I agree with Chairman Kaine. We should elect people "who have set goals and achieved them during their terms," and not people "who want to push ideology and 'wedge' issues. This eliminates Kaine as a possibility. When Mayor of Richmond, that city had one of the lowest school achievement rates and one of the highest crime and murder rates. No achievement there, especially for the poor and minority community in Richmond. That makes his term much like those who run now and have run for the better part of the last century places like south Central L.A., Southside Chicago, and what is left of Detroit. Same political philosophy-same generational poverty, same failing education,same high taxes till every productive person is gone and you have to turn the place into pasture land. Then there's his three years as Governor. I think someone could wager a risk free $10.000 reward to the first person who can name one positive thing Kaine accomplished as Governor-what lasting mark he made on the Commonwealth. Beginning with a sizeable surplus, and ending with a huge deficit is stupid, not positive. And, neither harping on raising taxes or closing the rest stops on the highways count as positive-they are stupid as well. As for "wedge" issues-he and his bud Obama are masters of that. He correctly states we just can't afford any more of that at this time-so they both can ride off into the sunset together and leave the rest of us to get on with gettin' on.

I also agree with Chairman Kaine (and Linda). We should elect people "who have set goals and achieved them during their term." This eliminates President Obama as a possibility, because in January 2009, he proudly set a goal in an interview that ‘If I don’t have this done in three years, it’s going to be a one-term proposition.’ For his first 2 years, the Democrats held congress and the senate, and of course the White House - and they freely crammed every bit of legislation that they could down the throats of Americans. The Republican majority in congress which has only been in place for 19 months has not been able to slow the spending by the no-budget Democrats at record-breaking pace, and Obama has the nerve to say that the debt is so bad because of the Republicans. Balderdash.

Obama, all promises and no results.

Did we forget or not remember that the Democrats did not have both houses for two years?The certification of Al Franken and Senator Obama's replacement left them in charge of houses for 41/2 months. The Republicans left with a 10 trillion debt and for 19 months have done nothing but obstruct, name post offices, talk of repeal and vagina speak.

Wow - Kaine vs Allen ... that is two vacuous choices. We'll miss you Senator Webb!

As Governor, Tim Kaine helped push the rail project through with a bi-partisan team of Congressman. With his personal involvement, and the involvement of his Policy Director, Kaine worked closely with President Bush’s Secretary of Transportation and was able to receive the approval from the U.S. Department of Transportation for a Full Funding Grant agreement, which committed $900 million in federal funds for Phase 1 of the rail project. While other politicians have promised for decades to bring rail to the Dulles corridor, Tim Kaine got it done.

Unlike George Allen, who aggressively pursues legislation to limit a women’s’ reproductive rights, Governor Kaine opted to promote adoption and education as an alternative for women facing unwanted pregnancies. Kaine chose to enforce the established laws already in force in Virginia, passed a ban on partial birth abortion, promoted an abstinence-focused education, while ensuring that women have aces to health care, including legal contraceptive measures. Kaine eliminated state funding for abstinence-only sex education, citing studies which found that teenagers should also be taught about birth control in order to protect against pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Kaine indicated his belief that effective sex education programs should be evidence-based, comprehensive, and must include information about contraceptives as well as abstinence.

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Gov. Kaine worked with the 2008 Virginia Assembly to pass legislation that expanded the number of children who would have access to pre-Kindergarten education by almost 40%. Even in the face of a recession that eroded state revenues, he sought increases in preschool programs every year during his term. Kaine also championed and won passage of a bond package that gave Virginia colleges and universities the means they needed to attract the best students and faculty.

This is rich. Kaine spent most of his term as Governor out of the State on Democrat Party business. He also taxed, spent and followed the Party line all the way. We do not want a carbon copy of Obama in Virginia and that's what we would have with Tim Kaine.

Amen! ideologues response to the world is not based on reality (as some posts here aptly demonstrate). Electing leaders who are living in a fantasy land is dangerous to us all. Ideologues deny the reality that their wacky policies put the economy into free-fall. Ideologues insist "Obama, all promises and no results" and then fume over each and every accomplishment (with "Obamacare" topping the list). One must ask them, which is it?

If you want more debt for you, your children and theirs, vote dem. If you want to see us rise above our debt, then vote Republican. We can't keep spending, we simply can't, Obama said he would reduce debt, and so much more, he has done nothing.

