I figured that the governor’s race in Virginia would get nasty, but I didn’t figure that the theocon PACs would stoop to the level of fabricating a phone message “from Tim Kaine” that totally warps and misconstrues his positions on the issues. Here’s the text of the call:

[voice of Tim Kaine] “I am running for Governor and I am not afraid to tell you where I stand.”

“I am conservative on issues of personal responsibility. As a former Christian missionary, faith is central to my life. I oppose gay marriage. I support restrictions on abortion: No public funding and parental consent. And I’ve worked to pass a state law banning partial birth abortion.”

Paid for and authorized by Honest Leadership for Virginia PAC.

Registration number 05-034.

All of these bits of text were extracted from Kaine’s myriad TV and radio ads that have run throughout the campaign. Some audio hack, working for the mentioned PAC (which is closely associated by the Republican Governors Association), spliced together the bits (quite poorly, I might add), and placed them over some pseudo-patriotic music (to hide the splicing mess). This call was robo-dialed to registered Democrats in the liberal-leaning areas of northern Virginia.

This kind of slander is against the law, and shows how low the Republicans will stoop to try and smear their opponents. Given that Jerry Kilgore has virtually no platform on which to run, other than “I believe in the opposite of what Tim Kaine believes, and tax cuts will fix everything,” smear tactics are the only way to try and right his ship.

Not that Kaine isn’t without his own faults, but he’s stayed mostly on-message, and had helped preside over the financial recovery of Virginia. Hopefully, NoVA voters will see through the lies and still vote for Kaine. Recent SurveyUSA polls, completed last night, show Kaine with a 50-45 lead over Kilgore, barely outside the margin of error (+/- 3.5%).

It’ll be a close race, that’s for sure – and hopefully Kilgore’s theocon crony tactics will backfire.