DAVE COOK: I'm Dave Cook from the Monitor, and thanks to our guest, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine. His last visit here was in April. He grew up in Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in just three years. Went to Harvard Law School. Partway through Harvard took a nine-month break to teach at a Jesuit mission in Honduras. Back at Harvard, he met his wife, Anne Holton, who was the daughter of Virginia's first Republican governor in the 20th century. They settled in Richmond, where Mr. Kaine practiced civil rights law before being elected in 1994 to the Richmond City Council. '98, he served a term as Richmond's mayor, and in 2001 was elected Virginia's lieutenant governor. He served as Virginia's 70th governor from 2006 to January 2010, and was elected to chair the DNC with Barack Obama's coming to the presidency. So much for biography. Now, onto process. As always, we're on the record here. There's no embargo. There's no live blogging or tweeting. Let me repeat, there's no live blogging or tweeting. But after the session is over, feel free to give in to your wildest multimedia urges. As always, if you'd like to ask a question, send me a subtle, non-threatening signal, and I'll happily call on one and all. Mr. Kaine's going to make some opening comments. He's going to treat us to a video, and then we'll move to questions from around the table. Thanks again for doing this. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yeah absolutely Dave, and thanks for doing this. I always enjoy coming and talking at these Monitor Breakfasts, even on rainy mornings. So a couple of things to kind of prime the pump. A challenging climate, similar to what I was talking about when I was here in April, with the history of midterm elections since Teddy Roosevelt, being tough on the party in power, and that is the norm even in good times. With a tough economy, it's more challenging. The Republican Party has set pretty high expectations for themselves and how they'll do, basically stating that the you're going to take back both houses and win governorships, including some of the key governorships in large states. So we're running into a headwind, running uphill, which we acknowledge from the start. But, as I'm traveling around the country and I've been in 40 plus states as DNC chair now, I believe there's a strong uptick in energy on the Democratic side. We got a lot of work to do between now and election day, but we're seeing generic polls, both in terms of the Congressional ballot and enthusiasm polls, close in the Democrats' favor. More importantly, we're seeing race by race polls almost all moving our way. Some are more static than I wish they were, but there's quite a few that have been moving our way, especially since Labor Day. That's positive. The President has been on the trail in significant ways doing sizeable rallies, but also candidate events that are being very well-received and very well-attended, and I think that's going to help with our voters. Then just in my own travels, in the work that I'm doing with every time I travel I do work with candidates, I do press. But I also talk to volunteers and activists. I'm seeing Democratic energy, the pick up in terms of the choice that's a clear one and the stakes in this election. On the Democratic side, I think what we have going for us, and then I'll talk at the end about a challenging that we're doing of what we have going for us as a tradition, a very strong feel to get out the vote efforts. We have been working on, you know, door to door canvassing and reaching out to our voters since June, using the Organizing for America community organizers and volunteers in all 50 states. That is a group that is often battle-tested, because they worked very hard on health care reform. They were able to engage three million volunteers around health care reform, and we're using those same volunteers who were actively engaged and have been since May or June, in the process of going out and talking to our voters for the midterms. Our GOTV effort is focused on traditional, reliable every year Democratic voters, but also focused on the 150 million Americans who voted for president for the first time in 2008. Under the normal scenario, those first-time presidential voters would have a very low turnout in a midterm election. So given the strong fundraising at the DNC, and we are set, I think, to break any fundraising record of a party during a midterm election, given the strong fundraising, we've been able to spend dollars both communicating with the regular, reliable voters, but also spend some significant time on the surge voters from '08, believing that we can get them to participate, not at a presidential year rate, but significantly above what they would do in a non-presidential year, and that can help our candidates. That's frankly the way we have been able to win seven of eight special elections in the House since President Obama's inauguration, even in Republican districts. Even in places where the polling didn't seem strong, we were able to expand the electorate, much as we did in '08, and we think that's going to be helpful in this election as well. We give our folks tools as they reach out to voters, and one tool, it's not really a video, but we'll just go ahead and punch it up now. One tool that we're rolling out today is just a customizable tool that we're calling progress. Some of you may know, we changed the DNC website about a month ago to take the emphasis from the Committee, DNC, to the people, "D for Democrats." But the main thing about the updated website was that it was localized. So when you sign on to the website, the candidates in your area come right up, as well as volunteer opportunities, canvassing opportunities, local events. Our volunteers have been using that very heavily in their get out the vote efforts, and now what we've done is we've put a progress tool up on the D website, where you can basically punch in your zip code, your city, your Congressional district, and you can find the accomplishments of the administration, the results that the administration has been able to achieve, in a very tough time, against tough odds, for your district. So just using this as an example, they're going to be handing out some example pages, and you can get on it and see this on your own. But we punched in a zip code for Kansas City, or actually a Congressional district, the 5th in Kansas City, which is up on the screen. If you want to -- our folks went door to door, talking to voters, want to talk about the Obama administration has done. What you'll see is that 59,000 jobs in the Missouri jobs were saved or created as a result of the Recovery Act, including 3,300 teaching jobs. Thanks to the work that was done, 239,000 middle class families in the Missouri 5th received a tax cut, thanks to the Recovery Act. 54,000 residents there will have access to quality, affordable health care that didn't before. This is a very interesting tool that enables you to drill down on the particular issues. If you want to know more about the tax cuts, you can go into that, and there's also anecdotal stories about businesses or individuals in the district that have been helped in any Congressional district in the United States. Or you can get state-wide data, if you're interested in that instead, and that might be something that you would want to check out. But our thought is, as I talked with you back in April at a very tough time, this President and Congress has been focused on results. they've been focused on doing hard things, important things for the American people, and we have now been able to customize the way we can talk about the results in each district as a tool that we can use in the final phase of get out the vote, which we think is very, very helpful. That's kind of what's up on our side. Say a word about the Republican Party and then, as I had mentioned, I was going to talk about a challenge. The Republican Party, since we are together, we went through the whole primary season. I think maybe the Illinois primary had happened before I was here, but we've gone through the entire primary season since then. What we've seen is at each primary, there was no primary that weakened the Democrats' hands. There were many primaries that strengthened the Democrats' hands. The primaries produced candidates that were, on the Republican side, a number of them that were very marginal out of the mainstream candidates. It's easy to dismiss one or two as an