Kaine reiterates he won’t leave office if Obama wins

Jim Nolan
Media General News Service
Published: September 30, 2008

Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine spoke this morning about the state’s important role in the November presidential election.

“Virginia’s a dead heat in the polls right now,“ Kaine said this morning during his monthly “Ask the Governor” radio show on WTOP in Northern Virginia.

But Kaine reiterated that he has no plans to leave his post as governor to accept a position in Barack Obama’s administration if he wins the election.

“We feel great and I hope he wins and I can help him in a volunteer way, or give advice or something,“ Kaine said. “But no. I’m gonna stay as governor all the way through January 2010.“

During the hourlong call-in show, Kaine also said he supported voting rights for residents of the District of Columbia. Calling rights a “fundamental fairness issue,“ he said he would encourage Virginia Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mark Warner to support their enfranchisement.

Kaine also reiterated his suggestion that any cuts in education that need to be made as he begins to trim more than $2 billion from the 2009-2010 budget will come in the second year of the $77 billion spending plan.

He also said that people in Virginia and beyond want Congress to stop “goofing around” and act on a plan to bailout the nation’s financial markets.