Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine is expected to lay out the Democratic Party's plan to energize its base today at a Christian Science Monitor luncheon, where he will promise to spend $50 million to counter the "political headwind."
Leaked excerpts to various media organizations today indicate it will be a tough speech that will inevitably invite a conservative backlash, especially when Kaine is expected to say that some of that $50 million will be spent on recruiting and training attorneys and law students to monitor polling places and guard against voter-supression efforts.
The plan is also to re-ignite support with the party's black and latino voters.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Kaine has been telling audiences (and repeated it this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe) that part of the Republican Party's plan has been to deliberately undermine President Obama, as he refers to the "birther" movement, and specifically, Florida Republican Congressman Bill Posey's bill (the Presidential Eligibility Act, which would require presidential candidates to show they were born in the U.S.).
A spokesman for Posey insists the bill is not targeting Barack Obama.
Kaine will reportedly also allude to GOP obstructionism as a strategy today in his speech:
Republicans have obstructed the President and worked to defeat his and the Democrats’ agenda for one primary reason – political calculation. They have placed their own politics above progress on our nation’s most pressing issues. Americans expect and appreciate a loyal opposition Party whose opposition is based in principle and genuine policy differences. But, we know for a fact that the Republicans set out before President Obama was even sworn into office with a plan to obstruct his agenda at all costs, no matter what the details, and notwithstanding that the American public wants to see meaningful cooperation at a time of significant economic crisis. From saying they wanted the President to fail and to break him politically, to trying to obstruct everything from health reform and the jobs bill, to blocking Administration appointments to sensitive national security posts, Republicans have failed to offer any positive vision for the country and instead just decided to go all in on a strategy of fighting again.
This article appears in Apr 28 – May 4, 2010.