aberration, but when you add in candidate after candidate who is proposing to get rid of -- or that social security is a Ponzi scheme ore questioning why we need the Civil Rights Act, or saying that the unemployment compensation system in the United States is constitutional, and finishing with the Delaware race and the candidate there. We feel like the Republican primary process produced a party that has now pulled away to the right, that is internally divided. A number of instances during the primaries left, Republicans having to cancel their unity rallies after the primaries, as was the case after the Florida gubernatorial primary in August. So it's a party that's pulled to the right. It's a party where there's pretty intense division between the Tea Party, which has the upper hand, and the institutional Republican party. We think that has significance not only for November. We're going win seats that we were going lose six months ago because of the Tea Party. We acknowledge that there's energy there too that we have to counter, but we're going to win seats that we would have lost. But also it bears some, I think, watching down the road, as the party pulls farther and farther to the right and away from what mainstream Americans are concerned about. One last issue, and then I'll open it up. There's an interesting thing over at the DNC office, that down in the basement, there's this battered file cabinet, and you pass by it a million times a day and not know what it is. It's the file cabinet that was broken into at the Watergate Hotel in 1974, and we just keep it around as a little memento. I've been thinking about that recently, because Watergate, as you all know, was a scandal that had a lot of tentacles to it. It was a break-in story that most thought was unimportant, but a couple of enterprising reporters thought it was important. But then, by the time it expanded, it had its tentacles in a whole lot of areas, including the financing of campaigns. It led to probably, I would think, one of the one or two most salutary developments in American politics in the last 30 years, which is the trend towards openness and disclosure. Part of the whole Watergate thing was bags of campaign cash being delivered to the Committee to Reelect the President, but every state and Congress have passed successive waves of legislation requiring that the financing of campaigns be open and transparent, and those who donate are disclosed. With the advent of the Internet and Internet tools, that disclosure is near instantaneous. It is a great resource for citizens to know who's funding candidates. It's a great resource for the media to hold folks accountable. It's also a healthy discipline for campaigns, knowing if they take a check that's going to be reported, it makes campaigns and committees vet who's giving them money. There is a concerted effort, aided and assisted by a, what I think was a very radical Supreme Court decision, the Citizens United case, a concerted effort on the Republican side of the aisle to reverse what I think is a 30-year trend towards openness and transparency, and to instead maximize the funding of campaigns through non-reportable entities, where donors are not disclosed. I think this is a huge story, and it might end up being -- I'm not, you know, in the business. It might end up being one of the biggest political process stories since Watergate. As we see, this trend toward funding campaigns through non-reportable entities. The Democrats stand squarely for requiring disclosure of who is funding campaigns. We argued strongly that right after the Citizens United case, we would see happen exactly what's happening, that people without -- and corporations, entities, even foreign entities without any limits, would put, have the prospect of putting monies into campaigns without there being any reporting. I don't think it's an accident that you're seeing this happen, and happen in a major way now. The House passed the Disclose Act to require all to disclose who gives them money for campaign ads. That was filibustered by Republicans in the Senate, and we see why. I think you're going to see, after this campaign is over, on the Republican side the non-reportable spending dwarfing the reportable spending, and I think that poses a very significant challenge to, you know, this very laudatory trend of the last 30 years into something that the President and the Democratic members of Congress and we intend to continue to talk about and try to deal with. We feel like anybody who's putting ads up on the air ought to disclose who's paying for them, so that the American public can know. The fact that they're not disclosed tells me that those running the ads know that the voters would be pretty shocked if they saw who was funding them. With that, I'll be glad to open it up, and now Dave, I'll take questions. MR. COOK: Thanks. I'm going to do one or two, and then we'll go to Chuck Roush. Let me just follow up on what you said about the non-reportable. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yep. MR. COOK: It's an argument that you and the President and others have been making, and doesn't seem to get much traction. Would it be fair to say that the public really doesn't care whether, where the funding is coming from? GOVERNOR KAINE: Dave, I'll be real candid about this. I think the, to the contrary. I think the public does care, and there was a Bloomberg poll yesterday that showed that the public cared a lot. I've seen stories written from Washington saying it's a non-issue, and I would just, you know, for what it's worth, I would just encourage people not to miss a story that matters to the public. I think this is a big story, and I think the public polling that Bloomberg put out yesterday demonstrates that the American public is very concerned about this. MR. COOK: One last from me, and then we'll go to Chuck. So as you know, Peter Baker of the Times got an interview with the President, and in the interview, the President identified what he called "tactical lessons that he had learned." He said that he had let himself look like quote "the same old tax and spend liberal Democrat," that he realized too late that quote "there's no such thing as a shovel-ready project" when it comes to public works, and that we probably -- the President, quoting again, "probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics. I think anybody who's occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics, and that you can't be neglecting of marketing and PR and public opinion." Which of those tactical errors, in your view, hurt the Democrats the worst in the midterm? GOVERNOR KAINE: Umm, you know, I don't want to talk. I'm not into postmortems pre-mortem, you know. So but I think the last point. I think the President was being very candid about that. In a time of maximum peril in this country, with two wars and an economic challenge unmatched since the 1930's, I think the effort has been to get the policy right, and to do the heavy lifting, and recognizing it might be hard or recognizing it might not be immediately popular. That's what the President and Democrats have done. I'm proud of what the Democrats have done. You know, it actually started at the end of the Bush administration, when President Bush, unpopular in the last days of his presidency, went to Congress and said we've got to pass this TARP bill to save the financial system. Democrats supported it in a bipartisan. Actually, the Democratic support might have been slightly higher than the Republican support. Four months later, when President Obama went to Congress as a new president with a mandate and popular, said we need to stimulate the economy to get out of it, you didn't see bipartisanship in response to President Obama's call, the Democrats exhibited in response to President Bush's call. So I think the focus has been on doing the right thing, even when it's tough, even when it's immediately unpopular, and you know, and I think that is, you know, his point about you've got to figure out where the intersection of the good policy and the good politics and communication is. That's always something you can be better at. However, if you're going to err on the side, err on the side of doing substance, and then figuring out the communications side, rather than being light on substance and trying to over-communicate your way out of it. I applaud the fact that they've weighed in on substance. MR. COOK: Chuck? