Kaine: Trump making excuses for his own problems
ASHEVILLE – Don't take a Hillary Clinton victory for granted and don't let Donald Trump get close enough to victory that he can blame a defeat on anyone else, Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine told students and others at UNC Asheville on Wednesday.
After spending his campaign criticizing group after group, "Now (Trump) is attacking American democracy itself," the Virginia senator told about 500 people at an outdoor rally.
"Donald Trump is now perpetrating the lie that, 'Oh the election is all set against me,'" Kaine said. "We know what’s going on: He’s losing.
"Donald Trump has never been willing to take responsibility for anything, so it’s not like he’s going to stand up and say, 'Well, I lost. I guess must have run a divisive campaign.' ... If he loses, it’s going to be somebody else’s fault, and so he’s going around saying the election’s set against him."
Kaine made his second campaign appearance in Asheville this year to, as the slogan on the row of painted pumpkins in front of the lectern said, encourage supporters to "Vote early." North Carolina's early voting period begins Thursday. Kaine is scheduled to visit Charlotte and Durham then to push early voting.
The appearance also came hours before the third and final debate between the presidential candidates.
Most polls give Kaine's running mate a small edge in the state, but he said no one should count on a Clinton victory here in one of the nation's biggest battleground states or nationwide.
Noting that Clinton would be the country's first female president, he said, "If it had been easy to elect a woman president, it would have been done before."
Kaine said the election will define what kind of country the United States is and how the rest of the world will view it.
He ticked off several issues where he said there are clear differences between the Clinton-Kaine ticket and Trump and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
Climate change "isn’t a tomorrow issue, it’s today’s," he said, saying the dramatic flooding from Hurricane Matthew in the eastern part of the state fits with predictions of more unusual weather accompanying global warming.
"We see these extreme storm events getting more and more frequent," he said.
But Trump, he said, has said climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.
Clinton and Kaine want to invest in infrastructure and increase wages, Kaine said.
But Trump's focus "is tax cuts for the wealthiest. He’s even said American wages are too high."
Clinton and Kaine favor giving women the choice on abortion and other health issues, would support equal pay for women and have plans to ease college debt. Trump, he said, "cannot look at a woman and see an equal. He can look at a woman and see a half-person and half-object."
Security removed two protesters, one of whom shouted "Bill Clinton is a rapist" while being escorted out.
Kaine's appearances look to be intended to shore up what polls suggest is some weakness among younger voters.
Most millennials, five of six, interviewed at the rally said they were not initially Clinton supporters. And most voted for Clinton’s Democratic primary opponent, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. But they now have no qualms about supporting the former secretary of state. All but one were UNC Asheville students.
Issues important to them included maintaining momentum for social changes, electing the first female president, foreign policy, raising the minimum wage and reducing college debt.
Amy Castle, 21, said it was not difficult to switch her support after the primary.
“I agree with her a lot," she said. "I was having a hard time deciding between her and Bernie anyway. And I think she’s a perfectly good candidate.”
Brandon Hanke, 20, a women’s studies major, also voted for Sanders, but said he has “no animosity for her. I really like her” and as a self-described feminist, he is excited at the idea of having a woman president.
Phoebe Schneider, 20, was the one longtime Clinton supporter, saying she agrees with “a lot of her moderate ideas.”
“I’ve been way more aligned with her campaign,” Schneider said.
Keenan Devany, 21, said he favored no one candidate until the primary. Now, as a Spanish major and someone interested in foreign affairs, he said Clinton would do a better job on the world stage than Trump.
“I just feel like she’d be able to handle the foreign affairs much more effectively,” Devany said.
Graham Gallagher, 26, had just finished graduate school for political science at American University in Washington and said he was looking for a job and worried about college debt.
Gallagher said he was a “committed democratic socialist” like Sanders and supports boosts to the minimum wage and more unionization.
“I’ve been reluctant Clinton supporter, but she will at least help get us there. And that is important.”
