E-mail a friendGov. Tim Kaine
airdate August 27, 2008
Tim Kaine became Virginia's 70th governor in '06. A champion of accessible education and healthcare, he led an initiative that secured a $1.6 billion bond package to expand college access for all Virginians. During his tenure, Virginia has been recognized as the most business-friendly state in America according to Forbes and CNBC. Media speculation had Kaine on the short list to receive the nomination for vice president of the Democratic Party, but ultimately the nod went to Sen. Joseph Biden.
Virginia governor talks about being a runner-up for the vice presidency. (1:11)
Full inteview. (8:11)
Gov. Tim Kaine
Tavis: Earlier tonight I sat down with the other name on Obama's short list, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. Governor Kaine, nice to have you on.
Gov. Tim Kaine: Tavis, great to be back with you.
Tavis: Are you having a great time here so far?
Kaine: It has been a week to remember. I'll never forget it so far.
Tavis: When you say a week to remember, give me - a random question - two or three memories that you know you're going to take with you that you've already experienced.
Kaine: Well, look, the biggest memory so far was when we were doing the roll call this afternoon, and I'm the leader of the Virginia delegation, and when Barack went over the top, everybody around me was in tears, me included. And a senior member of my legislature, 40-year-old guy who's a city councilman, mayor of Richmond, now state senator, tears were coming down his face and Tavis, he was just saying, "All they would let my dad do was wait tables, and I'm seeing this."
Tavis: Moving.
Kaine: I'll never forget it. I'll never forget it, and that was great. Ted Kennedy was spectacular, Hillary Clinton really hit it way out of the park last night. I'm real anxious to hear Joe Biden tonight, and then tomorrow I'm going to speaking at INVESCO and really excited about it, and it's just been a magical week.
Tavis: So with all of this hype and all this enthusiasm and - not to put any pressure on you - all these great speeches so far, (laughs) how does the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia getting ready for tomorrow night?
Kaine: With the iPod, basically. (Laughter) That's how I get ready. It's going to be simple, it's just me. It's nothing fancy, but I like it. I like what I'm saying and look, we've come so far, we've just got to convert in the next 10 weeks. That's what I feel. So I'll just go into the zone with the iPod before, and I'll get out there and I'll have some fun.
Tavis: I'm honored to have on this program tonight both you and Evan Bayh, and I say that for all the obvious reasons - all the hype and the conversation about who was on the short list. Joe Biden, obviously the pick. So let me ask two questions: One, what do you make of the Biden pick, and number two, on a personal note, how did you navigate this media minefield of whether or not you were or were not the guy?
Kaine: I think Joe is a great pick, because I think he has a - he comes from the heart, got a great head, great experience in foreign policy, judiciary matters, good fighter for women's rights. But he comes from the heart and he hasn't let the Washington values crush out the values that brought him to Washington. This is a guy who still takes the train home at night to Wilmington to be with his family.
His expertise on matters of international relations in the judiciary, great compliment for Barack. I can see him being real helpful in a state like Virginia. And clearly, they've got a personal simpatico. They're different kinds of personalities, and yet there's a fit. And I think he'll do very, very well in making the case with Barack.
We've got to change the direction of the economy, we've got to have a smarter national security strategy, and these two guys can make that case.
Tavis: A lot of talk about whether or not Obama can, in fact, pull off Virginia. Give me a sense of what's happening in the state, how the state's laid out, what could make it possible for him to win that state, because he hasn't written that off.
Kaine: Well, as you know, Virginia hasn't gone for a Democrat since 1964, and in fact it hadn't even been close and the Republicans don't need to campaign there and Democrats say, "Why bother?" But the race is now a dead heat. The latest polls show Virginia, I think the latest one I saw was 47-47. The Obama campaign has opened 33 offices in Virginia, which is just unheard of.
They put some of their best people in. I endorsed Barack a week after he got in the race, and so my whole political team has been really trying to focus on this thing since February of '07. We had a good result in the primary. I think we're well organized, but it's gonna be ground game from this point forward, Tavis. His presence, Michelle's presence, Joe's presence, and then the work we do - registration, voter education, turn-out - we do it in tandem with Mark Warren, who's running a Senate race in Virginia. We're all working on this thing together.
