By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 31, 2006
RICHMOND -- Ask many Virginia voters why they cast a ballot for Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) a year ago, and they won't hesitate to answer: because he promised to do something about traffic.
By that one measure, at least, Kaine has failed to deliver during his first year in office.
There are numerous explanations and excuses, but Kaine was not always at fault. By his own description, the 70th governor of Virginia wants to "make things happen," but so far, in terms of finding more money for transportation, he has not.
"I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated," he said in an interview last week in his office next to the Capitol. "Now, I'm a realist. I learned very early that harder things don't get solved the first time you say, 'Boy, we ought to solve this.' I believe we will get to a solution on this. I really do. I'm an optimist on this."
On other issues, Kaine has had more immediate success. A year into his four-year term -- Virginia law prevents governors from succeeding themselves -- he presides over a state with low unemployment, a government with high business-friendly rankings and a top-notch education system.
He successfully fought for legislation for tough teacher evaluations this year, pushed for a novel land-use law and is on his way to preserving a record amount of open space.
For all of those reasons, the public appears happy with him. A recent poll put his job approval rating at 76 percent -- almost matching that of his popular predecessor, Mark R. Warner (D), when he left office at the beginning of the year.
But as Warner and others in the Executive Mansion before him have discovered, the governor's legacy will be defined by how well he responds to big challenges and promises. After pledging a bipartisan approach, Kaine and his counterparts in the legislature pushed Virginia closer than ever in its modern history to the brink of a government shutdown.
He followed that by demanding a special session on transportation that lasted a week but produced nothing but another week of partisan rancor.
In less than two weeks, the governor will try again as the battle with Republican lawmakers will begin anew. Kaine's natural optimism will probably be tested once more by the political reality that little has changed since a failed special session on transportation in September: Senators still favor tax increases, and delegates do not.
It appears Kaine will offer the same plan for higher taxes and fees, forcing the sides into the same corners again. Allies and adversaries alike wonder whether a Democratic governor with a decidedly partisan style is the right guy to massage a compromise between the warring wings of the state's Republican Party, as Warner was able to do.
"Mark Warner wanted to get a job done, and he appreciated those who were willing to work with him regardless of party," said state Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis (R-Fairfax). "Gov. Kaine is more focused on building a Democratic majority and the party."
Still, 2007 is an election year, and the enormous pressure on lawmakers to deliver some hope that traffic will get better may help Kaine make good on his promise to solve what he has called the "most urgent" problem facing the Commonwealth.
If Kaine wants to accomplish his other goals -- health-care reform in Year 2, education reform in Year 3 and environmental reform in Year 4 -- he will need to find a way to work with Republicans who say he is more interested in partisan gain than policy achievement.
"It will take every ounce of his gubernatorial persistence to advance a meaningful agenda in the balance of his term," said Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City). But, he added, Kaine is "perennially optimistic. He doesn't focus on the negative aspects."
Warner campaigned in 2005 alongside Kaine, who declared himself part of the "Warner-Kaine administration" and promised to work with both parties if elected.
A year into his term, Kaine says he has accomplished that goal.
"I've had a very good relationship with a lot of Republicans," he said, noting that three of his Cabinet choices were from the GOP. "I've had Republicans carry bills for me in the legislature. They know I'm not a guy who's all about the party-line solution."
But many Republicans and, privately, even some Democrats say Kaine has developed a brash, partisan style that has ratcheted up tensions with the conservative wing of the state GOP and has made negotiations over transportation and other issues more difficult than necessary.
Unlike Warner, who slowly wooed Republican moderates and was cautious about saying anything that could offend, Kaine has a shoot-from-the-hip style and is less worried about showing his partisan ambitions.
Kaine started his term by nominating the state's leading labor official to his Cabinet, prompting the House of Delegates to reject a gubernatorial Cabinet appointment for the first time. He launched a pressure campaign against GOP delegates in their own districts early in the year. He grabbed national headlines -- and irked local Republicans -- by giving the Democratic response to the president's State of the Union address in January.
One Democrat recalled recently that Kaine sent out a fundraising appeal on behalf of a Democratic congressional candidate during the middle of the September special session on transportation. It quickly found its way into the e-mail inboxes of the Republican delegates as they sat in the House chamber.
"He's doing more politicking than he needs to do," said the delegate, who did not want to be named for fear of offending Kaine.
Kaine's adversaries are more blunt.
House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem) said Kaine's actions during the first year are responsible for much of the tensions that have hampered negotiations on transportation and other issues. He said the nomination of AFL-CIO state director Daniel G. LeBlanc to be secretary of the Commonwealth, which failed, was a crucial mistake by the governor.
"It sent a signal to us immediately," Griffith said. "Conversations behind the scenes were, 'Oh, gosh, this guy really is a liberal.' That was the first signal."
Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell (R) said Kaine has "chosen to take a pretty combative approach with the General Assembly. I'm not sure that doing combat with the legislature is going to be that productive."
And Ed Gillespie, the newly elected chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, pointed to Kaine's public statements about his desire to defeat enough Republicans in the November 2007 election to take back the Senate and House.
"He's clearly taken a different approach than his predecessor. He has a much more partisan bent and is intent on campaigning against Republicans in the legislature rather than working with them," Gillespie said.
Kaine is unbowed about his desire to help the Democratic Party regain control of the legislature. He describes that as a natural, and common, part of the job. And he notes that previous Republican governors, such as James S. Gilmore III and George Allen, campaigned with gusto for their GOP colleagues.
"I don't apologize for trying to promote what I think is right," Kaine said. "The notion that you have to apologize for being a part of a two-party system, I don't believe you do. It's one of the things that makes our system great."
Kaine has forged a good working relationship with Republican leaders in the Senate, who have been at war with their House GOP counterparts for years. But even the moderate Senators have noticed Kaine's sharper edge.
"Yes, he clearly has sparked a partisan tone," Norment said, "but I've had that partisan tone presented in a much more confrontational way by prior Republican governors."
Kaine's Democratic colleagues are grateful for his enthusiastic help. In the Senate, they can take control if they defeat just four Republicans, including Devolites Davis. In the House, they need more than double that number. But they say Kaine could be crucial to closing the gap.
House Democratic caucus Chairman Brian J. Moran (D-Alexandria) said he trusts Kaine to find a way to broker a deal on transportation before he leaves office.
"He's very approachable and intelligent. He's a very likable individual, and I think that provides him an asset," Moran said this week. "He has promised to lead the fight, and he has led the fight. It's now up to the House Republican leadership to join hands in an effort to compromise."
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