Both parties are to blame... cutting taxes without cutting the loopholes isn't going to reduce spending... the Ryan medicare voucher plan simply transfer the cost on Medicare from the Federal gov to individuals to pay for their own insurance and doesn't fix the fundamental problems... neither party even mentions social security... the Dems can't come up with a coherent and no-nonsense policy on many platforms without 6000 pages of regulation and can't control spending... and both parties like to talk jobs without a serious attempt to do anything about it, as well on beat on social policy issues which really don't do anything except score 'political points' with the fringes. Until the system is changed to the point where we aren't stuck with hardliners on both sides who draw lines in the sand and won't compromise, it won't get any better.

I recall a lengthy story in The Washington Post on the Sunday before his final days in office when Tim Kaine was asked what his biggest accomplishment was during his four years as governor. He replied that it was the statewide smoking ban. 'Nuff said about this guy if that was his biggest success.....

Gov. Kaine’s term was a four year long food fight over raising taxes and failed promises to fund transportation. The result was that he hatched an 11th hour scheme to hand the Dulles Toll Road over to MWAA, which people are just now starting to understand. The original agreement was that Virginia would give up the Dulles Toll Road but that was to be Virginia’s total financial commitment. Not only did Kaine’s deal give MWAA exclusive control over raising tolls with no future accountability to Virginia voters, Fairfax still had to set up special tax districts to deal with the cost.

McDonnell fixed Kaine’s fiscal mess and with Democratic support.

Tim Kaine is a Leftist/Progressive ideologue on every issue. If you want to learn about Tim Kaine’s record, then http://defeattimkaine.com/ has the data that you will never get from the WaPo.

Tim Kaine built a solid fiscal record as Mayor of Richmond, cutting real estate taxes, cutting utility taxes, cutting business license taxes, working on a deal to eliminate the estate taxes in Virginia, and was able to take hundreds of thousands of working Virginians off the off Income tax rolls.
Let’s also remember that Allen was Governor during an economic boom period, and Kaine was in office during an economic bust period, the time most agree was the worst recession since the 1930’s. Nevertheless, as Governor, Kaine left the state general fund budget smaller than what he started with when he took office.
While Kaine was Governor he managed to keep Virginia’s unemployment rate one of the lowest in the nation, Virginia’s median income one of the highest in the nation, and Virginia’s GDP, relative to others states, was even better than when Allen was in office, during the booming national economy.

In Kaine’s four years as Governor, Virginia was recognized as the best state for business in Forbes Magazine, the best managed state in Governing Magazine, and the best state to raise a child in Education Week.

I think he did a fine job during difficult economic times.

Well, what can I say? I guess I am not as concerned about 4,000 new jobs in an economic downturn as you are. On the one hand some people say, “We want jobs!” Then, when jobs are secured, the same people say,”You hired too many people!” Can’t win for losin’. I can only refer you back to my earlier posts to explain some of the reasons I think Kaine was a good Governor.

On top of that, I have deep concerns about Allen. The state budget went up by 45% in the four years he was Governor. While in the Senate, he voted to wage two wars without having a way to pay for them. He voted to expand Medicare – an admirable idea – but without having a way to pay for it. He supported the Bush tax cuts when we couldn’t afford them, and he has continued to support extending them, even though they were intended to be temporary.

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Allen voted four times to raise the debt limit. He voted four times to raise his own pay. He voted six times against any PAYGO restrictions (that is, financing expenditures with funds that are currently available rather than borrowed). He voted for a ton of earmarks, amounting to millions of dollars of spending. When he had the opportunity to make $1 Trillion in cuts on the first sequestration deal, Allen opposed it. Later on, he was one of a group of Republicans who attempted to hold the debt ceiling vote hostage as a way to supposedly leverage more cuts. As a result, the U.S. credit rating was downgraded, due to – according to S&P -- the uncertainty and lack of confidence created by the brinkmanship of national lawmakers.

In short, George Allen doesn’t really make cuts. His record is a spending record. In my opinion, he has been fiscally irresponsible, voting to spend without any concern of how things will be paid for, leading to massive deficits. Allen talks like a fiscal conservative but he doesn’t govern like one. I prefer Kaine.

