The Washington Post recently characterized Democratic Lt. Governor Kaine's educational campaign proposals as a pie-in-the-sky shameful vote pandering as he tries to become Virginia's next governor.   .  

The paper took Kaine to task for putting forth a plan to provide universal access to preschool schooling in Virginia without detailing every minutia of how he plans to fund it.  

Investing in pre-kindergarten education should be a fait accompli.  Same as the state was able to unearth added revenue to reopen DMV offices after Gilmore's disastrous administration, fund nursing care for veterans, maintain the state's credit rating, and so on, resources to ensure every child has equal footing in schools from the start, as the Post knows, is a matter of priority funding.    

The op-ed begrudgingly notes long-term financial and social benefits from early childhood education, yet fails to mention how state spending is four times as much for remedial instruction than for early childhood education, a disparate order of priorities.  

Hopefully, voters will be smart enough to realize Kaine's educational platform is a simple statement of his central concern for early education; an issue too often disdained by his opponent, former-Attorney General Kilgore, who opposed every initiative put forth by the Warner/Kaine administration.  

Much as in Ohio, Virginians must be reminded the ill effect of one-party political rule.  

Kaine, like Hackett, is a charismatic candidate, only a little more polished.

He can't get away with Hackett's, "Aw shucks, I'm just a plain old citizen/soldier trying to do what I can for my country." But with his solid government experience, he doesn't have to.  

Hackett's framing of his opponent as a Taft "rubber stamp" could go a long way to frame Republicans in this off-year elections.  

In Ohio, people responded when you told them Hackett would bring a fresh, independent voice to Congress.  They were fed up with Republican clones who always vote exactly alike, especially in view of the problems facing Ohio with their one-party rule.

In Virginia, we simply must remind citizens what an unholy mess Republicans made when they were solely in charge. And how we almost went bankrupt.

The "rubber stamp" meme could be effectively used to describe Republican party hacks who take their marching orders from tired ideas and stale leaders.  

Those two little words could work miracles; for just by that one catchy phrase, Virginians are readily able to visualize the danger and folly of one-party rule.  

House Minority Nancy Pelosi apparently agrees with me.  

In today's Washington Post, she says:  

"People are tired of a rubber stamp congressman...They have serious questions about war, serious questions about abuse of power in Washington, serious questions about the economy. Republicans can diminish this all they want, but they do so at their own peril."

No one wants to think of themselves as dupes; or as the case may be "rubber stamps" to any idea, party or person.  

An appeal to voters love of freedom and abhorrence to "dominance" can go a long way to pound the message of electing an independent voice who knows who the real boss is: not partisan political operatives but the voter back home.