DNC Chairman Kaine on Health Care: ‘This is Going to be a Great Thing Politically’

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports: President Obama said earlier this week that he'd "leave it to others to sift through the politics" of health care reform. DNC Chairman Tim Kaine is doing that sifting, and he’s got an answer: “My gut is telling me that the politics of getting a health bill done are good for two reasons,” Kaine told us on ABC’s “Top Line” today. “Once people see the benefits and then they realize that, ‘Hey wait, I don’t see death panels, you know, lurking at the door, and I don’t see rationing going on’ — once they see that the bogeyman arguments that the other guy created are nonexistent, that will help.”
“The second thing that’s going to be helpful too, though, is kind of a bigger tone issue. You know, there’s a lot of folks who feel like Washington’s broken and can’t do the big things, that it just gets bogged down and even on the small things, it gets bogged down. But this health reform has been something that seven presidents have tried. None have even been able to get a bill through a single committee. I think the passage of a meaningful reform that will do good for the American citizens will make people feel like, ‘Hey, they can do some heavy lifting. They are doing some heavy lifting to help us.’ And I think that’s going to create some positive effect as well.” Critical for the DNC, Kaine said, will be to show wavering Democrats that the party — primarily through its grassroots arm, Organizing for America — stands ready to back them up on votes for health care reform. “What we really want to do is just convince members: Look, if you do this reform, the individual elements of this plan are all popular with the American public,” Kaine said. “If you ask them generally about the plan, they’ve got more questions, because the other side has thrown so much dust up in the air. “When we make this happen, and people immediately see the benefits that are going to come their way, I think this is going to be a great thing politically for the Dems. And we’re trying to show members that they’ve got their constituents behind them if they vote with the president,” Kaine said. Republicans, he said, are going to be held to account for standing in the way of reform: “They’re going to have to answer to the voters for that. I don’t think the voters are going to reward it — I think the voters want people working to do the heavy lifting now, so that we can turn the economy around and, you know, get the nation back on the path it needs to be on.” “But … if they’re going to stand on the sidelines and say no and throw rocks, it’s on the Democrats to govern right now,” Kaine said. “The burden of governing is on our shoulders and we’re doing it and they’re going to have to answer for standing on the sidelines and throwing rocks.” He also deflected questions about Democrats’ ethics woes, saying comparisons to 2006 aren’t accurate. “I think folks were asking me about the ’05-’06 analogy, and I really don’t think it holds,” said Kaine, who was elected Virginia’s governor in 2005. “What we were seeing back then was a series of scandals that were sort of national in implication, with the [Tom] DeLay and [Jack] Abramoff and the [Mark] Foley scandals that were linking in tons of folks. It is going to be a tough year for us but look, we’re going to get healthcare done.” He added: “The president is governing at a very challenging time, but I think the success story is going to build block by block. And we’ll surprise some people.” Kaine also weighed in on the much-maligned PowerPoint presentation for RNC donors that was leaked earlier this week, saying that his counterpart at the Republican National Committee “needs to clean house” to show his disapproval for the document’s characterizations. Watch the “Top Line” interview with DNC Chairman Tim Kaine HERE.   We also checked in with Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times on the political landscape, and the president’s final push for health care reform. Watch that segment of ”Top Line” HERE.