Of course, candidates should be judged by their history with regard to succeeding at managing – and these days on a Federal level that means reducing the costs of government. Also, Virginia has lost 40% of its manufacturing jobs since 2000. Those losses were during tenures of Republican and Democratic Governors.

I am fiscally conservative and will support legislation to reduce Federal taxes overall. It doesn’t matter to me if that legislation originates from Republican or Democratic sponsors.

Kevin Chisholm
Candidate for Virginia’s 10th Congressional District
www.chisholmforcongress.com

Scott,

I disagree. The one thing Washington can do that would help the average American is to reduce Federal taxes – and yes over the long haul. The other is to be honest with people and talk about real solutions to climate change. Generally speaking, we need to stop feeding the monster of lies such as: America needs to keep maintaining our huge military apparatus (of ships, planes, etc.). And Republicans are finally telling the “far right” to stifle it on abortion and other supposed family values that has been their broken record for years.

Amanda Bowen -

The single largest increase to the public debt (not the overall debt) has come from the Obama administration. The Obama administration has piled on more the $6.4 trillion + to the public debt while the first 43 Presidents combined added $6.3 trillion.

As John Adams said, facts are stubborn things.

Lee –
About those debt “facts,” yes they can be stubborn things. For instance, there is gross debt and there is debt as a percentage of GDP. One way to put historical gross debt into perspective is this: From the year 2000 to the year 2008 (Bush’s term) the national debt went from $5T to $10T. And from the year 2009 to the year 2012 (Obama’s term), the debt went from $11T to $16T. So which President added the most debt? Also, the country experienced a much higher debt as a percentage of GDP during the Truman administration, when it was at about $120%.

@Thank you, Barbara. To elaborate, here are the numbers:

In January 2001 when Bush Jr. took reins from Clinton. US debt stood at approx $5 triilion. Annual surplus was $500 billion. Ten year projected surplus - $5 Trillion.
According to the projections, the US would have paid off all its obligations by the end of the last decade.

In January 2009, after 8 years of Republican rule (6 of which Republicans controlled all two arms - all of congress and the White House). US debt stood at approx $10 trillion. Annual projected deficit $1.4 trillion. Ten year projected deficit - more than $10 Trillion. According to the projections, the US would remain in debt, indefinitely.

The truth is simply this. The Republicans created a structural crises with their ill-informed tax cuts and health care market re-engineering of the early 2000.

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you. The GOP blew it. Now the policy to is take us back to what created this problem? No thank you. No way, no how.

13 peer-reviewed studies show liberals and conservatives physiologically different.

In the 13 peer-reviewed scientific studies summarized below, researchers found that liberals and conservatives have different brain structures, different physiological responses to stimuli, and activate different neural mechanisms when confronted with similar situations. Each entry below references the source document, and in most cases, a PDF of the study has been included. The studies are arranged from most recent to oldest. We included all the peer-reviewed studies on this subject which we could find.

http://2012election.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004818

So you see this is a hopeless discussion.

T -- Despite the studies you mentioned, I still think it is worth having these discussions. No doubt both Presidents (Bush and Obama) have added to the deficit, but to me there is a big difference in how and why that spending was made and the deficit was increased.

Bush squandered our good Clinton–era economic position by participating in two unfunded wars, expanding Medicare without funding it, and allowing tax cuts when we couldn’t afford it. I believe we should have gone directly to Afghanistan after 9/11, and not gone to Iraq. The whole world would have been behind us and we would not have had to fund two a wars, essentially on our own. We should have found a way to fund the Medicare expansion when it was passed, maybe through some of the money we could have saved in tax cuts. We should not have kept extending the tax cuts, which were initially meant to be temporary.

Obama has also spent a lot of money but, in my opinion, much of his spending has been directed at trying to keep our country from falling off the economic cliff, spending money to save the auto industry, spending money to extend unemployment relief, spending money on his job creation bill, etc.

Like “Locally Involved” said above, I don’t want to go back to those old policies that got us into this mess to begin with.

