Kaine puts jobs front, center at Las Vegas union hall rally

Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine made a jobs-focused pitch for running mate Hillary Clinton at a Las Vegas union hall today, where he rallied 200 or so supporters.

Kaine, speaking at the training center for the local branch of the Plumbers, Pipefitters, and Service Technicians, offered a counterpunch to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s economic proposals on a host of issues such as the minimum wage and trade deals. His Las Vegas visit, his first as Clinton’s running mate, also served to underscore Nevada’s importance as a swing state in the November election.

Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence appeared in Henderson last week, and both presidential candidates have return trips to Nevada slated for the end of the week.

“I’m not here by accident,” Kaine said. “Nevada is really, really important.”

Recent polls have placed Trump and Clinton neck and neck in a number of swing states, including Nevada. The country has been “living in a season of surprises,” in which polls and pundits have been wrong, Kaine said, stressing the importance of every vote.

"You’re the underdog till they call you the winner; Democrats know this,” the Virginia senator said. "We are underdogs and we love fighting for underdogs.”

Against the backdrop of the union hall, Kaine called jobs and the economy “probably the central issue of the campaign,” asking crowd members whether they want a “you’re fired” president, like Trump, or a “you’re hired” president, like Clinton.

He said politicians need to take a lesson from unions, like the plumbers and pipefitters, and support career and technical training.

“It’s not all about a college degree,” Kaine said.

He also called raising the federal minimum wage a “fundamental issue of values,” saying that no one who works full time in this country should be below the poverty level. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour; Nevada’s is $8.25.

Kaine framed Trump as unstable and highlighted cases in which the Republican's interests stiffed small businesses they were working with, as reported by The Wall Street Journal and others.

"Trump knows that small businesses don’t have the phalanx of lawyers that can go up against his big operation in court,” Kaine said.

He called paying taxes a “patriotic” responsibility and suggested Trump is hiding something in his refusal to release his tax returns. He also accused Trump of “tax trickery” in his proposed tax plan.

Kaine appealed to crowd members to reach out to friends, co-workers and classmates about voting for Clinton, saying that the one thing voters haven’t tuned out is “the value of the word from a friend” — offering the same pitch Pence made in Nevada last week.

“We've got to win this race, and I feel good about it, I’ll be honest with you,” Kaine said. "I’d rather be us than them."

Several Democratic officials and party leaders attended, including former Clark County commissioner and longtime Clinton supporter Rory Reid, Nevada State Democratic Party Executive Director Zach Zaragoza, state Sen. Mo Denis and Assemblyman Elliot Anderson.

Opening the rally, Anderson, a military veteran, juxtaposed Kaine’s son, who is a Marine, with Trump and the remarks Trump has made about the Khan family, whose son died serving in the U.S. military in Iraq in 2004.

“Tim and his family are everything Donald Trump is not,” Anderson said.

Local cafe owner Stacey Dougan, also speaking before the rally, said Clinton would be an advocate for her as a small-business owner, a woman of color, a single mother and a Nevadan.

"As a restaurant owner I also need a president who can keep our economy strong because when our economy is strong, our customers keep coming back,” Dougan said.

Former President Bill Clinton visited Dougan's restaurant, Simply Pure Vegan Cafe in Container Park, and Dougan appeared on a childcare panel alongside Hillary Clinton at CSN Cheyenne before the February caucuses.

Before the union rally, Kaine spoke at the ironworkers’ annual convention at the Mirage, where he highlighted his union upbringing. Kaine’s father, who was at both the convention and the rally, owned a union-organized ironworking and welding shop in Kansas City, Mo.

At the convention, Kaine highlighted the importance of unions in “building an economy that works for everybody.” He said he and Clinton would invest in American manufacturing, make trade deals that help American companies, and make investments stateside to make American businesses more competitive abroad.

Zeroing in on Las Vegas, Kaine highlighted the ongoing efforts of Trump International Hotel employees to unionize, saying that Trump “doesn’t get” unions.

“Donald Trump sees labor unions not as a positive force in workers’ lives but as an obstacle standing in his way,” Kaine said.

He said Trump’s supporters believe their candidate "is a friend of the little guy and he’ll stick it to the richer.”

But, Kaine cautioned, “we cannot afford to be tricked by Trump," adding that he and Clinton would focus on “building an economy that works for everybody."