After 16 years in public office, former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine readily admits he doesn’t have all the answers, but he has learned a thing or two in his decade and a half of public service.

On April 12, the current head of the Democratic National Committee reflected on his life as a public servant and packed all of that experience in five lessons learned. He delivered that message to alumni, students and friends at Randolph-Macon College’s Blackwell Auditorium.

Kaine’s background may have made him the least likely candidate for elected office, coming from a home where politics was far down the list of priorities. “I came from a home where politics was never discussed,” he said describing his childhood in Kansas City, Mo.

After earning a B.S. in economics, Kaine entered law school at Harvard, but took a year off to work as a Roman Catholic missionary, running a small school for teenage boys in Honduras. He graduated from Harvard in 1983, beginning a 17-year career as a civil rights lawyer in Richmond.

Kaine entered politics on the local level, something he suggests as an appropriate path to higher office. He served four terms on Richmond City Council, including two terms as mayor of the city. After serving as Mark Warner’s lieutenant governor, Kaine was elected to Virginia’s top spot in 2006.

The former governor said many people are scared off by the bare-knuckled reality of politics, or what they perceive the arena to be. “Public service is a noble pursuit and the system works only when good people step forward,” Kaine told the audience.

Kaine’s second nugget of advice was something he learned in his law practice. “You have to be willing to lose. Some people would rather quit than lose.”

He also said losses in his legal career and in politics only made his resolve to accomplish goals stronger, and he urged students to keep their eye on a goal and pursue it. “Go after stuff and go after it until you get it.”

The former governor cited the recently enacted smoking ban in restaurants as a prime example of what tenacity can yield. After several failed attempts to enact the ban, Kaine’s persistence finally paid off. “You have to have a willingness to put it all on the line and lose.”

Another important lesson on Kaine’s list was the realization that the voting public will eventually get it right. “People are smart,” he said. “They figure things out eventually. They really do get it.”

Kaine’s fourth lesson learned was a pragmatic outline of how to choose your battles. “Fight battles about things that will last, things that can’t be undone,” he said. Conservation easements that paved the way for numerous state parks and other recreational facilities was just one example of what Kaine considered ‘things that couldn’t be undone.”

He said Virginia’s governor is in the unfortunate position of being the only one term administrator in the nation, and the future governor or the General Assembly can easily undo most things accomplished during that term.

Kaine said the smoking ban, Pre-K expansion and reform of the Foster Care Program are long lasting examples of goals he pursued that were not transitory.

In his fifth and final lesson, Kaine said that politicians are “great over-simplifiers.” In that vein, he said the success of an economy boils down to just two things: education and global connections. He cited the direct correlation between the quality of education and per capital income. Over the past 50 years, Virginia has moved from one of the lowest attendances of school age children to one of the highest rated systems in the nation.

“When people have better skills, the state benefits,” he said. Expanded Pell Grant programs and state grants for private higher education are all programs that yield positive results and are a good investment for the future, according to Kaine.

Virginia’s global economy sustained the economy during recent downturns, the former governor said. “We can communicate with the world with a touch of a button,” he said.

Kaine said the state is in a uniquely advantageous position with an international airport and a port that ships goods worldwide.

He urged students to focus on those global connections, become fluent in a foreign language, and approach the future with a realistic sense of how the world is becoming more connected.

Professor Mathias Bergman presented questions submitted by the audience for the former governor.

The first question came from a person who voted for President Obama in the 2008 election, but asked why one should support Democrats again in upcoming elections. “I was promised change we can believe in and we got more of the same,” the question read.

Kaine pointed to the stabilization and gains in the stock market and the increase in job creation as positive accomplishments of the current administration. Kaine said he has become close with the president since he was elected DNC chairman a year ago.

“People in this country will no longer go bankrupt because of illness,” Kaine said.

R-MC president Robert R. Lindgren welcomed Kaine to the Ashland campus and class of 2010 student Becky Johnsen introduced him.