Virginia Governor's Race

An ad came up blasting Tim Kaine about his support of Virginia's death penalty. In it, it pandered to people's emotions and seemingly used no sense of reason at all. Because of it, I was put off by Jerry Kilgore quite a bit. So I looked up a little info on them, and turned up this article that presents some of the key issues in both their platforms. As it turns out, Kilgore actually has some more substantial things to talk about than his negative ad campaigns led me to believe.

For one, apparently Kaine ran for Lt. Governor on a campaign promise not to increase taxes, and subsequently (if Kilgore is to be believed) OK'd "the most massive tax increase in Virginia history".

Apparently they both want to overhaul education. Kaine wants to, basically, add a grade before kindergarten. Doesn't sound terribly useful. Kilgore wants to add some as-of-yet undetermined method of linking teacher performance to teacher pay. That just sounds really weird and open to all sorts of abuse and unfairness. Plus the idea that he hasn't said how he plans to accomplish it seems kind of really shady.

Anyway, between the two, I'm not sure who I'd pick, if I'm going to pick at all. The third, independent candidate, Russell Potts, Jr., although he sounds like he has a mind of his own, has pledged to increase taxes, which as far as I know is equal to political death. Although I'm sure he has good reason to, I'm not sure that even I could be convinced...