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Governor, I'd like to ask you, if you could, to quantify a little bit more what you think the Democrats' advantage might be on turnout this year. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yep. MONITOR BREAKFAST: The states where it might make the most difference, and some of the groups you mentioned are also doing turnout themselves. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yep. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Are they going to have an impact, do you think? GOVERNOR KAINE: Some of the groups on the other side? MONITOR BREAKFAST: American Crossroads, groups like that. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yeah, well they do, but I think they do it in a little bit different way than we do. So not to say there's no evidence of it, but in the last ten days, I've been in, let's see, Nevada, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Texas and Ohio. In those states, I have seen intense Democratic ground operation in most of these states that began on June 5th, and I always ask what are you seeing on the ground from the Republican side. Are you seeing canvassing? No. Are you seeing evidence of sizeable phone banking? No. They tend to do it late in the game, that 72-hour model that they used in the '04 presidential campaign. But what we showed, I think, in '08, is that this persistent early investment is a superior investment. The spending on the Republican side will be much heavier weighted towards TV ads over GOTV and field activities, while ours is going to be fairly significantly weighted towards field activities. MONITOR BREAKFAST: So what do you think? Is it a two-point advantage, four-point advantage, and in what states do you think it might have a -- GOVERNOR KAINE: Well, I already see it working in polls. Like I think the California polling has in both races really moved our way, in a very significant way. The work that we have been doing in the Latino community, coupled with, I think, some miscues and the Republican gubernatorial candidate has started to move the Latino vote our way. There's not a single race I'm going to talk to you about, where I'm taking anything for granted, right? We're not complacent about a single race. But we see that as strong. We see the polling in Ohio has gotten significantly better since before Labor Day in the governor's race. MONITOR BREAKFAST: And you think that's the ground game? GOVERNOR KAINE: I think a lot of it is the ground game. I think -- this is from memory. I read too many things, so I -- don't quote me completely on this. But I think there was a New York Times poll done in Ohio, and a question was asked, are you a Kasich supporter, are you a Strickland supporter? Have you been contacted by the campaign, and the "yes" answer on the Strickland side was more than twice on the Kasich side. So we do think that this persistent focus on, and it is both at the door and on the phone and by email and by mail and by, you know, by every mechanism, multiple touches. We think that that's going to help us. Metrics, what will it produce? You know, I think we've often thought that on an election day, now this is going back to my time as governor of Virginia. This wouldn't be a current metric, but kind of a more conventional wisdom metric that we use on an election day. You can get a three or four point bump by a strong turnout effort, that can really help compared to what reelection polling was in. And we did see that borne out somewhat in some of these Congressional specials like the 12th, where Mark Critz was elected, despite some tough polling. We had a very strong field effort and we were able to win that race, which they voted for John McCain in that district. MR. COOK: Mort. MONITOR BREAKFAST: What do you figure the amount of third party non-disclosed spending will amount to, and I mean you've got, you've traditionally had union support and so on, bolstering the Democratic side. So what do you think that the balance would end up being, and how does that compare with earlier years? GOVERNOR KAINE: I have -- what is totally going to be? I don't know, Morton. I don't know yet. I mean I've seen the figures of, you know, we've spent 75 million. I just saw an announcement yesterday about three groups. We're going to put another 50 million into the House. I think some of these groups are coming to the conclusion that their thoughts about taking over the Senate are slipping away from them, so they're going to shift more weight into the House side. So when you add it all in, I don't know. I think -- I've seen the calculations and articles suggesting that the spending on our side is about seven times -- by the non-reportable entities is about seven times what it is on the D side. At the DNC, as you know, under my tenure or as you might know, we have not taken PAC or lobbyist or corporate money, even though we could by law. We have decided we're going to raise purely from individuals. But even though there is spending of this kind on the Democratic side, the Democrats have nevertheless been in favor of disclosure. So this is not something where the Dems only want one side to disclose; the Disclose Act would have required everybody to disclose what they're doing vis--vis ads, and we're very comfortable for that to be disclosed by everybody. I think the interesting mathematical calculation, when it is all said and done, is the amount of spending done by non-reportable entities versus by candidates or campaigns that had to report. I think what you're going to see on the Republican side is the non-reportable spending is going to dwarf the reportable spending, effectively hiding from scrutiny the identities of those who are funding these campaigns. MR. COOK: We're going to go next to Bill Douglas, Jane Small, Lynn Sweet, Shawn Lungell, Dave Catonese and (inaudible). Bill? MONITOR BREAKFAST: The Joint Center's going to release a report in about 15 minutes on the significance of the African-American vote this election cycle. The report basically says that if black voter turnout is decent to high, it could impact 20 Congressional races, 14 Senate races and 14 gubernatorial races. Are you convinced that your organization is doing enough to get the black vote out, and do you think black voters will turn out in significant numbers? I mean everyone talks about the drop-off in 2008. Blacks have traditionally not voted that high in midterm election years. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yes, yes, and well let's -- and let's broaden it, and then I'll answer the specific question. Nobody votes in non-president's years like they do in president's years. It's not an African-American voter phenomenon; it's not a regional phenomenon. Nobody votes in midterms like they do in regular years. Yet we do feel on the Democratic side that our combined turnout may be a little more boom-bust, have a little bit more of a sine wave to it from president's year to non-presidential year. We definitely believe that we're doing what we need to do with respect to the African-American vote. We'll be doing some metrics on this. We are doing -- we do significant paid media in minority media, African-American, Latino, Asian American-Pacific Islander. Just on the African-American side, in 2006, the last midterm, which is the most relevant comparison, the DNC spent about $280,000 on paid media in the African-American community. We're going to spend about $3 million this year. So it will be seven to eight times what we spent in 2006. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Is most of that TV, or is that -- GOVERNOR KAINE: It's mostly radio and newspaper. So this is -- this would be -- and a little bit online as well. But primarily radio and newspaper, and targeted in the districts where we think it matters. We went up yesterday with a very powerful ad. The voice was Reverend Joseph Lowery, talking about the connection between these midterms and the long, you know, move to equality and progress in the African-American community, and we'll have more ads in the coming weeks, in a whole series of media markets. We also, in this reach out to voters that we're doing, the canvassing, African-American voters are a very significant point of our focus, in terms of that canvassing that's been done since June 5th. 35 percent of the 50 million new voters in 2008 were African-Americans. So in addition to reaching the reliable every year voters through, you know, traditional media, we're also spending a lot of time with the new voters, to have them turn out at a higher level than would be the norm. So I completely agree with, you know, the supposition that if African-Americans turn out in numbers greater than would be a midterm norm, that can be enormously helpful across a whole series of these races. MR. COOK: Jane. