AP conducted an interview with Jerry Kilgore, revealing him to be wildly inconsistent in his principles. Consider this section about his transportation ideas.

Kilgore’s opponents also say his plan to require voter approval of any tax increase is evidence of weak leadership. Not true, Kilgore says.

“It’s being the ultimate leader,” Kilgore said. “I’m willing to step up and lead for the regular citizens out there who feel like they don’t have a voice when taxes are raised.”

Lead for the regular citizens? He’s passing the buck and he calls it leadership. Imagine George Washington taking a vote as to whether to charge or retreat in battle.

He is unswayed by public opinion polls showing a majority of Virginians support the $1.4 billion tax increase passed by legislators, without direct voter input, in 2004.

“I still believe that raising taxes is met with opposition from regular voters,” Kilgore said. “That’s what I’m hearing when I’m traveling around Virginia _ that people don’t want more taxes, they want less taxes, and people want a government that truly considers the money that they take in to be the citizens’ money, not government’s money.”

He’s kind of like George Bush: Don’t confuse me with the facts. Even though a majority of voters say they support the tax increases, “regular” voters don’t. So he just called the majority of Virginia voters irregular. What is an irregular voter? One who thinks? Or maybe he means the people who just vote once in awhile, whereas regular voters vote regularly. Or maybe one who wears shirts with one sleeve longer than the other?

Giving voters the final say on tax increases also is a key part of Kilgore’s transportation plan. He favors establishing regional transportation authorities that can plan projects within their areas and levy new taxes, provided they are approved in a referendum.

“It will be a devolution, if you will, from the old hierarchy of the Commonwealth Transportation Board deciding everything to empowering a region to make decisions,” Kilgore said.

Ah-ha. Now I get it. This is a religious educational matter. He’s sick and tired of these folks who have studied the issue and have a certain expertise in transportation matter, like the folks on the Commonwealth Transportation Board, making all the decisions. He wants regular voters (Christian voters?) to make the decisions based on a 30-second TV commercial or a chat with their buddies at the water cooler who know all the answers. And for the kids, what will we teach them about transportation matters? We teach them devolution, not that evolution crap.

AP writer Larry O’Dell then reveals Kilgore’s hypocrisy.

While he wants voters to approve any tax increases, Kilgore believes the governor and legislature need no guidance on tax cuts. He has pledged to finish the car tax rollback begun by then-Gov. Jim Gilmore in 1998 and to cap real estate assessment increases at 5 percent.

Why can’t we vote on decreasing taxes, too?

Then Kilgore blabbers on about property taxes.

He says his plan to curb soaring property tax bills is superior to Kaine’s proposal to give localities the option of exempting from taxation up to one-fifth of the assessed value of homes.

“Mine’s real, not optional,” Kilgore said.

You see, the people are smart enough to vote intelligently on referendums but apparently not smart enough to vote to lower their property taxes.

He said local governments are cutting tax rates by a penny or two but still enjoying a windfall because of rapidly escalating assessments.

…”What matters to the people I’ve been talking to on the campaign trail is the number they write in that little box up in the right hand corner of their check,” Kilgore said. “If it goes up it’s a tax increase; if it goes down it’s a tax decrease.”

So Jerry, I’ve got the answer. If the problem is assessments are going up, let’s make them go down. Don’t fund the schools; let the roads deteriorate; cut police and fire protection. Soon no one will want to live there, and housing prices will tumble and tax bills will go down. Sounds like a no-brainer to me. And I think, Jerry, you are certainly capable of understanding no-brainers. If fact, I think you could specialize in them. You have the gray matter it takes.

O’Dell also has the temerity to suggest that taxes and Terri Schiavo will not be the hottest issues.

While hot-button social issues receive their share of attention, transportation is likely to emerge as a key issue of the next governor’s term. Along with the regional transportation authorities, Kilgore proposes spending general funds _ which come largely from income and sales taxes _ for transportation. Highway construction and maintenance now is financed primarily through user fees, including gasoline taxes and tolls.

Regardless of the funding sources, Kilgore vowed to act quickly.

