Kaine calls Trump a desperate loser

MIAMI — Sen. Tim Kaine, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, mocked Donald Trump Saturday as a "loser" who claims the election is rigged against him in order to spin the inevitable for his supporters and cushion the coming blow to his ego.

"He's blaming everybody. It's the media's fault, it's the GOP's fault," Kaine said at an outdoor rally in Liberty City, a predominantly African American neighborhood. "Now that he thinks he's gonna lose, he's going around saying, 'Oh, the whole thing is rigged. It's just rigged against me. Poor me!"

The Virginia senator urged residents to register to vote if they have not already done so, taking advantage of Florida's Oct. 18 deadline, extended because of Hurricane Matthew. Those who are registered should vote early, he said.

But Kaine also gave the Clinton campaign's first detailed response to Trump's escalating claims that a corrupt elite is conspiring to deny him victory. In the GOP candidate's view, that's why the news media are airing a flurry of accusations from women who say he sexually assaulted them. He has dismissed the reports as false and derided the women.

Trump's complaints - and the anger the prospect of a stolen election is inspiring in his followers - threaten to delegitimize not only a possible Clinton win, but the democratic process itself, critics say. In the first debate, Trump had promised to "absolutely support her" if she defeats him.

Clinton's data-driven strategists calculate that about 40 percent of votes in battleground states  will be cast early, and the campaign is pushing hard to get its identified supporters to take advantage where it is offered. For instance, President Obama traveled to Columbus, Ohio and Cleveland Thursday to nudge voters because fewer early ballots had been returned in the first day of early by-mail voting than was the case in 2012.

Early voting makes it easier for a campaign's field staff and volunteers to turn out newly registered and infrequent voters.

"We actually think that states like Nevada, North Carolina and Florida could be decided before Election Day," Robby Mook, Clinton's campaign manager, said in a conference call with reporters last week. If efforts to turn out Clinton supporters early work as designed, "we could build an insurmountable lead in those states," Mook said.

Kaine spoke from the bed of a Ford F-150 pickup truck in a gravel parking lot, in jeans, rolled-up shirtsleeves and Ray-Bans, introduced by rapper Pusha T.

U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson (D., Fla.) warned against letting rain or time pressures keep them from going to the polls, and reminded the crowd that early voting is a good way to avoid long lines and other inconveniences.

"If you don't vote, you will live to regret it," she said, noting the importance of the next president's Supreme Court appointments.

In-person early voting begins Oct. 24 in Miami-Dade County. About 200,000 ballots have already been cast by mail in Florida, which both sides consider must-win.

Kaine portrayed voting for Clinton as a defense of democracy itself from Trump's claims of a rigged system.

"We gotta make sure that the margin that he loses by is so big and so clear and so powerful and so unmistakable, that when he stands up and says, 'Poor me, it was rigged against me' — nobody will believe him," Kaine said.