2004 The Remix

While we're talking about Tim Kaine again, another thing that concerns me about his selection: The Democratic Party has a tendency to fight the last battle when it's time for the next war. Kaine's selection is an explicit attempt to address the "values question". His claim to fame is not simply winning election in a pink-tinged state (Brad Henry or Evan Bayh would be more impressive on sheer triumph-over-registration grounds), but doing so through constant, authentic, and successful invocation of his Catholicism.

See? The Democratic Party is religious!

But setting aside my hand-wringing over the implications of his win, the battle du jour isn't religion, but corruption. Republicans would love for us to make 2006 a reprise of 2004's lame protestations of piety. What they'd prefer not to deal with is a focused critique on the nexus of Republican dominance, lobbyist influence, and corporate power. Deploying, say, an Elliot Spitzer to argue that case would make sense. It would be relevant. Tim Kaine, however, is not the party's most visible or credentialed spokesperson on anticorruption issues. He's uniquely relevant to 2004's election, but not 2006's. The question is, which one do Democrats think comes next?

I should say, by the way, that I quite like Tim Kaine. I'm glad he won in Virginia. I'm sure he'll be a good governor. But I don't think he's the right face for the party. Televised speeches are superficial affairs and they're judged on superficial grounds. Thinking him wrong for this job is not the same as thinking him a bad guy, or even a bad Democrat.