Democratic National Committee Chariman Tim Kaine today outlined a new strategy aimed at keeping his party’s large Congressional majority in this fall’s midterm elections, and it’s mainly geared around preserving the young, diverse voting coalition that helped elected President Obama in 2008.
He said the DNC will try to get those 15 million new, first-time voters from 2008 to show up in an election that does not attract as much interest by having Democratic grassroots operatives make “hand-to-hand” communication with them. He said if the DNC speaks frequently to these voters (1.3 million in Texas, 400,000 in Ohio and 750,000 in Colorado) and remind them that their vote for Democrats is integral to Obama’s success that will make the difference. He said they are above all else loyal to Obama.
“We know who they are,” Kaine (D-VA) said on a call today for reporters and bloggers. “If we are able to significantly increase by 8 to 10 percent, it can have a sizable affect.”
I asked Kaine how that is different from the party’s attempts to win the governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey last November, and he said that it’s a better strategy now for two reasons. One, Organizing for America has enough boots on the ground and structure in places nationwide to make a difference. Two, the economy has improved and health care reform passed.
“It took us a year to build up this network,” he said. Kaine added that 3 million people did events or made calls for health care, logging 10 million volunteer hours. “The health care win was an enormous energizer for our folks. Their effort has mattered,” he said.
Kaine said on the call that the Democrats will paint the Republicans as wanting to turn back the clock on progress, and will say that the country can’t keep heading in the right direction “if we give it back to the people who got us in the ditch in the first place.” He said the Democrats will be happy to portray the Republicans as birthers calling for Obama to be defeated at Waterloo. They’ll also keep up the GOP-is-obstructionist line, he said.
Kaine said the DNC would spend $20 million of the $50 million campaign on direct cash contributions to candidates.
