Senator-elect Kaine continues to talk the exact same approach we’ve heard from him for a long time: seeking common ground with Republicans; helping restore civility to Washington, DC; working for “the good of the commonwealth and the country;” fixing the fiscal situation in the country in a balanced way (e.g., addressing “both sides of the balance sheet”); arguing that we can’t “cut our way to prosperity;” etc.
We’ll see if Kaine’s approach works once he starts trying to deal with the far-right-wing national Republican Party and the “my way or the highway” attitude of people like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Other than that, Kaine says he plans to “hit the ground on January 3 very much running” on the budget, immigration reform, and other areas where “we can make progress quickly if we listen to each other.” Finally, Kaine argues that the Senate is “not on a one-way path to dysfunction.” Good luck with that, I guess, but I’ll remain highly skeptical until I start seeing signs of Republicans acting responsibly, more of them ditching Grover Norquist and absolutist “pledges,” and the nasty kind of rhetoric we’ve seen just in recent weeks from John McCain and Lindsey Graham against Susan Rice. Again, we’ll see, but I certainly wish Tim Kaine luck in dealing with this mess!
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