DNC chairman isn’t ‘wild about’ Manchin’s cap-and-trade TV ad

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine said he wasn’t “wild about” West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin’s (D) TV ad in which he shoots a copy of the cap-and-trade bill.

“The part that I most don’t like is fixing what’s bad about Obamacare,” he said, referencing Manchin’s comments in the recent ad. “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 any state.”

Kaine said he knows Manchin “very well” but he hadn’t talked about the ad with Manchin.

“Joe and I have worked very well together, he’s been a great governor, and I think he’s going to be a fine U.S. senator,” he said. “But, I’m not wild about [the ad].

“He’s a hell of a shot,” Kaine joked Thursday at a breakfast organized by
the Christian Science Monitor. 

Kaine made headlines in August when he said it was “crazy” for Democratic candidates to distance themselves from President Obama.

The former Virginia governor told reporters Thursday he wants candidates to run on Democratic “accomplishments.” Still, Kaine said, he’s sympathetic to the dynamics of Manchin’s Senate race against Republican John Raese.

“He’s in a little bit of a different spot because he wasn’t a member of the Senate, so if he was a member of the Senate, he should be running on a accomplishments,” Kaine said.

He insisted most Democrats aren’t distancing themselves from the party’s agenda.

“Democrats are running as proud to be Democrats and proud of accomplishments,” he said. “But nobody makes national news by doing an ad that’s saying, ‘Hey, I’m proud of what we did on healthcare.'”

He cited the auto industry bailout and the Lilly Ledbetter Act as two examples of policies Democrats should tout.

“They’ve all got stuff that they can go out and say, ‘Hey look, this is fantastic,’ and most of them are,” he said. “It’s been about five or six races where people have run these ads and those are on national TV, ‘How come all the Democrats are running away from [the party’s agenda],’ that’s not the case. I’m seeing people proud of the Democratic agenda as I go out on the road.”