Barack Obama Installs Pro-Abortion Tim Kaine as Democratic Party Chairman
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
January 9, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Barack Obama introduced new national Democratic Party chairman Tim Kaine on Thursday and praised the Virginia governor. For his part, the pro-abortion governor said he would be a "passionate and positive promoter" of Obama’s agenda, which includes promoting unlimited abortions.
"Governor Kaine is uniquely qualified to expand the coalition for change we built over the past two years," Obama said in a press conference at the Democratic National Committee headquarters.
Kaine’s term as Governor ends in January 2010 and he will run the national party from Richmond for a year before heading to Washington to head it there.
Jennifer O’Malley Dillon will serve as the executive director of the party and coordinate its day-to-day activities. She has stumped for pro-abortion candidates in the past including working for pro-abortion presidential candidate John Edwards twice.
Kaine replaces outgoing DNC chairman Howard Dean, a former Vermont governor who built a very strong pro-abortion record both as governor and as the party chairman. He once did a stint at a Planned Parenthood abortion facility.
However Dean didn’t appear at the event because of bad blood between him and Obama, who snuff his desire for a key administration appointment.
Although many mainstream media outlets have made the claim that Kaine is pro-life or embraces some aspects of the pro-life position, he supports Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that allowed for virtually unlimited abortions.
He also flip-flopped on abortion from taking a hardcore pro-abortion position to saying he supports some abortion limits, though he has never sign a bill limiting abortion or pushed for the limits pro-life groups have advanced in the state legislature.
Kaine told the Washington Post, during his 2001 campaign for Lt. Governor, that he "opposes efforts to restrict abortions" and that he "opposes efforts to require a parent’s consent before a minor gets an abortion."
Then, facing more intense scrutiny in his 2005 gubernatorial bid, Kaine changed positions and said he favors abortion limits.
However, his flip-flop didn’t catch leading pro-life advocates off guard.
"When Timothy Kaine was running for Lt. Governor, he supported abortion," former National Right to Life political director Carol Tobias told LifeNews.com in 2005. "Four years later, after seeing pro-abortion Democrats continue to lose election after election, Mr. Kaine now sings a different tune."
Tobias said she didn’t believe Kaine’s supposed change of position is real.
Kaine only became Virginia’s governor because pro-abortion state Sen. Russell Potts, a Republican running because he disagreed with pro-life Republican nominee Jerry Kilgore on abortion, siphoned off enough votes to let him win.
Kilgore also noticed Kaine’s true pro-abortion colors and called his attempt to moderate his pro-abortion stance disingenuous.
"It is a classic example of Tim Kaine recognizing the audience and delivering the message that the audience wants to hear," Tim Murtaugh, Kilgore’s press secretary said [in 2005].
"On the one hand he [runs] . . . down his supposed list of pro-life credentials and on the other he gathers with liberal Democrats at a fundraiser and uses all code words of the pro-abortion crowd," Murtaugh said.
Recognizing Kaine as the more pro-abortion of the candidates in the race, the director of NARAL’s Virginia affiliate said, "Between these two men, we see more hope … in Kaine’s candidacy, and we are eager and willing to work with him on these important issues should he be elected."
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