RICHMOND, va. — The dominant figure in a Virginia Senate race that could determine the direction of Congress next year is President Barack Obama even though both candidates are former governors.
Republican George Allen is trying to redeem his political career and win back the Senate seat he lost six years ago in a chaotic, slur-stained campaign against Democrat Jim Webb. His strategy: If Obama falls, Democrat Tim Kaine falls with him.
Kaine was Obama’s hand-picked chairman of the Democratic National Committee for two years. Their fates in November are linked in a state that both parties consider critical to winning the White House and controlling the Senate.
That makes Virginia the perfect spending target for big-spending political groups on each party’s side, a chance to bag two opponents at once using the same dollars. As go Obama and Republican Mitt Romney in the president race, so go Kane and Allen.
Allen denies Kaine even the Virginia courtesy of addressing those who have held their office as “governor,” calling him instead “Chairman Kaine,” a derisive reference to his two years as head of the Democratic Party, one of them during his final year as governor.
Kaine has never tried to disown Obama, though they disagree on several issues. He chafes at assertions by Allen and others that the two are joined at the hip.
“It is not surprising that George is doing that,” Kaine said. “The last thing George wants to do is talk about the fact that he was a U.S. senator and he has a record as a U.S. senator and what that record was.”
