An editorial in yesterday's New York Times bemoaned the number of citizen initiatives that will be on state ballots this Tuesday. The Times fears that all this decision-making will leave "poor" voters "overwhelmed."

Aw shucks, what voters in my state of Virginia wouldn't give to be overwhelmed by real policy matters rather than under-whelmed by the primped-up mannequins on the ballot for governor!

Last year's election brought us the term "values voters." So this year, politicians are trying to fake like they have values, oh-so-sincerely. But all the fakery proves only one value for certain: power — theirs.

The Republican and Democratic candidates for governor of Virginia are working feverishly to show that their religious and social values match those held by most voters. But just watch: when their deeply held values don't quite match up to an electoral majority, these oleaginous leaders throw those particular values overboard in a New York minute. So each charges the other for being a two-faced, lying hypocrite. (Finally, they stumble on the truth.)

Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, the Republican candidate, began an advertising campaign featuring the relatives of murder victims charging that his Democratic opponent, Lt. Governor Tim Kaine, an attorney, actually once defended a murderer. And that Kaine opposes the death penalty. The ads carry an emotional punch and make it sound a bit like Kaine is, well, for murder.

Then Mr. Kaine responded. In his own TV ad, Kaine looks directly at viewers and tells us that though he has a deeply felt religious belief that life is sacred and that capital punishment is wrong, he is totally committed — if we'll just vote for him to be our next governor — to carry out the very death sentences he believes to be wrong.

Give him credit: Kaine has values. But for us, he'll ignore them.

"I have a religious belief that I am not going to apologize for," Kaine told reporters.

Apparently, jettisoning any responsibility to abide by one's beliefs ends the political need to apologize for them.

Kaine's ads then hit Kilgore for negative campaigning. Good point, except that Kaine had struck first with a television ad charging that Kilgore was gleefully planning to cut education funding. I only wish Kilgore were committed to more accountable education spending. He's not. Few politicians of any stripe are.

Both candidates have nuanced positions on abortion. Kaine, as with his "stand" on capital punishment, finds abortion to be murder. And, just as with capital punishment, he apparently doesn't get very upset about murder or death or that sort of thing, which, for the record, he opposes. That may seem inconsistent — but consistently so.

Kilgore is arguably more consistent, if only because it is hard to contradict one's self while dodging and weaving and refusing to answer questions. When the Virginia Society for Human Life sent out a mailer stating that Kilgore "opposes the 1973 decision that legalized abortion on demand," a Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter asked the Kilgore campaign to confirm that position. Instead of confirmation, the campaign's spokesman said Kilgore "is pro-life" and added, "He also recognizes that Roe vs. Wade is the law of the land."

Then there is the issue of guns and the Second Amendment. Kaine's campaign material states that he "strongly supports the Second Amendment." But when asked whether he would rather have the support of the NRA or the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence, he replied, "You know, I want everybody's support."

When asked on a Lynchburg radio station whether he supported the Million Mom March against gun violence (well, just against guns, period), Kaine offered that: "The Million Mom March was not my issue. I didn't go. That's not my thing. But I did support the citizens who had been through a hard time by having them go up there. But I've never done anything to oppose the Second Amendment."

Odd. In 2001, Kaine not only said of the march, "I can't think of an issue I'd rather be aligned with than this," he also spent thousands of tax dollars busing people to the event. Continued...