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Actually, I have two questions. One is there's a rally obviously this weekend on the Mall with Colbert and Stewart. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yes. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Do you think that that might detract at all from your get out the vote efforts, and secondly, you mentioned earlier that you've seen progress in polls, and you talked a little bit about Senate and gubernatorial. Can you talk about any progress in House polling --? GOVERNOR KAINE: Yeah, sure. The rally is, I guess is it not this weekend, right? It's the Halloween weekend, Halloween weekend? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Yes, yes. GOVERNOR KAINE: You know, there's a lot of get out the vote type activity that will be going on that weekend, but we frankly think the opportunity to have, you know. We're not involved with it, but watching it, the opportunity to have a whole lot of folks there and engaged about activity. Anything that is creating energy about young people needing to participate, we don't think it's a negative. It's a positive. You know, might there be somebody we wish was working a phone bank that weekend who's at the rally, I bet there will be. But the increase in energy, I think, will more than offset, you know, that we might miss a few phone bank shifts. So I think that's going to be fine. In terms of the House, there's so many House polls. But I guess what I would think is the generic polling on the House ballot has been good. I remember the last Gallup poll before Labor Day had the Dems with a ten-point generic disadvantage, and the Gallup pollsters said we've never seen this in all our years of polling, a ten-point disadvantage for Dems on a generic ballot. By the next week, it was even, and pretty much every week since that has been even or the Dems slightly ahead. There was a Newsweek generic Congressional poll that had Democrats ahead about ten days ago. I was with House candidates, let's see, so what House candidates have I been with recently? Annie McLane Kuster in New Hampshire, was up in her district yesterday. Her polling is improving fairly significantly in the last few weeks. I was with John Bucchieri in Ohio. Two days ago, he was talking about his own polling, and I wasn't completely clear if he was talking about internal or internal plus public, but feeling like he was seeing the minimum in Ohio, much like we'd seen in the public polls for Ted Strickland. I was with Cedric Richmond in Louisiana. His polling is very, very strong. I think that's going to be a pickup seat for us. So those would be some recent examples. But I guess in terms of the Congressional polling, what I know best is the generic polling, and that generic polling was uniformly showing the big D deficit pre-Labor Day, and most of those polls have it even or close right now. MR. COOK: Lynn. MONITOR BREAKFAST: I've got a -- GOVERNOR KAINE: Hey Lynn. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Hi, Mr. Chairman. You know, I got a call from a pollster yesterday. It was either on your behalf or an ally, who asked a lot of questions about the effectiveness of the argument of talking about disclosed donations, so it may be more or less. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yes. MONITOR BREAKFAST: The answer is that it's your polling. But more to the point, of all the closing arguments to get, is this like the number one, that they think might work on persuadables, that you're using it so much? If it's not number one, what is number one? GOVERNOR KAINE: I think number one is this, you know. It's just -- and it's the question that you hear the President talk about again and again on the trail, which is there's a clear choice, and the choice is do we want to continue with progress, having taken a shrinking economy and it's now growing a bit, you know? Having stopped combat operations in one of the two wars -- MONITOR BREAKFAST: But that's one that -- where does this, rate on the money, the undisclosed contributions? GOVERNOR KAINE: It ties into one of our themes, which is we're about progress on the economy, for example, and part of that progress on the economy is doing things like credit card reform and Wall Street reform, to stabilize the financial system so we can move forward. We have strong reason to believe that those putting the money into these undisclosed ads are folks who have pledged to repeal all these reforms that have been part of turning a shrinking economy into a growing one. I would recommend, many of you probably read this, Alan Blinder at Princeton and Mark Zandi at Moody's, wrote a piece in early August called "The End of the Great Recession." Their point is look, the economy is not yet where we want it to be, but we were at a Depression-level collapse that got turned around largely because of TARP and the administration of TARP and the stimulus. It took eight years and a second world war to turn it around in the 1930's. This thing has turned from shrinking to growing in 18 months, which is remarkable, because of these two things. A party that has pledged to come in and reverse some of that progress poses significant damage to the growth of the economy. So we view this issue of the -- who is it that's putting these monies in? We think we know who it is, and it's the folks who want to take us right back to the lost decade. I don't want to go back to a lost decade, and I haven't met any Americans who do either. MR. COOK: Shawn. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Governor, I'm curious. Do you think that your voter registration effort has made up for the loss of ACORN, and are you concerned at all about Tea Party groups challenging voters at the polls? GOVERNOR KAINE: I'll take the last one first. We're always concerned about intimidation, misinformation, you know. Sometimes someone will ask me, who's into American politics, tell me the difference between Democrats and Republicans. If I have to give them the 30 second answer, I say I'll tell you the one thing that would let you know which party you want to be in. Democrats want big turnout at elections, and Republicans want small turnout. That's sometimes enough, you know, to let people know who they would want to be for. So we always are worried about any kind of misinformation or confusion. We have a very robust voter protection effort at the DNC, that is headed by a guy named Will Crossley, a voting lawyer, and Hannah Fried, working with Donna Brazile and others. And we've -- I did a first lawyer training on this in April, so we've been preparing for this election with lawyers for a long time. So we feel like we're going to have the tools we need to combat misinformation or confusion. Then the first half was -- MONITOR BREAKFAST: So ACORN -- GOVERNOR KAINE: Oh yeah. We, you know, we don't see a perceptible difference in the voting registration because of the challenges that ACORN has had. You know, I think there was often the assumption by the other side, well you know ACORN is a critical part of the Democratic Party's voter registration. That really wasn't the case. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Do you have a hard count on how many people you've registered? GOVERNOR KAINE: I do not, sitting here today. I'm sure folks on my team do, and whether or not they want that revealed or not, I'm going to let them make a decision before I reveal it. Sometimes it's good to be blissfully unaware. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Maybe for disclosure. (Laughter.) GOVERNOR KAINE: You can only disclose what you know. MR. COOK: Dave? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Chairman, you said in your opening comments that you're in a better position than six months ago, in races -- GOVERNOR KAINE: Yeah, than six months ago, right. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Because of the Tea Party. GOVERNOR KAINE: Uh-huh. