When President-elect Obama tapped then–Virginia governor Tim Kaine to chair the Democratic National Committee last year, he knew he was picking a friendly. Both men are former community organizers (Obama in Chicago, Kaine in Honduras). Both Harvard-trained lawyers married sharp Harvard Law ladies. Both are also former law-school profs (Obama at Chicago, Kaine at Richmond) with Kansas roots. Kaine, in fact, was nearly picked as Obama’s veep, mostly because, as Larry Sabato put it, the duo had “personal chemistry.”

But personal chemistry with the president may not be enough to save Kaine’s DNC job. In November, Kaine presided over gubernatorial losses in his home state and in deep-blue New Jersey. This week, his party lost Teddy Kennedy’s former Senate seat in Massachusetts. Liberals are starting to complain that Kaine is not so much Obama’s alter ego, but his feckless doppelganger.

Joan Walsh at Salon says that Kaine “should have to answer for the party’s terrible overconfidence in Massachusetts.” Cenk Uygur at the Huffington Post writes that Kaine “has caused no trouble but lost nearly every election”:

These elections definitely mean something. You could have dismissed Virginia as leaning conservative and New Jersey as unique in their anger at Corzine. But there is no excuse for Massachusetts. This is a national election for a senate seat, not a local governor’s race with local issues. And three is an undeniable trend. Houston, we have a problem . . . Tim Kaine seems to be running the reverse 50 state strategy — we can lose anywhere in the country.

Republicans should muffle their chuckles at Kaine’s hapless reign. While the GOP has won three big races, both parties now know what it’s like to have irksome execs.