A string of electoral defeats has made clear that Democratic National Committee chairman is the “wrong job” for Tim Kaine, former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder wrote in a column urging President Obama to shake up his top advisers.
In an opinion piece published in Politico, Wilder questioned Kaine’s ability to lead the national party after major GOP victories in the New Jersey and Virginia governor’s races last year and last month’s election to fill Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat.
Wilder, the first elected black governor in U.S. history, had backed Kaine’s successful 2005 gubernatorial campaign and recommended him for vice president three years later.
“But a spate of recent losses in races that Democrats should have won underscores what has been obvious to me for a long time: The chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee is the wrong job for him,” Wilder wrote.
The unpredictable Democrat cited two of Kaine’s outgoing actions as governor that left him open to Republican criticism: His inclusion of a $1-billion-a-year income tax increase in the proposed budget, and his request to transfer convicted murderer Jens Soering to a German prison — a move new Gov. Bob McDonnell quickly nixed.
“Is that who this president wants to be arm in arm with as we enter a pivotal election year?” wrote Wilder. “For his sake, it shouldn’t be. The president has enough to worry about and defend without this detracting sideshow as to feckless party leadership.”
Kaine is the second Democrat in recent months to take a public dressing-down from Wilder, who served as governor from 1990 to 1994. Wilder last year refused to endorse Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, citing Deeds’ support of higher taxes and his opposition to the state’s one-handgun-a-month rule.
Wilder, too, had sharp words for top staff in Obama’s West Wing, which “is filled with people who are in their jobs because of their Chicago connections or because they signed on with Obama early during his presidential campaign.”
“One problem is that they do not have sufficient experience at governing at the executive branch level,” Wilder wrote. “The deeper problem is that they are not listening to the people.”
