Kaine calls for extra effort to secure Braley win

CEDAR RAPIDS - It's coming down to crunchtime, and Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine hopes that his encouragement to Democratic volunteers provides the winning advantage for Democratic U.S. Rep. Bruce Braley.

'This is probably going to be one of the closest races in the country,” the freshman senator said Monday morning after meeting with six military veterans in Cedar Rapids.

So he did four events Monday to encourage volunteers to make the extra effort to get every voter to the polls.

'If I can convince a few people to make a few more phone calls or take an hour or two more to volunteer in the closing stretch ... that is going to be the determinant of who wins,” said Kaine, who served as governor of Virginia before being elected to the Senate two years ago.

Kaine, a member of the Armed Services Committee, told members of a veterans support group that voters care about veterans' issues - those returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan and scandals in the Department of Veterans Affairs.

'I think what people care about is whether you support veterans,” he said. 'The best way to determine that is voting record and advocacy.”

Braley, who is running against Republican state Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iraq War veteran, has a 'really good” voting record on veterans' issues, Kaine said.

Earlier in Davenport, Kaine said with Americans on edge over Ebola, voters should ask themselves whether they want leaders who deal with world crises with calm and confidence, or those who 'stoke up more angst and fear and panic.”

He accused Republicans of leveraging Americans' anxiety to gain a political edge.

'They try to take advantage of any situation they can to suggest, ‘Oh, look, the sky is falling, because of this disease in Africa,'” he said. 'How about a humanitarian response? How about feeling proud that it's the U.S. leading the humanitarian response? That's important.”

That drew a sharp rebuke from a GOP spokesman.

'That sort of talk is what's wrong with Washington and why we need a fresh voice like Joni Ernst,” said Jahan Wilcox, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Iowa. 'Anybody who thinks the Administration's response to Ebola is adequate clearly has spent too much time in Washington and not enough time following the news.”

The White House and Braley have been reactive, rather than proactive, Wilcox said.

Ed Tibbetts of the Quad City Times contributed to this report.