“You can’t wait until the third year, you can’t hold study commissions all around the state,” he said. “You’ve got to be decisive. We know what the needs are.”

Yeah, Jerry, you got to be decisive. But you want to wait until we can hold referendums to determine how and when we spend money for transportation. Gee, do the voters get to decide when to spend the money? And who we hire to build the roads? And what color stripe we use for passing lanes?

Along with the story, there are excerpts from the interview. They are breathtaking in their inconsistency.

He knows what we need to do immediately for transportation — hold a referendum — but guns require a bit of study.

On whether the one-gun-a.m.onth law should be repealed:

“We need to recognize that one gun a month was passed at a time when Virginia’s laws were lax in a lot of areas. …We’ve done a lot to improve our laws, to prevent those who want to buy guns just to commit crimes from using Virginia as that vehicle. …I would be interested in doing a study of what technology has brought to the table in the arena of one gun a month.”

And then this:

On why he does not also advocate a regional approach to zoning and land use decisions:

“Because those decisions really have always been the local decisions about schools and fire and police, those issues that affect the local budget. Roads are normally regional.”

But wait a minute, schools aren’t necessarily a local decision.

“I’ve always favored state intervention when local school districts prove time and time again that they can’t get the job done. We have other areas with the same socio-economic barriers that are performing and performing quite well on the standards. …It’s a commitment issue.”

And on hot button issues like gay adoption, he’s opposed to it but would let the courts decide, although he doesn’t explain why Kaine then can’t say that he’s opposed to the death penalty but would follow the law.

“We’ve known from generation to generation that the best place for a child is with a loving mother and a loving father. …We have to consider the interest of that child above everything. …I do oppose gay adoption, but courts are free to look at the entire criteria, from home life to lifestyle, in making that order.”

In other words, again Jerry will let somebody else lead the way.

Dan Balz has an analysis piece in this morning’s Washington Post on how the battle over John Roberts is dividing the Washington establishment of the Democratic party from grassroots activists.

There are also abiding tensions over what political strategy might be most effective in carrying the party back to power. Some elected officials, according to critics, have been slow to appreciate how the power balance in the Democratic coalition has shifted — away from established interests and toward citizen activists who tend toward a more aggressive brand of politics.

Party leaders in Washington trying to manage this unruly alliance as they prepare for Roberts’s confirmation hearings face a delicate choice, according to party strategists and other analysts. They can risk heading into the 2006 midterm elections with a demoralized base. Or they could potentially turn off swing voters, who may view Bush’s nominee in less ideological terms and could recoil at a party they perceive as driven by die-hard activists.

… After representatives of several liberal advocacy groups complained Tuesday about what they regarded as a flaccid strategy, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.), the party’s longtime liberal leader, and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, issued blistering statements criticizing Roberts’s record. They said it is so conservative that it is far outside the ideological mainstream.

Yesterday, conservative interest groups and some Republican leaders condemned Kennedy and Leahy, saying they were letting the groups lead the party. “Someone needs to remind Senators Kennedy and Leahy that their constituents are the American people, not far-left third-party groups in Washington,” Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said in remarks prepared for delivery in West Virginia and released by his office in Washington.

The irony, some might say hypocrisy, of Mehlman’s statements is that the GOP is increasingly held hostage by the right wing nuts. And it has apparently served the party very well. After all, regressives are often cited as forming the electoral difference in Bush’s re-election.

Balz cites tensions between the DC Dems and the Democratic wing of the Democratic party over the party’s unwillingness to make the Bush tax cuts the issue in the 2002 elections. The DC doyens’ strategy failed, of course. And the Democratic establishment’s initial backing of the Iraq War also proved harmful to Kerry’s chances last year.

According to Balz, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee waited until the final week of Iraq War veteran Paul Hackett’s Ohio congressional campaign before giving him some money. He almost pulled off an incredible upset. Could earlier money have made a difference?

Exactly why are these guys the experts?

With Cindy Sheehan’s successfully focusing war opponents, it seems the progressives were right all along.

