The plan is aimed at “the rich,” defined as those making more than $500,000 per year. Perriello would raise tax rates on this group, hoping to reap an additional $1 billion per year in revenue that would be used to fund universal pre-kindergarten programs and free community college.

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Give Perriello points for his candor. At least he understands there is no such thing as a free government program.

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But contrast Perriello’s embrace of soaking the rich to the tax-hike two-step of Tim Kaine, a former governor who is now a senator.

Locked in a 2005 gubernatorial fight with Republican Jerry Kilgore, Kaine tried to give himself maximum wiggle room regarding new road taxes. It was a big issue then, with Republicans still licking their wounds after a nasty, intra-party fight over then-Gov. Mark Warner’s tax increase in 2004.

That increase went to fund public safety, education and health care.

The one item left out of that hike was new funding for transportation. While that question wouldn’t be fully addressed until the McDonnell years, it was top of mind in the 2005 race.

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Kilgore tried to pin Kaine down on the tax issue in an October debate, saying the Democratic nominee would seek a tax hike for roads as soon as possible because it was in his nature and his record.

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Kaine’s response? “There you go again, Jerry, making stuff up. You’re not fit to be governor if you make stuff up on this stage.”

Within days of being sworn in to office, Kaine sought a billion-dollar tax hike for roads.

Kilgore was right, but he could only take solace in that fact from the political sidelines.

Perriello doesn’t intend to engage in the same verbal dance Kaine employed in 2005.

Northam said Perriello’s tax plan was “not realistic.” That’s true, particularly if Republicans keep their majority in the House of Delegates. It’s also true even if Democrats somehow (and miraculously) manage to regain control of the House, because the GOP still will control the Senate.

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Nor is it realistic to think that other items Perriello mentioned in the Tuesday night debate will come to pass, including his call to end Virginia’s right-to-work law, which he called, weirdly, “anti-growth.”

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Northam brushed that aside saying it was unwise to “pick fights that we perhaps can’t win right now.”

Again, points to Perriello for his honesty. But more points to the lieutenant governor for his understanding of political reality.

Those realities may not matter in the primary, but they will certainly matter in the general election.

Within minutes of the debate’s end, Republican front-runner Ed Gillespie circulated a press release slamming both Democrats for running “a race to the left, with no real solutions for how to help spur private sector job creation.”

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We should expect nothing else from the GOP side, where Gillespie has staked his campaign on a tax cut (or at least the promise of one and only if the economic stars align correctly).

In Tuesday’s debate, Perriello set himself up — unambiguously so — as the candidate of higher taxes and bigger government.

It was a gift to the eventual Republican nominee, the kind of gift that Virginia Democrats once went to great lengths to avoid.

As Wilder noted in a 2005 interview, “Looking back on it, I am the only Democrat who said he wouldn’t raise taxes and kept his word.”