Excerpt from the AP

Here is an exerpt from an Associated Press story printed this morning about both the New Jersey and Virginia governor's races.



"In Virginia, Republican Jerry Kilgore, the former attorney general, is in a too-close-to-call race against Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine for an open seat.

Virginia's harshest ad criticized Kaine, a Roman Catholic, for his opposition to capital punishment. On radio and television, the father of a murder victim tells viewers: "Tim Kaine says Adolf Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty. This was one of the worst mass murderers in modern times."

Kaine, a former criminal defense attorney who had suggested to a panel of newspaper reporters that he wouldn't favor executing Hitler, Josef Stalin or Idi Amin, fired back with an ad pledging to carry out death sentences "because it's the law."

The death penalty, property taxes and immigration dominated debate in Virginia, which has voted more and more Republican in recent years — even while current Democratic Gov. Mark Warner, barred by law from seeking a second term, holds soaring approval ratings."