By the way, anyone notice that The Washington Post had no story in the paper this morning about the 1,600 anti-war protests last night that were spawned by Sheehan – except for mention of the protests in Dana Milbank’s “Washington Sketch” column and two op-eds this morning? On the Post web site, you can find such a story, but not by a Post writer. It’s an AP story.

Geez, the anti-war folks can’t get any better treatment than the Washington Mystics, whose season has been covered largely by short wire reports.

In a sign that Russ Potts may yet gain traction in the gubernatorial race, past chairmen of the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce have sent a letter to the chamber asking it to invite Russ Potts to the planned Sept. 13 gubernatorial debate. Chamber President Bill Lecos says that won’t happen. Leading the charge on Potts behalf is Mike Anzilotti, who says neither Kaine nor Kilgore have proposed adequate transportation solutions.

“If we could just move them off of their positions and get them to recognize the problem,” Anzilotti said.
“We have nothing against the chamber. All we are trying to do is give Russ a platform.”

Anyone seen the letter or list of signers?

The story says 15 of the 20 former chamber chairmen signed the letter. From the chamber’s site, here is a list of 16 people identified as former chairmen:

William Wrench
Todd A. Stottlemyer
Terrie G. Spiro
Robert Skunda
Philip M. Reilly
James P. Popino
Dale Peck
Clark Massie
Gary Hevey
David Guernsey
L. Burwell Gunn, Jr.
James W. Dyke, Jr.
Nancy Eberhardt
Michael Carlin
William F. Blocher
Michael G. Anzilotti

Update: Although Mike Shear quotes from the letter in his Post story today, the letter was apparently not distributed to the press and will not be, according to one former chairman.

The soft drink industry has expressed such faith in its products that it wants to voluntarily limit their sale.

Responding to the clamor of school principals everywhere who can’t say no,

The president of the American Beverage Association, the industry’s main trade group, announced in a speech yesterday that major players in the business have signed on to a set of voluntary limits that would keep all soda and juice drinks out of elementary schools while curtailing the sales of certain beverages in middle and high schools.

This is a strict no tolerance policy.

For middle schools, from sixth grade to eighth grade, vending machines will sell no full-calorie soft drinks during school hours, or any full-calorie juice drinks containing 5 percent real fruit juice or less.

So the kids will get to choose between sugar substitutes that probably cause brain cancer and sugared water that contains 6 percent juice.

In high schools, the industry is asking that no more than 50 percent of a vending machine’s options be soft drinks.

The other 50 percent can be trans fat treats at 50 cents per ounce.

Advocates of children’s nutrition generally praised the effort while suggesting that the directives don’t go far enough.

“It’s really the first clear admission on the part of the beverage industry that soft drinks in schools are a problem,” said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group that promotes nutrition.

But Wootan said the guidelines, while setting very strict limitations on marketing sodas to children up to fifth grade, are fairly lax when it comes to older kids. She said that in addition to soft drinks, there should be restrictions on sales of sugary fruit drinks or sports drinks, which are just as bad as soda pop nutritionally.

“In elementary schools, you might find one vending machine in a gym somewhere,” she said. “But in high schools, you might find several banks with half a dozen or more vending machines. To have such a weak policy for high schools is to miss the whole point.”

Now wait a minute. Give the beverage industry some credit here. They’re replacing the whole point with a 2% point, or even a skim point.

Under pressure from parents and advocacy groups, the soft drink industry has been slowly scaling back its child-focused marketing, but the new unified plan represents a change in approach. For the past couple of years, the vending and soda industries have largely responded to the issue of obesity in children by stressing that kids aren’t getting enough exercise and need to eat more balanced diets in general.

It’s just that the soft drink industry has yet to create a more balanced Coke, Mountain Dew or RC Cola. They are reportedly in talks with McDonalds and Burger King to create solid food products that will complement the empty calories of sodas with the full calories of saturated fat, thereby creating a more balanced approach to early death.

Anybody got change for a dollar? I’m thirsty.