And it's gonna be a ground game at the end of the day, and that's a good thing. Ground game is ultimately about people to people. If it's all done on TV ads and stuff, you lose something. But it's people to people that will matter at the end, and I see a real enthusiasm advantage on our side right now.
Tavis: Obviously, an African American can win in Virginia because you had a predecessor named Douglas Wilder.
Kaine: Absolutely.
Tavis: African American governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I saw him at the convention here earlier this week, and we had some conversation (unintelligible) can do, can accomplish in Virginia. Let me just ask you in a very forthright and direct way, how is race going to play in a state that is so red, at least in presidential races - 64 - so conservative?
Kaine: It's one that - it's a factor. Doug found it as a factor when he was running for governor. The polls that seemed large turned into small polls, but he did win. Virginians recognized quality and they put Doug in in 1989. And as I talk to voters around Virginia, look, we're hurting - we're hurting. Our state's doing better than the national averages in many ways, but we've got communities and whole swathes of the state where they've seen job losses and everybody's feeling it with energy prices and a million-plus uninsured and deficits that are going sky-high, and a war - two wars - that are not being well managed.
So people want a change, and what I've said to folks if this issue about race ever comes up, and it does, and I talk candidly about it. I was the mayor of a majority African American city, I talk candidly with people. African Americans have, with enthusiasm and excitement, year after year, election after election, decade after decade, pulled the lever for White candidates and wanted them to win.
I'm not going to believe that Whites aren't capable of that degree of magnanimity and seeing quality when it's out there. And in Barack we've got quality, and I think that's why we're going to win this thing.
Tavis: I was positing in a conversation the other day, Governor, the possibility that the Democratic nominee, Mr. Obama this time around - never mind all the history - might not get the bounce in the polls that candidates typically get after their convention, and only because John McCain is set, we are told, to announce almost immediately who is running mate's going to be.
That creates another whole news cycle and the Republicans - we're in St. Paul/Minneapolis next week for this TV show from the Republican convention. So two conventions, two weeks in a row - for those reasons and others, you might not have the time to get the bounce you normally get. Is that a possibility? And if that doesn't happen, this race is gonna be really tight.
Kaine: It is, it is. And I've never expected it otherwise.
Tavis: You didn't expect a bounce?
Kaine: No, and I never expected it not to be tight. I think it's going to be tight through Election Day. I think - I don't know that you'll see a bounce because of the VP announcement and the immediate convention, and then it'll be Labor Day and people will be paying attention.
I think the first polls that really will matter will probably be about September 15th or 20th. That way, dust settles from conventions, dust settles from the VP picks, start to be some debates; people are really engaged in this race. Then the polls start to matter. But even the polls - polling is a science, but it misses some art. And so one of the things in polling, you often don't take advantage and call the new registrations.
You're calling off registered voters - those are people who've voted in the past. In Virginia, we're going to have a fivefold increase in registrants over the last presidential election, 2004 - had about 40,000 net new voters. We'll have 250 to 300,000 net new voters this year, and they're not getting called in the polls. We know from age and where they're registering that they're very likely to be Barack Obama voters, so we think that will be helpful.
But it's all about hand-to-hand persuasion at this point, and that's going to be my highest and best uses. I've told people Barack Obama can be president without Virginia, but if he gets Virginia, he is going to be president.
Tavis: Finally, let me ask whether or not there is a particular weakness that you see already that ought to be exploited on the McCain side of this race that the Democrats - a hole that Democrats just ought to run through?
Kaine: Well, I think the thing last week with the seven houses, it gives us that opportunity, and I have feeling there are going to be more, because look, they've taken a kid who grew up in a poor family whose mother was on food stamps, who's married to a girl who grew up on the South Side of Chicago with her dad putting up a flimsy little barrier in the one bedroom so they could each have a little bit of private space, and they're trying to say that these guys are elitists? It's the most outrageous thing I've ever seen.
When McCain in that gaffe last week didn't want to reveal how many houses he owned, I think he showed a little character issue that Americans need to think about. Who's out of touch? And if you're the one that's out of touch and you're the one that's elitist, why are you trying to lie about these other guys? And I think we're going to run a big truck through that thing, and you're going to see some other things probably in that vein done by the McCain campaign that will create more opportunities.
Tavis: Governor, I'm always happy to talk to you. Delighted you took time to come see us.
Kaine: Tavis, thanks.
Tavis: Thank you. Take care.
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