with what? was he going tone lynched?
I’m not buying it. He seems more and more like a dick. The kind of kid you wouldn’t hang out with. Eddie Haskell
He’s Hillary in boxers.
or Hillary Clinton for that matter? Look who they’re paired up against. As someone I read said somewhere or other, complaining about the political purity of Clinton and Kaine is like a couple arguing about the color of the wallpaper while the house is on fire.
“Vote for Hillary! At least she’s not Trump”
The new bumper sticker of the election.
This is always the situation. There are only two viable political parties. The answer can’t always be “Shut up, the other side is worse.”
Our right to complain is sacred.
We can all vote for Hillary but don’t tell me she’s all that.
Like I’ll pay money and go to my nieces dance recittal be cause I have to. Don’t tell me she’s a fucking Rockette while I’m there.
Same for Hillary. Voting for her because I have to. (meaning have to stop Donald Trump)
Hillary and Tim are perfect candidates or that they shouldn’t be criticized. But people need to gain some perspective. If you call Tim Kaine a fraud because his record isn’t perfect, then where do you go if you want to criticize Trump? There is so much hyperbole thrown around these days that words have lost their meaning.
i van hate hillary and donald and vote for Hillary. Could never vote for trump but if I could blank it if she and her people continue to suck.
There is nothing hyperbolic here. And can we please stop saying any legitimate criticism of a Democrat helps Donald Trump? If Booker was picked your damned right I’d call him a failed mayor, opponent of public schools and defender of private equity and Chris Christie because he totally is. If she picked Jim Webb I would’ve called her out for backing someone who supports the Confederate flag in 2016. Just because those picks are lousy, and those choices poor, doesn’t mean I’m voting for Trump or helping him out.
There will be no free speech or reality based discussions at this site if that is our standard. The reality is, he cared more about upholding an unjust and racist law than his principles. He had the power to do something and he choose to do nothing. I have zero qualms about calling him out for that mistake.
…I would have to post a diary making the progressive case for him too. Webb may actually be someone who doesn’t make it as I felt during the early debate that he sounded like the most reasonable person on the Republican stage.
I am curious what inside you compels you to write that post, would you have made it for Liebermen in 2000 as well? Progressive does not equal Democrat. The sooner you realize it, the healthier your politics will be. We deserve better than what we are getting.
Here is Cory Booker’s On The Issues page.
For reference here is Jim Webb. (have to admit this surprised me)
Joe Lieberman (who is in fact a centrist)
If you scroll down on these page you get a quick visual as to where they fall on a plot divided into five sections. In my view, any one who falls into the “left liberal” section ought to be acceptable to progressives. Project Vote-Smart generally shows these guys actually do have interest group ratings we would prefer as well. Of course whenever I take political quizzes to determine my own place on the spectrum I consistently come up just a bit left of center myself, so we may be looking for different things though I’ve been known to go left in one race and center on the next depending on other factors.
For the record, I did write this diary regarding Lieberman a few years back, though as of 2000 I don’t recall him being quite so out of step with the party yet.
I give you credit for writing it.
The problem with On the issues and Political Quizzes is that they rank left/right on a social issues spectrum and not enough on economic issues. Booker is to the right of Obama on economics, he even attacked the President for going after private equity and venture capital during his successful 2012 populist re-election campaign. He also charterized the Newark public school system with Facebook’s money which was a policy disaster. So he would be even less acceptable than Kaine in my book.
Webb probably ranks better than you expected because he is a genuine economic populist and foreign policy realist, who votes ‘left’ on those issues and who I actually would’ve been willing to hear out in his campaign. His main problem is that he is too close to revisionist history on issues like Vietnam (we could’ve won) and the Confederacy (southern agrarians v yankee elites) that put him markedly out of step with the base of the party. The Confederate flag is a big deal to me, and nobody who supports flying it could ever earn my vote.
My point is, there should be some candidates that are so far to the right of the party that they are unacceptable. You’d never see a Republican, even Trump, put a genuine social moderate like Sandoval or Huntsmen on the ticket. Instead they double down on the right. It would be nice if we got a left of center Veep once in awhile, like LBJ had to with Humphrey.
…but notice that the On The Issues rubric is two-dimensional rather than linear. It applies both a social issues scale and an economic issues scale.
Kaine people want us to believe his decision to kill the 13 death row prisoners is the same as politicians who strongly support safe, clean, and accessable abortion clinics although morally against them.
NOT TRUE at all.
Check this out from the NYT
..I am pro death penalty in certain circumstances. I do not want laws for only certain KINDS of homicides, like police or prison guards, or age related categories, like under age 10. I want it to be on the books and be used, but as somebody once said, it should be safe, legal, and rare.
I know nothing about the specifics of these cases, but IF they are as described then Kaine was hypocritical in not commuting (and we are talking about communing, not pardoning) from death to imprisonment.
Hypocrisy is saying and claiming to believe one thing, and doing another. These executions would seem to fit that bill.