Yes, but …

I learned a while ago that all the editorials in the world, in Virginia politics, don’t amount to a bucket of warm spit. So the “Death Penalty Enhancement Act” amounts to a bunch of piffle without substance — pure sloganeering, an election year fraud. So? The same went for the abolition of parole and “no car tax!” — yet people got into the governor’s office on those platforms. So why not death?

This race comes down to how well Kaine parries the death talk to define the race on his own terms. If the death penalty — which, of all issues facing Virginia, has to rank pretty damned low on an objective list — if that becomes the main issue in the race, we’ve already been beat. [See, e.g., fmr. atty. gen. Mary Sue Terry talking about crime in '93, or auto mogul Don Beyer caught speechless on the car tax in 1997.]

Posted by Greg Greene on 31 December 2004 @ 2pm

The difference is that abolition of parole and the elimination of the car tax are not likely to be closely linked to the state-sponsored murder of innocent people. Kilgore’s proposed modifications to the death penalty are — as the Roanoke Times, the Virginian Pilot, and the Washington have said — intended to kill more people with less concern as to whether or not they, by whatever criteria, have it coming to them.

Yes, it’s mere election-year sloganeering. But this is not about a tax. Kilgore wants to kill people. There’s nothing more serious than that.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 31 December 2004 @ 2pm

Oh, and I forgot to say: you’re absolutely right on the matter of the importance of the death penalty. On one particular scale, yes, life-and-death is as important as it gets. But with regard to the degree to which the death penalty affects the average Virginian, and the other concerns that we all face daily, the death penalty is way, way down there. Kilgore has selected this issue as a way to be strong on Kaine — there’s simply no way to select an issue as inconsequential as the death penalty (again, within the above parameters) as the chief issue for a campaign with the best interests of Virginia in mind.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 31 December 2004 @ 2pm

Looking back, I probably sounded like I half-endorsed Kilgore’s ‘whatever works’ approach to politics. I don’t. You just caught me venting a cynicism which, in the case of Virginia politics, is borne of experience.

The death penalty sickens me. I lived in Illinois when the exonerations that led to the moratorium happened, and wrote a brief pro bono in my days as a lawyer for a Canadian tried and convicted in Texas without the benefit of his treaty-guaranteed consultation with his consulate. Our system is riddled with flaws, and administered by flawed people — and until such time as both of those facts change, I think the death penalty ought to be disowned.

As a political matter, however, irresponsibility works. Gilmore and Allen proved that. We have to head the debate off before Kilgore gets us talking about having our irresponsibility triple-decked with a cherry on top — or we lose, plain and simple.

So, do we spend the next 11 months talking economic development, transportation, elementary and secondary education, health care, and the state’s colleges and universities? Or do we spend them talking about how the machinery of death could stand a coat of wax and a good lube job? Let’s hope for the former.

Posted by Greg Greene on 31 December 2004 @ 11pm

You’re quite right. It’s unfortunate, but you’re right.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 1 January 2005 @ 12am