President-elect Obama makes Tim Kaine DNC chairman-elect
Remember the other day when The Ticket reported that President-elect Barack Obama was going to name good pal and Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine as the new part-time chairman of the Democratic National Committee?
And the part-time-ness of the Harvard-trained lawyer would last through Kaine's last year in Richmond?
Before Kaine becomes a full-time chair or something bigger next year?
Remember that? It was right here with all the background on their connections and similarities. All that.
Well, Obama did all that today in Washington. So now it's politically official. And you knew about it days in advance because you came here. Or should have.
Kaine takes over the committee on Jan. 21, the day after Obama takes over the White House. Oh, and he inherits a $15-million campaign debt from the outgoing chair, Howard Dean, who also was a governor.
But there's a new wrinkle now: Bloomberg News points out that as chairman of the Southern Governors Assn., Kaine is intimately involved in raising funds from oil, pharmaceutical, tobacco and energy companies in exchange for access to the states' chief executives.
Obama, of course, made a big campaign deal over his opposition to lobbyists and special interests.
So how does Kaine's money-raising as governor and DNC chair jibe with Obama's stands on that?
-- Andrew Malcolm
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Photo: Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine. Credit: Associated Press
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the 
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STOP BLAMING BUSH. OBAMA IS TURNING OUR GREAT COUNTRY INTO A SOCIALIST COUNTRY. HE MAY HAVE INHERITED SOME THINGS, BUT HE IS SPENDING MORE THAN ANYONE. YOU BUNCH OF LOONS NEED TO WAKE UP AND SEE THIS MAN WANTS TO RUIN OUR GREAT COUNTRY
Thank you for writing and sharing your concerns with the Democratic National Committee. It's important for us to hear from Democrats across the country. President Obama has inherited an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression and Americans are suffering.
President Obama and Democrats in Congress have taken the critical first steps to get our economy back on track. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will save or create as many as four million jobs by the end of 2010 while investing in America 's roads, bridges, mass transit and other infrastructure. Investments will be made to reform education; transform America 's economy to run on clean and renewable energy in order to create new American jobs and industries; and to improve the quality of healthcare while bringing cost down.
I'm proud that Democrats have created a plan that provides the practical solutions America 's working families need. I look forward to working with President Obama and Democratic leaders to continue to strengthen our country. I hope you will join us.
Governor Tim Kaine, Chairman
Posted by: Donna Brenner | June 30, 2009 at 01:44 PM