OpinionJournal - The Kaine Mutiny

That's Governor Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia. Like his predecessor, he tried to persuade a Republican-dominated Commonwealth legislature to raise taxes. Unlike his predecessor, he failed. The reasons, according to Fred Barnes at The Weekly Standard, are twofold:

1. Republicans who had broken ranks before, and voted with Mark Warner, got burned. Three of them didn't come back, and the fourteen who did were properly chastened.
2. Tim Kaine might have overcome such resistance had he been friendlier with Republicans. He was not. He shut them out of his social activities. Naturally, they had nothing to lose by opposing him on this measure.

Add to it that Tim Kaine delivered the stiffest, most boring Democratic Response to a Republican State of the Union address since the Opposition Response custom began, and you need not wonder why Tim Kaine did not get his way this time.