Democrat Tim Kaine is trying to play up the conservative angst with Jerry Kilgore on taxes.
Pretty low if you ask me.
UPDATE: Norman over at OMT seems to think that the Virginia Club for Growth needs to be called to the mat for this.
My question is whether the VCG knowingly allowed the use of its materials in the piece. If not, then I would fully expect an immediate statement from the VCG explaining what happened and what they intend to do about it.
If not, however, and the VCG has willingly lent its materials to the Kaine campaign, then the organization has become a hollow mockery of what it once was. I fully understand organizations attacking politicians on both sides of the aisle. There is nothing wrong with that (I’ve done it myself). But again, if the VCG has willingly allowed itself to become an arm of the Kaine campaign, then it has sold its principles and its members down the river. If the VCG can shed additional light on this mailing, I suggest they do so right away.
I can’t believe for a moment that VGC would do that, regardless of whether or not they would like to see Kilgore explain his position on lowering taxes and reducing the size of government.
Let it be known though: there is a faction of the GOP that beleive it’s easier to bump off tax-and-spend Democrats than tax-and-spend Republicans, and far easier to criticize the Dems than have moderates constantly bring up Reagan’s 11th Commandment – which I personally loathe (did Reagan remember “thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican” in 1976 while running against Ford?).
However, there is one salient point all conservatives need to remember: every vote for Kilgore is a vote for Bolling and McDonnell. VGC knows this too. I would be shocked if they explicitly co-operated with the Kaine campaign to put a piece like this out.
UPDATE x2: My instinct was indeed proven true. Michael Shear over at the Washington Post dissected this pretty quickly:
It’s true, confirms the Kaine campaign. They designed this mailing, which is going out to folks across the state, based on an e-mail that the Virginia Club for Growth sent out a few weeks back. In fact, here’s the press release on the Club for Growth’s own Web site. Everything in the Kaine mailing is based on the Club’s own e-mail. But it’s sure designed to look as if the Club, not Kaine, sent it out.
I wonder what kind of response Kilgore would get if he sent a similarly designed flier to all female Democratic voters in Virginia emphasizing NARAL’s lack of fuzzy feelings for Tim Kaine?
Bet it wouldn’t get the “nice try” treatment Kaine’s latest stunt seems to be receiving.