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Well, putting aside Delaware, can you give me specific examples? When you look at Buck, Angle, Brant and Faulk, and they all look at least an even shot to win. So where do you see your -- GOVERNOR KAINE: Yes, oh absolutely. So the way I would put this, and I'm -- again, we're not in a postmortem; we're in a pre-mortem, so I'm not going to be complacent about any race. Every race we're working hard on. But let's start with Delaware. You know, we would have thought we would have a very, very slim chance of taking that Senate seat, but we see a much stronger opportunity there obviously, and frankly we feel like Mike Castle vacating that House seat is going to give us a great opportunity to pick up that House seat as well. He's running against a Tea Party candidate, and John Carney, our former lieutenant governor of Delaware, is poling very strong in that race. That's a pickup opportunity for us, because of the Tea Party candidates in both the Senate and the House races. Just in no particular order, let's talk about Senate races. We would have felt like we have virtually zero chance of having a Democratic Senator for Kentucky. We got a legitimate chance to have a Democratic Senator for Kentucky. I would still say that is an uphill run for us, but we would have given ourselves about a ten percent chance six months ago. Now I'm going to be in Louisville Sunday, and I'm going to Louisville for a reason. We can win that race, especially because there's a competitive Louisville mayoral race on election day, which will drive Louisville turnout up additionally in a way that we think could be helpful. In Nevada, we were looking at a very, very difficult reelect climate for Senator Reid in Nevada, prior to Sharron Angle being the candidate. We were looking at potentially very difficult -- a difficult reelect climate in Connecticut prior to Linda McMahon being the candidate. We would have had zero chance of playing at all, even thinking about an Alaska Senate race prior to the candidacy of Joe Miller knocking off Lisa Murkowski. The Tea Party battle that chased, that led Rick Scott to beat Bill McCollum in the Florida gubernatorial primary has produced a very winnable race for us that would have been tougher, I believe, if Bill McCollum, the Republican attorney general, had been the nominee. That was an interesting one. I referred to earlier briefly, but let me just expand on that. Primary election night. On the Republican side, we have a very strong candidate in Alex Sink, who is the -- consolidated her positions as a candidate long ago. On primary election night, Rick Scott and Bill McCollum battled. Rick Scott won; Bill McCollum trashed the winner. They had to cancel the unity rally and he has not been willing to endorse Rick Scott. That gives us a real opportunity in Florida. Did I mention the Illinois governor's race yet? Did I mention that? That's a race where, you know, Governor Quinn came into office in the worse possible circumstances, in the aftermath of the Blagojevich resignation, in the midst of a horrendous budget situation, that would make it very, very difficult for his election. But the Republican Party nominated, out of a competitive primary last February, a very right wing Tea Party candidate and it's given us a great opportunity. In addition, the Tea Party candidates are painting a picture of the party as a whole, you know. I mean every week it's kind of like you can't make this stuff up. I mean the SS uniform is the most recent example. I mean they're painting the party, the picture of a party where they cannot dismiss these candidates, one or two candidates as an aberration. Instead, across the board, they have candidates whoa re advocating policies way out of the mainstream, which we think helps us in overall making our message about forward versus backward. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Would you pinpoint one or two of those that you're most confident about? GOVERNOR KAINE: No, because I don't want to rest on a laurel prior to knowing what the outcome is. We take all these races seriously, but I guess the way I would put it to you is there were races that we felt like we had virtually no chance of winning six months ago, that we feel like we've got very legit chances to win now. MR. COOK: We've got about 25 minutes left. We're going next to Matt (inaudible), Christina Antony, Sam Stein, Paul Bedard and Rick Dutton, Todd Gilman, Neil King, Amy Gardner and the closer is Linda Pelsing. Matt? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Governor, you've talked about the TARP, and that program has been politically toxic in this year, and yet it seems to have been relatively successful in doing what it's built to do. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yeah, yeah. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Why is there that disconnect (inaudible)? GOVERNOR KAINE: Yeah. Well, that's a good question. I mean I think the idea of doing something for big banks, you know, when so many people are suffering, that's just a hard sell. That's an example of were the politics ever good? I'm not sure they were ever good. I don't know that the politics of the TARP was good when they were casting it. However, it was necessary, and so you know, making $700 billion available to rescue the financial institution, of which they used about 500 billion, of which they've collected back, you know, 200 plus billion. I think we're going to collect it all back. And the economists who were looking at this are basically saying the passage, and then the implementation of TARP and then the collection back of the monies has been hugely successful. The key is doing stuff for big banks is never going to be popular. I think the President has talked about that. Boy, you know, I wouldn't want to do something, but I voted for TARP as a Senator, because I knew it was necessary. The good news is that in the financial regulation bill that was passed, we think we've put mechanisms in place that will enable us to step in and stop the meltdown before it occurs, so that the need for bailouts of that kind won't be needed. But thank goodness they did it. Thank goodness they had a collect mechanism, and that the Obama administration is very adroitly going back in and collecting the money back. MR. COOK: Christina? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Governor, you were in the midst of what was a pretty ugly redistricting fight in Virginia. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yeah, yeah. Actually, I think I was sued as a result of it, at least once. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Yeah, and I'm wondering sort of looking at the landscape, and that there will be some Republican governor pickups this year on (inaudible), do you think that that's possible to play out on a state level across the country, and what do you see for redistricting (inaudible)? GOVERNOR KAINE: Yes. Well, I think that that's certainly something that we're focusing on, and we are -- we're not just -- we spend most of our time talking about governors, Senate, Congress. But we also focus on state legislative chambers that could go one way or the other, as you know. One of the reasons I worked so hard to get the Senate Democratic in Virginia was thinking about redistricting in 2011, and making sure that there's some evenness to the process. So we are paying attention to that in different states. With some of our ground game in states, if we have a choice about where to put it, we often are putting it in places where we feel like we can not only help Congressional candidates, but help state house races that will enable us to, you know, have one of the levers of power during redistricting in various states. It's going to be a real blood bath, I would think. Now the good news is I think we are going to pick up some governors mansions in some critical states. The governors races, which we haven't talked much about, other than my reference to Florida and Illinois, you know, we have some -- there's more governors races that are really open this year than ever, 37 because there's some retirements and other things. We're going to lose some races. We're going to gain some races. We think we've got an excellent chance to win governorships in some absolutely pivotal states that we haven't had governorships from, California, Florida, for example. MONITOR BREAKFAST: What about Texas? GOVERNOR KAINE: We've got a shot at Texas. I was down there in El Paso and Houston on Friday, and what we see in that campaign is that the Perry numbers just keep bumping up against a plateau, and he's not able to get up over 50. The argument that Bill White is making, I think very adroitly is, this guy's been governor for nine and a half years. What does Texas have to show for it? Educational outcomes in the 45th to 50th; the highest percent uninsurance in the United States. What do we have to show for nine and a half years. If Rick Perry is proud of it, hey he's entitled to have low standards if he wants to. But Texans shouldn't have low standards, and I think that is a very powerful argument. The DNC has invested pretty significantly in Texas, which is not something we've done in the past, because we see that as kind of a growth stock on our side. MR. COOK: Sam? