It has been a rapid rise for the once-curly-headed kid from Kansas.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's political career, not 15 years old, has veered from the City Hall of racially polarized Richmond to the polished corridors of the state Capitol and -- perhaps -- to the Democratic vice-presidential nomination.

Kaine, apparently covetous of such an option, and would-be running mate Barack Obama have trod similar paths, quickly moving from neighborhoods to the national stage.

And at a time when fellow Harvard Law School graduates were amassing fortunes, Kaine and Obama were emphasizing a shared theme of social justice.

Not that Kaine hasn't had financial success. In 1998, he landed for his firm a $5.8 million slice of a $17.5 million settlement of an insurance-discrimination case he handled for a housing-advocacy group.

"He has always focused on the 'servant-leadership' part," former Richmond City Manager Calvin D. Jamison, recruited by Kaine during his mayoralty, said about his former boss in an e-mail.

"I believe he has felt that if you do the right thing, for the right reasons, the politics will take care of themselves."

Kaine marvels over his ascent -- one in which he has repackaged himself skillfully. He was a liberal-minded civil-rights lawyer who represented death-row inmates and victims of housing discrimination. He now prefers to be seen as a hands-on, non-ideological pragmatist.

Hours after news that he may top Obama's short list appeared on the front pages yesterday of national and regional newspapers, Kaine said:

"As someone who never thought I'd be in politics at all, and then I got mad at my City Council one day and ran, I'm kind of amazed that here I am 14 years later, and I'm in elective office and the governor of what I think is the best state in the country."

. . .

Kaine's enthusiasm, however, cannot mask a record as governor that even Democrats describe as mixed.

Hobbled by a sour economy and a scornful Republican majority in the House of Delegates, Kaine has been able to do little for the state's cash-starved transportation system and has had to settle for less on such initiatives as expanded pre-kindergarten for 4-year-olds.

Kaine broke into elective politics in 1994, narrowly defeating incumbent Richmond Councilman Benjamin P.A. Warthen in a redrawn district with a strengthened black vote.

Four years later, Kaine became Richmond's mayor, the first white person to win the office with the support of the council's black majority. At that time, the council selected the mayor from among its members.

At the time, because the economy was strong, success came easy to the Kaine mayoralty. New schools were built. Federal and city prosecutors forged a partnership to curb gun crime and cut a stubbornly high homicide rate.

. . .

Kaine moved into statewide politics in 2001, seeking the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor -- a first step toward the governorship held three decades earlier by his father in-law, moderate Republican Linwood Holton.

Kaine defeated two veteran legislators for the nomination. In the general election, he beat back a conservative Republican, Del. Jay Katzen, among the few people to trigger the quiet steeliness Kaine displays when infuriated. Katzen suggested that Kaine was friendlier to gays than the Boy Scouts because the organization, with the sanction of the U.S. Supreme Court, is closed to gays.

However, serendipity played a big role in Kaine's victories for mayor and lieutenant governor, both of which were important stepping stones.

Kaine rose to mayor because the early favorite for the post, Vice Mayor James L. Banks, was defeated for re-election to the City Council by seven votes.

And in 2000, the presumptive Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2001, state Sen. Emily Couric of Charlottesville, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, forcing her withdrawal and making a Kaine campaign possible.

. . .

The 2005 gubernatorial election, too, was not without its breaks for Kaine, though some, at first, seemed anything but fortuitous.

Former Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, the GOP nominee, hoped to dispatch Kaine by spotlighting his opposition to the death penalty. Kaine is against capital punishment because of his Catholic faith. As a candidate, though, he vowed to carry out executions.

When Kaine, in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, seemed to hesitate at the notion of putting to death Adolf Hitler and other tyrants, Kilgore's campaign pounced with a commercial invoking the name of the Nazi dictator.

What Republicans hoped would be a silver bullet backfired instead.

Kaine went on to win, his margin fattened by a sweep of Northern Virginia, the deep-blue, vote-rich region that may prove the key to the state's 13 electoral votes and possibly the first Democratic presidential victory in Virginia since 1964.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com.

Times-Dispatch staff writer Will Jones and Neil Simon of Media General News Service contributed to this report.