The town of Herndon, Virginia, thrust in the national spotlight over the issue of immigrant workers, last night approved spending $175,000 to create a formal gathering place for day laborers, many of whom are immigrants, some of them illegally so, but probably most of them, in the interpreted words of one such immigrant, “honest workers, not criminals, like they say.”

It was ugly. People concerned about the neighborhood ambience and property values were called bigots. Immigrants were accused of spreading tuberculosis. And “one speaker Tuesday night testified that the day laborers represent the ‘comeuppance of the white man’ over the conquest of Native Americans hundreds of years ago.”

But in the end, by a 5-2 vote, the town council said

[T]hey were helpless in the face of what they called a federal failure to police U.S. borders. They said it was their responsibility to bring order to a neighborhood nuisance that had become the town’s most divisive issue in recent history.

“Here we sit, expecting this local government to resolve a national immigration problem that is out of our control,” said council member Harlon Reece.

…The dissenters said a vote to spend public money on a laborer site would amount to an endorsement of illegal immigration.

Still, council member Dennis D. Husch, who opposed the measure along with member Ann V. Null, expressed frustration with federal policies. “Shame on [federal officials] for their cowardly retreat,” he said. “True leadership was in their grasp.”

Could he have been talking about President Bush and the Republican majorities in both houses that could do something about illegal immigration? Oh no, he was talking about “true leadership.” Besides, Bush is on a five-week bike ride.

The Post’s Lisa Rein explains how this became such a national issue, even though Arlington and other Washington suburbs have formal, tax-supported gathering spots for day laborers.

In recent weeks, radio talk shows, cable news and Internet blogs fumed that taxpayer money would help immigrants who might be in the country illegally. They advised rounding up such immigrants instead.

And exactly what would the Herndon police do if they rounded up all the illegal immigrants looking for work, besides tell their white collar friends that there are opportunities hanging dry wall at $10 an hour?

Well, I guess they’d feed them and clothe them and house them in the pokey. At taxpayers’ expense, no doubt. Then after the money all but run out at city hall and before school started, Herndon could put them in a Fairfax County school bus and drive them back to Mexico, Costa Rica and Honduras, — and Guinea, Ghana and Gabon. Can you drive to Africa? No problem, Herndon could rent planes cheap from Delta.

That would leave all the lawn mowing to Fairfax County high school boys and all the toilet scrubbing to Fairfax County high school girls and their bored mothers.

And while were at it, let’s stop buying from countries that are filled with immigrants — like China. I hear they’re mostly Chinese there. I’m sure most Herndoners would give up $10 shirts and instead buy $50 ones made in Southwest Virginia, where the mills would all be re-opened.

Wait, I think I’m on to something. Quick, anyone have the phone numbers of the Kaine and Kilgore campaigns? This sounds like a revolutionary Virginia economic plan in the making.

UPDATE:
Four reproters gae us stories this morning about the Herndon vote. One wonders if Christina Bellantoni was at the meeting she reported on.
Her spin:

On Tuesday and again last night before voting after 11 p.m., the council heard testimony from scores of residents, most of whom oppose the application…

Was Ms. Bellantoni at the same meeting as The Post?

The speakers last night — the carry-over crowd from a seven-hour hearing Tuesday in Herndon’s small council chambers — were evenly split about the proposed site…

Or the Richmond Times-Dispatch?

Comments appeared to be about equally divided between supporters and opponents…

Or the AP?

The comments were split about evenly between those who said the site would provide a safe gathering place for people looking for work and those who opposed the facility, saying tax dollars shouldn’t be used to provide the site for day laborers…

From Today’s Washington Post front page story about traffic:

Travel experts said late July and August are the height of vacation season for Washingtonians. School hasn’t started yet, Congress is out of session, the president is biking in Texas for five weeks, and seemingly everyone else has left the swelter of the city for a mountain peak, sandy beach or some other version of paradise.

Not everyone. While candlelight vigils were held through out the world against the Iraq War, “the president is biking for five weeks.”

Ouch.

Having just returned — via the I-95 parking lot — from vacation, this item seemed an appropriate way to say, I’m baaaaaaaaack.

