What else can he say?

By Published by The Editorial Board

Published: June 19, 2008

Jim Gilmore is in a tough spot this year — and everybody knows it.

Gilmore barely won the Republican Party’s nomination for John Warner’s Senate seat. He’s trailing Democrat Mark Warner in the money race and in the polls. Even some prominent Republicans are supporting Mark Warner.

Faced with that kind of uphill climb, Gilmore has come out either swinging, name calling or simply flailing.

Call it what you will, but calling Mark Warner a tax piranha is awfully desperate for June.

“Mark Warner is just like a hungry piranha,” Gilmore was quoted by The Associated Press. “There’s just no end to his appetite for the people’s tax money.”

Warner cut $6 billion from the state budget before adding back $1.4 billion in new taxes that were supported by both Republicans and Democrats — including the Dan River Region’s GOP legislators.

Meanwhile, 11 years after Gilmore’s “No Car Tax” run for governor, Virginians are still paying the car tax.

The difference between what local governments receive from the taxpayers and what they charge in car tax is made up by the state government, which spends almost $1 billion a year from the taxpayers to keep the whole rickety thing rolling along.

Even after Republicans won control of the General Assembly, the car tax lived on.

“Jim Gilmore is a tax cutter like Rube Goldberg is an engineer,” Warner might say, if he were the type to sling mud. But he’s not, and that’s one of the things people like about him.

Gilmore should at least pace himself. He certainly can’t afford to run out of names for Warner between now and November. The AP reports he’s also called Warner an “elite limousine liberal” and a “nave” on foreign policy.

To his credit, Gilmore is a former army intelligence specialist, Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney, Attorney General and he chaired a national commission on terrorism that warned about possible attacks on this country long before 9/11.

Running on that record makes a lot more sense than slinging mud at Mark Warner and reminding people they and the state government still pay the car tax.

But how much fun would that be?

Slinging mud won’t get Gilmore elected to the Senate this year. It’s too bad Gilmore thinks he needs to resort to it this year.