For Kaine, a Tour and an Economic Plan

By Shane Goldmacher  //  April 4, 2012 | 4:25 p.m.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine rolled out a three-point economic plan on Wednesday and began barnstorming the state alongside Democratic Sen. Mark Warner -- the man he hopes to join in the Senate.

Kaine and Warner hopscotched the state by airplane, from Norfolk to northern Virginia to Richmond, for a series of roundtables.

"We're going to have someone else in the trenches," Warner said, pitching Kaine's election to a group of business leaders gathered at OPower, an energy firm in Arlington.

Kaine, who followed Warner into the governor's suite in Virginia, joked it was one of the first times Warner didn't call him the state's potential "junior senator." Kaine served under Warner as lieutenant governor in Richmond and two have an curious dynamic on the stump together, both deferential and desirous of the spotlight.

Kaine's economic agenda offered few specifics, but he outlined broadly efforts to encourage growth in the economy, including through infrastructure spending, to lure a talented workforce and to push a balanced approach to budgeting that includes a combination of sending reductions and new taxes. "I do not believe we're going to get to balance just through cuts," Kaine said. During the roundtable Kaine pledged to join the Gang of Six as a senator to seek a grand bargain for the nation's long-term fiscal problem. More specifically, Kaine said would prefer a deficit-reduction ratio of roughly $2-3 in cuts for every new dollar in taxes. Though Kaine is the former head of DNC, he cast himself as a politician who "never let disagreement poison the relationship" with the other side of the aisle. He made no mention of his likely GOP opponent, former Virginia Sen. George Allen, who has spent the early-going of the campaign trying to peg Kaine as a party-line Democrat who would be "President Obama's senator." Wednesday marked the first day of a two-week long tour of the state for Kaine.

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