Ugh. The Roanoke Times calls both Kaine and Kilgore mediocre. But at least Kaine’s campaign apparently knows how to use email.

Perhaps the humidity has him frazzled, as Kilgore experienced a now-regrettable ah-ha moment this week upon reading an article in The New Republic that quoted Richmond Mayor Douglas Wilder as saying, “For too many years, this city has been satisfied with stultified mediocrity….”

That’s it! Fresh proof that former Richmond Mayor Kaine is a practitioner of mediocrity. Kilgore dashes off an e-mail to an aide, writing, “How about sending this to the press?? Get others to ask, what was Kaine’s role?? This could get us on offense on rt [his shorthand for right] issue.”

To Kilgore’s chagrin, the aide failed to strip his message from the bottom before hitting the “send” button.

Or just absurd?

Give Kilgore extra credit for again taking the lead in proposing programs, this time in higher ed. It seems like we’re always hearing that “Kaine’s program will be announced soon.”

But again Kilgore fails the acid test as asked by Sen. Russ Potts, “How would he pay for those?”

Kilgore says “the money for the expanded grants and for the engineering scholarships would come from growth in the state general fund from a burgeoning economy.”

The two main proposals are 100 engineering scholarships to students who eventually earn an engineering degree and then work in Virginia (for how long, who knows?) and an increase in publicly funded grants to students attending private colleges.

Makes you wonder about his priorities — even if he did say where the money is coming from — that he proposes to spend $20 million more a year for students at private colleges but only $1 million more a year for state college students.

Or is he? Help me with the math. Kilgore says the engineering grants will be for 100 students a year and I’m assuming for at least four years it takes to get the degree. Well, if you have 100 students one year and 100 students the next, each getting $10,000, isn’t that $2 million a year? And of course in the fourth year of the program, it would cost $4 million a year.

Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine rightly points out that Kilgore opposed the tax increase that gave higher ed about $240 million extra dollars a year.

Kilgore also said he wanted to expand diversity at state schools.

Kilgore on Wednesday also tried to clarify his comments from last month’s debate that affirmative action programs kept “good, qualified students” out of Virginia schools.

I’m not sure if he’s talking about programs for racial minorities or geographic minorities. It’s widely believed, and I don’t doubt it, that there are geographic quotas that mean better Northern Virginia students lose out to students in other areas to maintain a geographic balance at state schools.

“It is the No. 1 complaint I hear, when I am traveling in northern Virginia or Hampton Roads, when a parent comes up to me and says, `My good student cannot get admitted into a Virginia college or university,'” [Kilgore] said during the July 16 debate with Kilgore, the first of this election year.

Kaine said those comments, together with warnings Kilgore gave state college officials two years ago about their affirmative action programs, show Kilgore is hostile to college efforts to achieve racial diversity.

“There’s plenty of ways to get a diverse (student) body,” Kilgore said. “I’ve said time and time again you get a good mix of urban and rural students, you base it on financial need, you base it on first-generation college students. If you base it on those issues, you’re going to get a very diverse student body, and we have to encourage college administrators and admissions offices to be out there seeking a diverse student body.”

Yeah, and you’ll still get better students in some areas losing out to students elsewhere. Or is that what he’s talking about? Who knows?

Sometimes when I read Kilgore’s comments, I feel like the Aflac duck who looks stunned in the commercial where Yogi Berra says, “They pay you cash, which is just as good as money.” Kilgore might say, “I give you promises, which is just as good as money.”

During a round-table interview with reporters from five Texas newspapers, Bush declined to go into detail on his personal views of the origin of life. But he said students should learn about both theories, Knight Ridder Newspapers reported.

“I think that part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought,” Bush said. “You’re asking me whether or not people ought to be exposed to different ideas, the answer is yes.”

I wonder if Bush thinks kids should learn about homosexuality, about how and why radical Muslims feel they way they do, and about how the careless use of guns kill thousands of people.

Or does he get to choose what “different ideas” we can learn about.

You know sometimes his intellectual dishonesty, his hypocrisy simply astonishes me.