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Back to the funding question. I mean one of the obvious contexts is is that Democratic donors, the big name donors, aren't actually writing checks in this cycle, and that's problematic for your party. I'm wondering if you would welcome those checks, whether they were disclosed, and also can you respond to George Soros, who says the reason he's not donating this year is because there's nothing he can do, no amount of money he could spend, that could prevent the Republican avalanche? GOVERNOR KAINE: You know, I'm not a guy who gives up, you know. I mean I've never had an easy job. I was a civil rights lawyer, then I was a mayor, then I was a governor. People gave up on me when I was running for governor and I won. I've been on seven ballots; I've never been the favorite in any contested race I've won. I've never lost a race. So that the notion of, you know, I can't give because I can't affect, I mean people are entitled to reach their own conclusions. But the story of being counted out and winning is now such a clich, it's not even a surprise anymore. It's not even a surprise. So you know, again, he's entitled to make his own call on that, and we do have a lot of the -- I mean we're very happy with our fundraising. Again, the DNC normal fundraising would be in the 40 to 60 million dollar a year range post-McCain Feingold, since I came into office. We raised $80 million in 2009, and we're on track to raise well over a $100 million this year, with no PAC money, no lobbyist money, no corporate money. That was 10 to 20 percent of our budget prior to me coming in. We've separated that off and we've been easily able to -- MONITOR BREAKFAST: Well, I'm not talking about the Committee's fundraising. I'm talking about the big name donors who could ostensibly start up their own type of American Crossroads. They're sitting this one out, and does that pose significant challenges for you? GOVERNOR KAINE: Well, I don't know that -- I mean I don't know that they're sitting it out. I think they're supporting plenty of the candidates. Have they started up an American Crossroads type group? The answer is the Dems are not spending through non-reportable entities what the Republicans are. That is true. But we believe in this disclosure stuff. I mean, you know, that's why the House passed the bill, and everybody should disclose, whether they're giving to Democrats or giving to Republicans. Again, I think this is a -- you know, not every development since Watergate in American politics has been salutary. But if you were to pick one where there's no down side and it's all been good, I think the move towards transparency in campaign financing has been an enormous positive. And a concerted decision by the other side to try to end run that, and frankly, I think, use secrecy as a marketing tool -- "Hey, if you're going to give, why not give to us? No limits, and we can keep it secret." I think that poses some very significant challenges to, you know, the institutions of democracy that we have, and that's why the President and that's why members of Congress on the Democratic side are going to keep talking about it. MR. COOK: Paul? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Governor, two things. First, you didn't mention the Chamber of Commerce, and I'm wondering if they're off the -- GOVERNOR KAINE: No, no, no. Very serious about that. MONITOR BREAKFAST: And second, can you address the rumors about personnel changes and Hillary's going to get the vice presidency, and Biden's going to -- GOVERNOR KAINE: Yeah. I think I'll just tell y'all how it's going to break down. (Laughter.) MONITOR BREAKFAST: That would be good. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yes. MONITOR BREAKFAST: And also, what are you going to do? GOVERNOR KAINE: Yes. On the issue of the Chamber, we're very serious about this issue with the Chamber, because you know, they're bragging about how much money they're putting in. They're raising money into an (c)(6) account. They've acknowledged that money into that account comes from foreign entities, companies and maybe even some companies that are foreign government companies. They're spending untold money out of that account to affect elections, and what we -- and they're not disclosing who's funding it. Their statement is oh, we keep the international money separate. You know, okay. So their lobbyist says that. There's one way to demonstrate that. If we can establish all the previous facts, which are all matters of record, we think they ought to disclose who's funding their ad, so that the American public can be confident that it isn't a matter of foreign interests trying to influence American elections. I think they've said well, we keep that in a separate account. Look, I've done budgets a lot in the private sector and the public sector too. I know how budgets work. You could take foreign money and use it to fund all the staff, and then use all the money that was going to fund staff to add to your advertising budget, and then you could say "see, the foreign money isn't going into the elections." Well come on, you know. These dollars are fungible if they're going into the same (c)(6) account, and I think the American public is entitled to know about it. So I didn't mention any group in particular this morning, but I got asked a question about the Rove group. But we think that it ought to apply to everybody, and ought to apply to anybody on the Democratic side too, that's spending money in these non-reportable entities. With respect to personnel, I mean this is a natural time to be, you know, to be making changes. It's a burnout job in a lot of ways. People leave. They do other things. A reelect is going to start up in 2011, and the natural thing would be for some to go to that. So this is a natural time for the White House to kind of think about it. I think the VP change rumors are just that, just idle speculation. I see no truth to those, certainly never heard that discussed. I know the President quite well and I know how much he relies on Vice President Biden both for substantive, you know, work on stimulus implementation and work on these foreign policy issues. But also in terms of the, just the kind of advice and counsel and you know, two different personality types that come at the world, look at the world through different eyes can be a good team, and I think they're a good team in that way. And with respect to me, you know, I was not seeking the job I have. But I did it because I was asked, and I'm going to do what I'm asked. But I haven't been -- it's not been suggested to me I'm going to be asked to do anything else. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Any cabinet post that you'd like? GOVERNOR KAINE: I'm just going to, you know, I'm just going to do what the President wants me to do. My wife told me if he says "sweep the floors in the White House," you should say yes. He's the President of the United States. So right now, my goal is to, you know, in a challenging time, make sure that this field effort that we have out there all across America, you know, completes what we began with it in June, and produces some surprising wins for some of our candidates. MR. COOK: Rick? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Christina asked the question that I was going to ask about about redistricting, and so I'm going to switch gears. GOVERNOR KAINE: Sure. MONITOR BREAKFAST: And talk about the ads that are out there. The DNC's been criticized for its ad talking about foreign money in the campaign. