How can we get Virginia Democrats even more psyched to support Tim Kaine? Here’s an idea: have Ayatollah General Cuccinelli abuse his office to make a cheap political attack on him.
Well, what do you know? Wish for something hard enough and it happens.
Apparently George Allen and his cohorts have decided that they are not going to win the Senate race on current, relevant issues and so they have to resort to Willy Horton tactics. Horton, for those too young to remember, was the killer George H.W. Bush blamed Mike Dukakis for releasing from prison in Bush’s slimy 1988 campaign.
It’s an appropriate reference, since Cuccinelli is dredging up documents and issues nearly as old. In a NUTshell, they’re trying to blame Kaine for trying to send a German murderer convicted in 1990, Jens Soering, to complete his prison term in Germany rather than Virginia. Bob McDonnell more recently reversed this extradition agreement so that Virginia taxpayers can keep paying for this guy’s incarceration. (Lowell summarized the case in a bit more detail here
The document that Cuccy is waving around like a flag right now is an affidavit Kaine wrote for another case, working as a civil rights lawyer in 1988. Apparently, Soering’s lawyers recycled Kaine’s affidavit — which discusses some esoteric details of capital murder cases in general — without Kaine’s knowledge or approval. (If you want to read the affidavit for yourself, knock yourself out — but you are advised to put a pillow on your keyboard to avoid knocking yourself out for real.)
From that, Cuccinelli has manufactured the lie that Kaine “was a witness on behalf of a double-murderer.”
Huh?
As Kaine spokeswoman Brandi Hoffine responded:
We’ll leave it to the Allen campaign and the attorney general to use state government resources to play politics in the Virginia Senate election…Governor Kaine is focused on working together with Virginians to strengthen our economy and create jobs.
Meanwhile, Virginians continue to wait for the day that our Attorney General will spend some time actually doing his job rather than just playing right wing gutter politics.
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