Collegiate Times

Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine, former attorney general Jerry Kilgore and Republican state senator Russ Potts have spent an aggregate $42 million on their campaigns, making this the costliest election cycle in Virginia gubernatorial history. With less than a week to go before election day, a Washington Post poll shows Kaine holding a slight advantage over Kilgore, with Potts slipping even farther from contention.

Kaine holds 47 percent of the vote, Kilgore, 44 percent, and Potts, four percent, with a three percent margin of error. This represents the first time that Kaine has taken the lead in the entirety of the race that, as recently as Sept. 9, showed Kilgore leading 51 percent to Kaine?s 44 percent, according to the poll.

Kaine vows that his first priority when elected will be the full funding of the all the state?s education systems.
?The main thing you can do to slow down sharp tuition increases is have the state meet its financial obligation. The thing that causes tuition spikes is the state being an unreliable partner. The first thing I will do in office will be to make sure K-12 and higher education are fully funded, and then move on to what?s next,? Kaine said.

Beyond putting money into the existing systems, Kaine vows to build a university in Southside Virginia. This construction will hopefully allow for the same level of economic development that Virginia Commonwealth University brought to Richmond during his tenure as mayor, Kaine said.

With the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia predicting a 56,000-student increase above current enrollments in Virginia?s colleges over the next five years, the Kilgore campaign has embraced a more immediate response to dealing with the influx of new students. Distance learning programs, combined with developing full summer offerings to create a ?year-round campus,? and increasing Tuition Assistance Grants from $2500 to $4000 to allow more students to take advantage of Virginia?s private schools.

?Private schools have the capacity for 10,000 additional students right now. If we can convince as many as 10,000 to pursue education at a private college, then it?s good, first because it alleviates pressure on state universities, and it costs twice as much for the state for someone to go to state college as for the TAG grant,? said Kilgore spokesman Tim Murtaugh.

Kilgore has vowed not to raise taxes except via voter referendum. Local governments can enact taxes on their own, but any budget bills passed by the legislature without the provision of a referendum will be vetoed automatically, Murtaugh said.

Kaine believes this promise hampers a governor?s potential.

?Basically, if you?ve ever squeezed a balloon, it bulges somewhere else. If there was a referenda on everything except for property taxes, then you would see an increase on property taxes. I?m not running to play mother may I with the voters? Why bother to have elections in the first place? You might as well abolish the legislature,? Kaine said.

Kaine has made the economic success generated by the Governmental Budget Reform initiated by himself and Gov. Mark Warner. On the way to being named the ?Best Managed? state in the country by Governing Magazine, an inherited $6 billion budget shortfall was remedied by slicing 5,000 positions from state government, raising the state sales tax one-half of a percent and increasing the cigarette tax to 35 percent of the national average, according to the Kaine website.

Yet Murtaugh is not so quick to endorse the current administration.

?It was a tax increase, not a budget reform. When you have a tax increase because ?the world is about to end? and then you have a surplus because you taxed people too much?it?s not bad that we have a surplus, what it does say is that the people were overtaxed,? Murtaugh said.

The candidates have had to sculpt their messages for an increasingly diverse population, both culturally and economically. Fairfax County, an integral part of the state?s economic engine, Northern Virginia, has over triple the median household income of southwestern Montgomery County, according to 2004 Census data. Minority groups make up over 30 percent of Virginia?s population, up about 5 percent from 2000, according to the census.

Potts, the third candidate, raised only $1.5 million and has all but dropped off the radar with only 4 percent of the vote, according to the Washington Post. Potts campaigned in Falls Church last night and delivered stinging criticism of Kilgore.

?I?m running against the weakest candidate for governor in the history of Virginia: Jerry Kilgore. He would be a pitiful governor because of his lack of leadership,? Potts said.

News Assistant Jonathan Pillow contributed to this report.