Tim Kaine in Detroit: Fighting poverty a moral responsibility

Fighting poverty is one of the defining moral issues of the 2016 elections Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine told a group of about 200 people in Detroit on Tuesday.

"This election is more than just the difference between candidates, although those differences are so stark. This is an election that’s a test of our values,” Kaine said during a nearly hour-long speech at Focus: HOPE. “In a lot of communities, poverty is hiding in plain sight. Wherever it is, we’ve got to challenge ourselves to tackle it.”

During the speech, Kaine outlined the campaign’s three-pillar attack on poverty, including:

• Raising incomes for families, which entails raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, investing in poverty-stricken communities with things like infrastructure improvement projects, and increasing tax credits for child care.
• Making sure communities and homes are safe by fighting things like housing discrimination and predatory lending; ensuring the water and air in places like Flint are safe to consume; and enacting common sense gun control measures like universal background checks.
• And improving education by expanding early childhood development and Head Start programs.

“Our goal is to eliminate lead as a major public health threat in five years,” Kaine said.

► Related: Third Trump-Clinton debate could provide explosive finale

Kaine, a deeply religious man, put the fight against poverty in both economic and Biblical terms, recalling the story of the Good Samaritan who feels a sense of moral obligation to stop and help the man who’s been beaten and left for dead on the side of the road.

“Fighting poverty is a growth strategy. It’s a competitive strategy. But it’s also a moral responsibility. And it’s going to be a defining mission of a Clinton-Kaine administration,” he said. “Here in this country, there are still people on the side of the road and they’re asking for help … The question before us on this election: do we just walk on by, or do we go over and try and help?

“We’re not a nation of people who just walk on by. Hillary Clinton and I, we don’t walk on by. We reach out. We help. Because we know that we’re all neighbors,” Kaine said.

The speech at Focus: HOPE, which was founded by Father William Cunningham and Eleanor Josaitis in 1968 in the wake of the Detroit riots, was a choice made to highlight an organization that is dedicated to fighting poverty through a variety of programs, including job training for those living in poverty.

Kaine was the latest in a long line of surrogates that visited Michigan on behalf of his running mate, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Others who have campaigned for the ticket in recent weeks include Clinton's husband, former President Bill Clinton; daughter Chelsea Clinton; Kaine's wife Anne Holton; former Secretary of State Madeline Albright; Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who beat Clinton in Michigan's March 8 presidential primary; former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who dropped out of the presidential race after the Iowa caucuses; as well as a slew of other high-ranking politicians, actors and actresses and musicians.

The campaign is working to protect and expand Clinton's lead in Michigan that has grown to 11 points in recent weeks as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has been forced to confront multiple controversies. Michigan has been a reliably blue state, giving the Democratic candidate for president the winning majority in every election cycle since 1992.

Trump has given Michigan plenty of attention, hoping to carve a path through the industrial Midwest to the White House. He has visited the state five times since the Republican National Convention in July and was last in Michigan for campaign stops in Grand Rapids and Novi on Sept. 30. His running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, was in Macomb County Monday night to speak at a Republican Party fundraiser.

Michigan Republican Party chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel called Kaine a "shill" for the failed policies of President Barack Obama.

“Michiganders have seen the negative effects of these policies first-hand during the Granholm administration. The country needs a leader who will get our debt under control and help more businesses grow and hire workers over here, not failed liberal talking points that do nothing to fix the problem," she said in a statement.

Contact Kathleen Gray: kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal