Bob Gibson
Daily Progress political blogger

    Unlike most Virginia governors, Tim Kaine appears to be planning to leave office in two years without any plans to run again for elective office.

    The Richmond Democrat apparently means it when he tells reporters there is no logical next office for him to seek.

    He is planning to do lunch Monday at the University of Virginia center run by the last Virginia governor to exit the office without an electoral reentry plan—former Gov. Gerald Baliles’ Miller Center of Public Affairs. Baliles didn’t arrive at the Miller Center until he hit the Hunton & Williams law firm’s mandatory sweep-partners-out-the-door retirement age of 65.

  Most of the governors just prior to and after Baliles thought of themselves as candidates for president and/or the U.S. Senate, otherwise known as the graveyard for presidential aspirants.
    Kaine, a civil rights lawyer, must believe there is life after the governor’s mansion that does not involve a public paycheck. The lunch, like the governor’s future, is not on the public schedule.

    Lacking a plan to run for office again makes Kaine a little different—and more free to speak his mind.