Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Homestead debate highlights Kaine’s debating & political prowess and Allen’s lack thereof


In what has been described as a “crushing” defeat[1] for U.S. Senate aspirant George Allen during his first debate with former Virginia governor and U.S. Senate hopeful Tim Kaine, their Homestead debate once again established Tim Kaine’s adept political and debating skills.

During the debate, Allen attempted to tie Tim Kaine’s political aspirations to President Obama, referring to Kaine as President Obama’s “handpicked” candidate for U.S. Senate[2].  But what Allen’s line of attack against Tim Kaine signals is the formers lack of confidence in primarily attacking Kaine on his own policy positions and previous political record.

Instead of primarily challenging Kaine on his record as governor of Virginia or mayor of Richmond, Allen and his campaign have chosen to focus on the relationship between the president and Kaine. Unfortunately for Allen, this narrow approach has left him vulnerable on matters of actual political substance.

When referring to the automatic spending cuts to the defense budget that could take place in January if a debt-reduction deal fails to be hashed out, Allen responded, “National defense should never be used as a bargaining tool to raise taxes.”[3]  Not to mention that the automatic spending cut deal was passed with bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress[4], the implication seems to be that all other sectors of the economy are open to be used as bargaining tools to increase taxes. How does this approach make political sense?

Furthermore, when asked to name any particular disparities Allen shared with presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Allen couldn’t cite any[5]. That’s odd considering Romney’s form of health care while he was governor of Massachusetts, “Romneycare,” was the model President Obama used to form his own health care reform legislation[6].

As usual, Allen came off during the first debate as visionless and concerned primarily with reactionary policies and attacking Tim Kaine’s relationship with President Obama. For undecided voters among Virginia’s electorate, I can’t imagine this is a winning strategy.

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