New poll shows Kaine and Allen deadlocked in Virginia

If the election were held today between U.S. Senate candidates Tim Kaine (D-VA) and George Allen (R-VA), the end result would be deadlocked, according to a poll released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times.[1]

This year’s race for the U.S. Senate in Virginia will clearly be a tight race, maybe even a “razor-thin” victory for one of the two candidates.[2]

What is most surprising about Allen’s journey to this point is the relatively limited challenge Allen faced with Republican challengers further to the right of the political spectrum. Whereas in other parts of the country, “Establishment Republicans” in congress have been pushed out of office by their more conservative challengers,[3] Allen has brushed aside the relatively minor threats raised by opponents like Jamie Radtke.[4]

In Virginia, name recognition, and the ideas and symbols which are attached to that name, seem to take on a much greater life than in other areas of the U.S. Allen has been marketed as a conservative’s conservative to Virginians and conservative Virginians have apparently sipped the Kool-Aid.

Or maybe Allen’s road to success has been due to Virginia’s more middle-of-the-road conservatism, a more practical brand of conservatism than other parts of the country espouse.

Whatever the reason for Allen’s popularity in Virginia, the only way forward is to create policies that account for the present while making a play on the future, by creating a vision of what tomorrow will look like since the future will undoubtedly be different than our present.

Allen’s policy ideas only reflect those of a politician who sees the present with an eye towards the past. But Virginia cannot continue to prosper if the future is shaped as a mirror image of the present, the George Allen method of policymaking.

I believe Tim Kaine offers Virginians a policy vision of the future, a number of shared policy goals that we can all strive towards that will ensure a brighter tomorrow while keeping a keen policy eye on today.

Tim Kaine is not a pie-in-the-sky politician, he is a politician who realizes that good governance doesn’t just worry about today, it worries about the future as well.

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[1] http://www.quinnipiac.edu/institutes-and-centers/polling-institute/presidential-swing-states-%28co-va-and-wi%29/release-detail?ReleaseID=1786

[2] http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2012/08/polls-show-ties.php

[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/why-todd-akins-win-gives-democrats-hope-in-missouri/2012/08/08/6e0246b8-e16c-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_blog.html

[4] http://virginiavirtucon.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/is-george-allen-really-a-conservative/