CNN "Larry King Live" - Transcript

Interview

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L. KING: There's a popular Democrat in Virginia tonight. It's the outgoing governor. He's Tim Kaine. He's also chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

A simple question, Tim -- what happened?

GOV. TIM KAINE (D), VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Well, Larry, it was tough. You know, the party that wins the White House, for the last 24 years, has lost both the New Jersey and Virginia governorships the next year.

And we are disappointed in Virginia. It was a rematch race. Our candidate, Creigh Deeds, had run four years ago against Bob McDonnell and lost. We knew he was the underdog. We've been putting a lot of underdogs up and winning a lot of races in Virginia. It just didn't work out this time.

But we are very excited about the way things are going in New Jersey. We hope we're going to be able to announce that we -- we've broken that 24 year record by actually picking up a race. But obviously, we're not going to know for a little while.

And we're also watching very carefully the New York 23 race, because we think the schism between the Republican Party, between the moderates and the conservatives, which is such a key feature there, and was also a feature in the New Jersey race, is a story that's going to continue to play out over the next months.

L. KING: Will where does Tim Kaine go from here?

KAINE: Well, the president arm twisted me a year ago, Larry, to be the chairman of the Democratic Party. And so that will be my job, basically supporting this popular president.

Exit polls in both New Jersey and Virginia today showed the president is more popular today than he was a year ago when he was elected. In Virginia, he's -- his approval rating is at 57 percent of the registered voters, which is very strong. And so my job as chairman of the Democratic Party, going forward, is doing all I can to help this president succeed and help great Democrats who work with the president get elected.

We are, again, really excited about seeing what happens in New Jersey and New York 23. The Republican trend would have been that they would have won all of these races, based upon the last 24 years experience. But we're hoping to break that string tonight.

L. KING: Why do you think, despite his popularity, as you pointed out, he wasn't able to pull through for the Democratic candidate in your state?

KAINE: Well, the -- the president came twice to Virginia and he campaigned very vigorously for Senator Deeds. Again, he has a 57 percent approval rating. And that did energize folks.

But I think we recognized going into this, since Creigh had run against Bob McDonnell four years ago and lost -- it was a narrow loss, but he did lose -- he started after the primary with an empty bank account in June running against a statewide officeholder who had had four years to build up statewide name recognition.

So, you know, Creigh was the underdog candidate. Now, we're used to running underdogs and winning, Larry. I know that you know when I got into the governor's office four years ago, we had two Republican senators. We've got two Democrats now. We had a Congressional delegation that was 8-3 Republican. It's 6-5 Democratic now.

We've been winning a lot of races, but not every underdog wins. And Creigh ran a -- you know, just a -- a very solid race. He's a great public servant. But at the end of the day, he couldn't make this rematch work against Bob McDonnell.

L. KING: Thanks, Governor.

Always good seeing you, we'll be calling on you again.

Governor Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia and chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

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