It's old, but it still matters. George Allen's personal preference for whites will always be a problem: http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/blog/2005/05/george_allens_h.html

Ms. Glaskas, I agree Bush made some mistakes, but Obama's domestic policy record is a total failure and only Obama is up for reelection. Stimulus was directed at saving government jobs and not jump-starting the economy. I know two wireless broadband companies that have just about failed due to Obama's stimulus and its impacts on markets. Incomes are down; un- and under-employment is way up. Both Lincoln and FDR also borrowed extensively, but they had something to show for it. By the end of his 1st term, Lincoln had virtually won the Civil War, saved the Union and ended the filth known as slavery. By the end of this 3rd term, FDR had taken the U.S. from Pearl Harbor to the doorstep of victory in Europe as well as in the Pacific. Also, by the end of his 1st term, Reagan had broken the back of stagflation and the economy was booming. People were being hired and were receiving raises. By the end of his first term, Obama has not been able to do anything except pile up debt and pass a health care bill that even Jim Webb now thinks is a mistake. Obama is a total failure as president.

Mr. Jackson,

I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one.

I have a hard time accepting some of your analogies. For instance, comparing Obama’s Presidency to Lincoln’s Presidency during the Civil War is a hard comparison to make. FDR accomplished the things you mentioned at the end of his third TERM. Obama hasn’t even gotten to the end of his 4th YEAR. And it was during Reagan’s term is that the deficits really started to get jacked up. Where was the concern about deficits then? And, again, we must ask ourselves, why does Obama need to spend all this stimulus money in the first place? (PS: Saving jobs does help jump-start the economy. People work, pay taxes, and have more money to spend on other things which, in turn, help spur growth in other market sectors).

I know, I know – Bush is not running for President, Romney is. But the reason I keep harking back to Bush is because Romney’s direction seems to be very similar to Bush’s former direction: increase defense spending, cut taxes, don’t show how you can pay for your expenditures. Not to mention, I think it is pretty obvious that Romney will move us WAY backwards on civil right issues.

If Mitt Romney thinks that he can run on a platform of broadening the tax base without ANY details of how this plan would actually be accomplished, there's no way he's getting my vote. I don't understand what he's afraid of. Elections don't work if voters don't get information on which to base their decision.

You'll need to go back way further than Bush policies to root out the deficit problem. Both parties have been spending like drunken sailors since the 1940's. Neither party has a serious plan to subdue runaway spending in MediCare, Social Security and Defense - the three largest Fed spending categories.

Here are the job numbers the media is not reporting about the August job numbers that just came out. This is what the media is telling you...and it's true. "The unemployment rate dropped from 8.3% to 8.1%. 96,000 jobs created in August."

Here are numbers they are NOT telling you:

1) 368,000 people STOPPED looking for work in August. Meaning they CANNOT be counted as unemployed. These people have no more unemployment benefits to claim and have realized there are zero jobs out there for them. If you were to re-calculate those numbers and include the people who are no longer looking for work, the unemployment rate would be 12%. This number does not include the UNDEREMPLOYED, or the people who have stopped looking for work over the past 3 years; that number would be an astonishing 23%.
2) 69% of men are working. Meaning 31% are not. The lowest % of working men since the 1940's.
3) The number of employed Americans is at the lowest number in the past 31 years. An incredible number considering there are more people now in the USA than there were in 1981.
4) A record high of 88,921,000 Americans whom are not in the civilian labor force.
5) Manufacturers have cut the most jobs in August than at anytime in the past two years.
6) The supposed "job growth" each month is LESS THAN the number of people LEAVING workforce every month. People leaving the work force CANNOT be counted as unemployed.
Are these the results you want? Get America back on track. VOTE ROMNEY/ Ryan

Sorry............but this is how it is!
Why I will "never" vote Democratic again!

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/48634

I understand the serious and sincere anger over the union requirement in the RDP in a Right to Work state. However, this is "cutting your nose off to spite your face" -- it is one position, one mistake imho, by the DNC admins.
That is not enough to "never" vote Democratic.
Doing so gives away our nation, for which my relatives bled and died as they served. It gives away America to the Corporatocracy--the"companies are people" crowd, the out-of-touch special interests that will do away with so many of the things good people in America have workd sor generations to conserve: clean water and air, public lands owned by all of us not a few, freedom to not be totally enslaved by Wall Street and the petroleum industry and huge agribusiness. Not to mention the promises to get rid of EPA, Medicare, most science agencies--that are the incubators for new advances in many disciplines, and even privatize the nationa highway and rail systems.

I'm so glad he put "never" in quotes.

@Ann, agreed. In fact, FDR agrees with you, too!

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”

― Franklin D. Roosevelt