By Dave Andrusko
sabato-weighs-in-on-possible-kaine-allen-senate-racePro-abortion Tim Kaine, a former governor of Virginia and current chair of the Democratic National Committee, crept closer to announcing that he will seek his party’s nomination to replace pro-abortion Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), who announced in February that he not seeking a second term. Even so, Kaine’s ultimate intentions remain unclear.
Pro-life Republican George Allen has already announced he will try to win back the seat he narrowly lost to Webb in 2006. Unlike Kaine (if he runs), Allen is likely to have competition, in this case from other pro-life Republicans seeking the GOP nomination.
The first paragraph of an Associated Press story read, “Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine told a college class he’s likely to run for a Senate seat next year, a party spokesman said Monday.” But what DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse had tweeted early this afternoon was that Kaine “did not tell law school class he was running, said likely which has been reported. No final decision pending other commitments,” according to the AP later in the story.
“The former governor’s offhand reply to a student’s question about his plans rocked Virginia politics and surprised national Democratic operatives and Kaine’s closest advisers,” the AP reported. Kaine has been less than forthcoming about his intentions, even though reportedly President Obama has strongly encouraged him to run. Were the matchup to be Allen v. Kaine, it would feature a contest between two former governors.
The narrative demonstrates again the enormous power of social media and its capacity to generate virtually instant headlines. According to AP, a student phoned a news-talk show which then filed a report “pegged only to a caller identified as Greg, raced across Facebook, Twitter and other social media.”
Party officials, scrambling to keep Kaine from looking disorganized, insisted there was nothing new in what he said to an undergraduate leadership course taught through the University of Richmond.
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