The Daily Press gives voice to the “mutterings.”
Understand, it’s difficult to find people who don’t like this governor or at least admire his intellectual ability. He’s an open, agreeable guy, with a quick wit and an attractive style.
But is he really up to the job? Does Kaine have the knack for leadership, in a broad sense, to lay out direction for a state facing any number of serious challenges and the political skill to move things forward?
“I’m happy. I have one bit of unhappiness, and that’s that we’re not there yet on transportation. That is a very significant issue and I ain’t giving up on it,” Kaine told The Associated Press.
One bit of unhappiness? Is that how Kaine views the situation out on Interstate 64 day after sweltering day?
It is precisely that kind of language that makes people feel that Kaine attaches little or no urgency to the transportation mess, that he doesn’t, to borrow an overused phrase, get it.
Or care much about getting it, either.
During the late, somewhat extended legislative session, Kaine put out a revenue plan and then watched it die with barely a whimper.
He made a weak stab at the serious business of matching land-use choices to transportation adequacy, smacked into stiff resistance and abruptly walked away from it.
Senate Republicans, who politically laid it on the line for road improvements this year and got zilch, still grouse that Kaine let them down at key moments in the effort.
Now, after the longest budget standoff in the history of the state, Kaine appears rather sanguine about getting a different result out of a populist-led House that remains committed to doing nothing about providing new money.
“We’re going to come back and we’re going to deal with it some more,” Kaine assures us. “I know we’re going to make significant advances even on the funding side, which is the hard piece.”
Oh? Kaine said that before the last go-around, and best of luck to him on doing better during the proposed September special legislative session. But given the hardened political posture by all participants, it’s not likely to happen.
During his many transportation town meetings in December and January, the governor-elect functioned as a listening post, not a leader. You wondered even then whether he grasped, first, the political difficulty of the challenge or, second, the varied breakdowns of the issue from one region to another.
In retrospect, it’s obvious that he didn’t in either case.
And now? Well, the spine of this region’s infrastructure – I-64 – turns into a parking lot on a regular basis. Some of the problem is increased summer traffic, but not all. Not by a stretch.
Stop.
Think.
Consider the tremendous growth that’s occurring on both sides of this highway. What is the plan for dealing with I-64 – not between Newport News and Williamsburg, but between Newport News and Richmond?
There isn’t any plan.
The highway will gradually become the new I-81, a lightly patrolled, truck-infested and fear-inducing mess of a road.
Kaine’s predecessor, Gov. Mark Warner, stumbled early on, but then got angry, took charge and showed he had the stuff to make things happen.
Many hope that the same pattern will repeat itself with Kaine, and, yes, other states and other governors have worse problems.
In the meantime, expect the mutterings to continue.