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yes. MONITOR BREAKFAST: I wanted to give you a chance to elaborate a little on that, your defense against the criticism (inaudible). Which ads, with all of this other money that's flowing into the race, do you find the most dishonest? What are the worse lies that you have heard in this campaign, in that (inaudible)? GOVERNOR KAINE: Wow, that's an interesting one. On the first one, what I would say on the Chamber, and it's kind of the point I made here, here are points that I believe are facts of record. The Chamber is bragging about spending money to influence these elections. They're raising that money into the (c)(6) account. They go out and raise money from foreign entities into the same account, talking about their policy goals and what they hope to do in the midterms, money, significant money so far as we can tell, because some of even the amounts are unclear. But it has been documented at least significant monies do flow into that (c)(6) account as a result of the marketing efforts they make, and then the ad money that's being spent out of that account. Those are the facts that I believe are undisputed facts at this point. The only counter-piece of evidence is a Chamber rep standing up and saying "Oh, but we keep the foreign money separate." Okay, well prove it, you know. You're raising money into the account from foreign governments, foreign entities, and it's the same account that you're spending out of for these ads. You say you keep it separate; prove it. So that would be the point on that. Then let's see. The second half is -- (Simultaneous discussion.) GOVERNOR KAINE: Yes. I don't watch -- I mean I don't watch a lot of ads, because I don't spend a lot of time sitting in front of a TV. What I tend to do is I'm traveling around and being with everybody, and I guess my strongest feeling is when I turn on TV. So in Texas on Saturday and then in Ohio on Monday, I just see one negative ad after the next, just trashing, you know, somebody behind some vague Americans for Motherhood and Apple Pie, you know, that clearly is some out of state interest coming to -- trying to come in and buy the election away from the voters of the state. And so I don't know that I would have one of my top ten on it. I just -- I might think of one, but right now I can't give you a top ten on the dishonesty scale. But it's just the sheer volume and the sheer negativity, and the fact that these are shadowy groups that essentially, you know, can say anything. MR. COOK: Tom? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Yes. Governor, I want to ask you about the issue of a choice election -- GOVERNOR KAINE: Although you know what? I just thought of a Rorschach one, because it's recent and then I'll come to the choice. I was in New Hampshire yesterday, and in the hotel room was an ad, you know, bashing -- who was it bashing? It might have been -- I guess it was Paul Hodes, for the vote on -- voted for an auto bailout. Now he did vote with others to take steps to rescue the American auto industry. The American auto industry was in danger of being carved up and sold off in pieces to, you know, bidders from other countries. And that is something that the Democrats did, rescuing the auto industry, that now people are getting hired back to produce vehicles in this country, and tomorrow's vehicles, because of the escalated CAFE standard agreement that President, environmentalists and auto industry guys reached. I just -- when I see an ad of a Republican erstwhile office holder, advancing the proposition that, you know, it would have been better for the American auto industry to tank, I just scratch my head, and then you know, I think about the choice. I guess the next question is going to be about the choice. We've got to keep climbing out of the hole we were in. We were in a lost decade, where we ended the decade with, you know, in many measures, fewer jobs than we started, with lower family income than we started, and with wider poverty wealth gaps than we started. The notion that, you know, I'm going to vote against economic recovery in that circumstance, and I'm going to criticize people who tried to save an important American industry that has its roots in every state, at least in parts manufacturing, I just scratch my head at that. I think the choice is a very, very clear one between continued progress or going right back to the policies that put is in the tank to begin with. MONITOR BREAKFAST: And that's actually where I was heading. Is this a referendum on Bush? For a while, there was very direct Bush bashing. (inaudible) from some people, I heard maybe from Biden and from the President. But was that just (inaudible)? GOVERNOR KAINE: No, it's not a referendum on Bush, because I don't think the -- I think the rear view mirror is not that relevant, except as a -- what was our starting point in January 2009. It's only relevant because they say we're going to go back to do the same policies. When Pete Sessions says "Ask the question. What is a Republican House majority going to do, what are you going to do?" We're going to pursue the exact same agenda we were pursuing before President Obama became president. Then it's a what's a windshield question, not a rearview mirror question, when John Boehner says what are you going to do if you're speaker? I'm going to repeal health care, I'm going to repeal Wall Street reform. We're going to extend tax cuts on the wealthiest citizens and largest businesses. The relevance of all of this is the choice looking forward. What policies do you think will take an economy that was shrinking and is now growing, and continue to grow it? And we've got our policies out there. The other guy's policies are we want to go right back to doing what we were doing. Well, we tried that. As the President often says, we tried that, and we saw what happened. MONITOR BREAKFAST: But when you were talking about a lost decade, that was the Bush decade. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yes. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Isn't it sort of disingenuous to say well, it's just general policies, and it's not about (inaudible). GOVERNOR KAINE: Well but, I guess I'm responding to a sense -- MR. COOK: We lost your mic. I think it's on the ground. (Pause.) MR. COOK: The Monitor's multimedia efforts (inaudible). My training in college. Thank you. GOVERNOR KAINE: So to be real precise about the question, it's not a referendum on -- a referendum on Bush makes me think it's a backward-looking thing. That's not what we're talking about. We're not looking backward. We're talking about the choices, what policies do you think are best for the nation going forward. Because this team has said look, we want to do these things. We've already tried them out, and we've seen that they've failed. So they're going to fail the nation going forward if the other side puts them in place. So we do talk about President Bush and the Bush era policies, but only because this team has promised to embrace them if they get the majority. So it's forward-looking. It is primarily a for ward-looking argument. And you know, I mean I'll be slightly comical about this. This whole notion about, you know, going backward to Bush. When I hear, you know, 15 Republican candidates say social security's a Ponzi scheme, I guess maybe it's Hoover. Or those who want to talk about redrafting the 14th Amendment. We want to go back to the Buchanan administration. Now that was, you know, some happy times, old times there were not forgotten. So you know, the backward argument, you know, is pointing out policies, but they're policies that these guys want to put in place, by their own words. MR. COOK: Neil? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Governor, you talked earlier about the tradition going back to Teddy Roosevelt of these sort of shifts against the party at the midterm. But on the one hand, that's true. At the same time we've seen this kind of wild oscillations, particularly in the House, 2006, lots of seats went one way. 2008 a bunch went the same way. Now, no matter what you say on the postmortem/pre-mortem, we're going to see a lot going back the other way. