From the resident conservative:

It was good. Real good.

Posted by Shaun Kenney on 31 January 02006 @ 11pm

I didn’t watch the response yet, but a friend sent me this.

Posted by Hans Mast on 1 February 02006 @ 1am

Yes. Intense eyebrow action.

Posted by Jon on 1 February 02006 @ 9am

I liked what he said, I just couldnt watch him. There was some stupid shadow. At one point I was afraid he was trying to do the Clinton hand motion (the one where he waves the thumb to emphasize a point), gratefully he just counted.
Dave Matthews does the eyebrow thing very well, Tim Kaine- not so much.

Posted by Jennifer on 1 February 02006 @ 9am

I thought the “there’s a better way” stuff sounded canned. I mean, if someone gave that speech with real emotion it might have been great. I did enjoy the constant positive references to Virginia, especially when he said “for Commonwealth and Country” a couple times. What a great saying! Plus the obligatory Virginian’s reference to TJ. Can’t beat that stuff.

He does have some serious eyebrow action. It reminds me of Mike Delfino from Desperate Houswives (no homo).

Posted by Ross on 1 February 02006 @ 9am

Overall, what I’m seeing across the blogosphere and among the talking heads is that left-wingers hated it, centrists and potential swing voters loved it and Republicans are afraid of it.

Face the facts: if we’re going to have party leadership that successfully courts moderates and wins the middle then it’s going to leave the far left non-plussed. Too bad for them. We need Governors and Presidents who can be leaders for everybody – not just the far right or the far left.

This is the message that will win the battle in November. Kaine and Warner both changed people’s hearts and minds and they are successfully convincing former Republicans that Democrats can govern better. Aside from Brian Schweitzer, I don’t see any other leaders in the national Democratic party who do that. They are the model for victory, like it or not. Humble, serious, pious, intelligent, informed and polite. That is now the character of victory.

Posted by ATA on 1 February 02006 @ 11am

I thought Kaine’s speech was just right. Calming, intelligent, and relatively bipartisan. So what if the far left didn’t like it. Pardon me for saying so, but the far left has lost as much credibility as the far right, at least with the centrist and swing voters. Pols like Kaine & Warner are the only way we’re going to turn red states blue. There’s too much vitriol in political discourse today, and I really think the average voter is getting damn tired of it.

Think about it: Warner is at, what, 70% approval in Virginia? He didn’t get that way by being a rabid yellow dog. Think back to Allen & Gilmore as Governors. Didn’t their out-of-control, all Democrats are evil, extreme partisan rhetroic bug the shite out of you? Hence, they NEVER achieved the level of popularity that Warner did, except, of course, from the far right base.

Posted by Marcey on 1 February 02006 @ 1pm

I consider myself to be a moderate with some liberal leanings. Compared to past democratic responses to the state of the union, his was a nice change. I think the tone and substance of his speached served him and the party well. Remember it’s not the true believers the democrats need/ed to reach.

The reasons the republican spokes-holes will attack him, is because he represents something they fear- 1) a democrat who can get elected in a traditionally republican state, and 2) A moderate approach that if the democrats took as a party, the republican’s might have a difficult time countering.

The one part of his speach that irritated me were his statements on illegal immigration. They were insincere, they went entirely opposite to the position he took during his campaign when he tried to avoid the substance of the issue by shirking and passing the responsiblity back to the Federal Government in order to avoid taking a position on the issue.

That said I think it was a good rebuttal. But like Bush’s pronunciation skills (“nuke-u-lar”), Kaine’s jumping eyebrow will be what they use to caricature him.

And that’s my 2 cents.

Posted by TrvlnMn on 1 February 02006 @ 1pm

http://gp.org/video/2006stateofunion/

Posted by Scott on 1 February 02006 @ 6pm

I thought that it was a good message, just not delivered that well. I’m sure he’ll get better in time.

Posted by Sean Holihan on 9 February 02006 @ 6pm