DNC chair Kaine to black voters: Stand with Obama again

DNC chair Kaine to black voters: Stand with Obama again

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine might be the most bullish Democrat in America. It's part of his job. As head of the Democratic Party's main political arm outside the White House, Kaine has to keep the party faithful, including the thousands of volunteers and staff spread out around the country for the massive midterm campaign effort, enthusiastic and on message. Kaine told theGrio he acknowledges that there is an "energy deficit" between Democrats and Republicans, but he said he's not holding the party to the unprecedented turnout standard of the 2008 election. "We recognize that there's never gonna be a midterm election with the power and the turnout of a presidential election," Kaine said. "So the standard that we've got to hit is not presidential year standard, but we've got to do well compared to midterms." By that standard, Democrats still face an uphill climb. Off-year elections tend to attract voters who are older, more male, and less ethnic. In 2006, white male voters tilted less toward the Republican Party than in previous years, helping Democrats recapture Congress. This year, Republicans have brought their base back home in a big way, thanks to the tea party. That puts extra pressure on Democrats to get young, female and minority voters to the polls. Kaine said that to do that, Democrats must get voters to see the election as a choice. "The primaries are done, and now people can look at the candidates on either side of the ledger that they're going to vote for, and we can start to make that choice very clear," Kaine said, adding that the president had begun to make the case nationally in recent weeks. "It's a choice between Democrats who have been doing the heavy lifting to tackle tough, tough challenges: turning a shrinking economy into a growing one, reforming the health care system, expanding dramatically [the] access to student loans and other important priorities; versus a party that really doesn't know what they're for and just wants to oppose everything the president does, whether it's policy or even personal matters." Kaine was sharply critical of GOP tactics when it comes to the president. **WATCH THIS VIDEO DISCUSSING RACIAL DIVISIONS IN VOTING** "[They're] challenging his citizenship, members feeling free to shout at him on the floor of Congress... the opposition to this president is something that goes way beyond policy, and it's a strategy that was hatched well before inauguration day," he said. "It goes well beyond wanting to vote against the president on health care or on economic policy, to wanting to weaken the president in any way they can, from questioning his religion to questioning where he was born," to attacking the president's back-to-school speech last year as "socialist indoctrination." "It's a very concerted strategy to fight him on everything," Kaine said. "And the theory is, look, if we beat him on anything we weaken him, but if he beats us we'll just make it long and drawn out and painful for him to win anything and hopefully we can slow him down." Kaine said he agrees with the assessments of South Carolina "Rep. James Clyburn":http://www.thegrio.com/politics/rep-james-clyburn-black-voters-dont-think-were-supporting-obama-sufficiently.php and others who believe that if Congress changes hands, Republicans will focus less on governing, than on "entangling" the president in specious investigations into "birther" and other conspiracy theories, and on returning to the policies of the Bush years. **Calling on 15 million voters** To help Democrats hold their majorities, Kaine said the DNC is focusing on the 15 million Democrats who registered to vote for the first time in 2008, two-thirds of whom are African-American. He said the party has been reaching out to them since June, via email, letters, phone calls, and visits from organizers. The message: "You were with the president before, (and) he can only be successful if he has good partners so stand with him again to help get these folks elected." Kaine said the party, which is spending an unprecedented $50 million on the midterms, is also reaching African-American, Latino and Pacific Island voters through ethnic media. "We're doing significant media buys around the country," he said. "To talk about the achievements of the administration as well as the challenges, and what would happen if we returned to Republican leadership." Those buys included what Kaine called an unprecedented "investment" in African-American media, including $2 million spent so far. That's a small part of the total midterm budget, which includes $20 million sent directly to candidates and coordinated campaigns around the country, and $30 million for field and voter turnout operations and staff. But Kaine said spending on African-American, Hispanic and Asian-Pacific Islander media represents 80 percent of total media spending, which he said comes out of the field budget. Beyond media, Kaine said the focus is more on the ground game, "more so than the massive TV ads that the other guys run, and we've been seeing Democratic energy come back." And Kaine called the president's Tuesday rally in Madison, Wisconsin, which drew an estimated 27,000 people, a "good indication of what we're going to see between now and Election Day."