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on sort of what to make this volatility, and how much it really allows for any party to push forward on all these huge things that we all know need to be done, when there seems to be this very fickle electorate out there that doesn't quite know (inaudible). GOVERNOR KAINE: Yeah. Well, and the '06 and '08 elections did produce -- I mean I saw somebody do an analogy. I can't remember who or the metaphor of kind of like, you know, a tide went way up the beach and then it retracts, and then when it comes back up, it doesn't come back up as far. There's some of that to this whole historical dynamic, and you know, whether it's, you know, is it with the history we explained, by you know, the American people kind of having their own internal sense of there may be three branches that are checks and balances, but you know, divided power is a check and balance? You know, I don't know what the kind of principle to explain it would be. But we're not going to stop trying to get good things done, you know, regardless of what the numbers are. The President has said over and over again, you know, he feels like he got elected at a particularly tough time to do hard and important things. And you know, as he's acknowledged, well maybe we can think about the way to talk about it a little different and communicate it differently. But I don't think the mission will fundamentally change, whatever the numbers are. We are climbing out of the worst economy since the 1930's, and to really climb out of it, we've got to change some fundamentals. So the President is committed to working on some of the fundamental issues that often get kicked down the road to the next president or the next administration. Health reform was a fundamental, because it was, you know, when President Clinton tried health reform in the 1990's, over 60 percent of small businesses offered health insurance to their employees. By 2008, it was 38 percent. It was going to be 20 percent in a decade, with a bigger percentage of GDP going to health care. It's just an unsustainable business model. So the President is having to make some, and wants to make some fundamental changes in health and energy, on the way our financial system works, and he's going to do that, going to pursue those big goals whatever the numbers are. MR. COOK: Amy? GOVERNOR KAINE: Amy, how are you? MONITOR BREAKFAST: Hi, Governor, how are you? Two quick questions. What's your message to Democratic candidates in races where we're hearing reports of Democratic resources being pulled out to redistribute to other places that were unexpectedly competitive, in some cases, members of Congress who took some really tough votes with the administration in the past year and a half. Then secondly, can you talk about the Tea Party's potentially substantial sort of on the ground end game, get out the vote efforts, and the influence that might play in what you're doing to counter that? GOVERNOR KAINE: Sure. Well, the second one I've talked a little bit about that earlier. We had a very sizeable and very organized get out the vote effort that really began in earnest on June 5, with canvassing all over the United States to voters, and that has continued through the summer. It was, you know, in early June more information, are you still registered, here -- you know, is this still the precinct you vote in? But it builds up over time to get out the vote by now. So we are not seeing a lot of ground activity in many states yet. I mean I know that they will do it at the end, but we think the fact that we got a strong head start in June using our state parties and local parties and our Organizing For America community organizers and volunteers is going to be very strong for us. And then on the first question, this -- in any election cycle, you've got allocation of resource issues, and you have people that -- and you don't have a single person that says you're giving me enough, you're helping me enough. Not a single candidate says that. I'm a really popular guy these days, as measured by the number of phone calls I get asking me for help, and that's just a fact of life that isn't really any different in this cycle than any other. You get toward the end and you see your races and you make your judgments about where the investments are needed. You know, I used to have a rule when I was running a PAC in Virginia. No sympathy gifts, and no courtesy gifts. I'm not going to give a courtesy gift to a person who's going to win, and I'm not going to give a sympathy gift to a person who's going to lose. Of course, that's always in the eye of the beholder. But we have to make those decisions, and you know, and they're never easy to make. But usually candidates understand that. MR. COOK: Last question, Linda. MONITOR BREAKFAST: It's two questions. One, your own state of Virginia. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yep. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Democrats had an incredible run, but now what? Who's on your bench? Who, you know you've got -- now you've got Republican control (inaudible). GOVERNOR KAINE: Sure, uh-huh. MONITOR BREAKFAST: So who, you know, who do you have coming up? GOVERNOR KAINE: So on Virginia, I feel very good about where Virginia is right now, because I lived through it when we had nothing. I mean when I got into state politics in 2000, two Republican senators, eight out of 11 Congressmen. They'd won like ten out of the 11 last statewide elections, both state houses 60 percent Republican. We have two Democratic senators now. We've got a majority in the House. We took the state senate. We won two out of three governor's races in the decade. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Well, the tide has gone like -- GOVERNOR KAINE: Well, no. But since the governor's race, there have been a number of special elections in Virginia in the legislature, including into Republican districts, and we won all of them. So we have taken a red state and made it even. We never turned it into a blue state, and I was never foolish enough to think we'd done that. But we've taken a red state and we've made it even. With respect to bench, you know, I guess the next two big races in Virginia would be obviously we're all behind Jim Webb in 2012, and then in 2013, the statewide races. We see a lot of candidates in the legislature who were exploring that, and rather than me talk about who's thinking about running, I think I would rather let those candidates do that. But we've got a lot of Democrats in the legislature and local government positions and the business community, that are thinking about getting into the governor and statewide races. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Are there any rising stars you can talk about? GOVERNOR KAINE: Well, I mean, I think that Ward Armstrong is a guy that I always think of, who's our House minority leader, who is somebody who I know a lot of folks are encouraging to run statewide, maybe for attorney general. He's an attorney. That is the person, you know, that I think of. I also think some of our members of Congress, I think, could well run for governor or senator. I've not talked to them about that. I don't know whether that's something that they're thinking about. But I can certainly see them doing that. So we have turned a red state to an even state, and it's hand to hand combat in every election in Virginia now. We don't walk in as the underdog in any race. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Has anybody told you he's running for governor? GOVERNOR KAINE: I'm going to leave discussion -- I have talked to Jim about running and all of my understanding is that he is. So that would be -- that's what I know about that. MR. COOK: We're right at ten. Real quick one -- MONITOR BREAKFAST: I want to ask about the Joe Manchin ad, where he shoots cap and trade. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yeah. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Are you okay with that? I mean is there -- is there -- can they just do whatever they want? GOVERNOR KAINE: No, I'm not wild about it. I'm not wild about it. Yeah, I'm not wild about it. MONITOR BREAKFAST: You're not wild about it. GOVERNOR KAINE: Yeah. The part that I most like -- the part that I most don't like is, you know, fixing what's bad about Obamacare. I mean he had two -- he had two Democratic senators, very good senators, who voted for that bill, and they voted for it because it probably has as much to offer the residents of West Virginia as virtually in the state, if you look at health stats and things like that. But I know Joe very well. He and I did a lot together, and frankly it was interesting. There was a relationship that had been a traditional one between the Virginia and the Maryland governor, but I don't know. Maybe going back to the late unpleasantness, there hadn't been a lot of Virginia-West Virginia work. Joe and I worked very well together. He's been a great governor, and I think he's going to be a fine U.S. Senator. But I'm not wild about the ad. MONITOR BREAKFAST: Have you talked to him about that? GOVERNOR KAINE: I have not. No, I've been on the road the last 11 days. He's a hell of a shot. MR. COOK: Thank you for doing this. GOVERNOR KAINE: Thanks guys.
