U.S. Senate candidate Tim Kaine stumped in Huntington on Monday night, painting opponent George Allen as a man who would fail to invest in America and reverse economic gains.

Kaine spent the day touring the state with U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) and stopped at the Huntington phone bank on North Kings Highway at the end of the day. The Democrat and former Virginia governor highlighted his differences with Allen, the Republican candidate and also a former Virginia governor, on growing the economy, shrinking the budget deficit and making Washington work again.

Kaine painted Allen as a candidate who would narrow the deficit by cutting Medicare and Medicaid, education, Pell grants and spending on veterans and defense. He spoke in favor of letting the Bush tax cuts expire.

“If you get some revenue, and then you save some money with some smart savings, you can fix our budgetary problems a right way, a balanced way that involves revenues and cuts,” he said. “I know how to make cuts – I’m the only governor in modern times who left office with a budget smaller than when I started, because of the times I inherited. But there is no way you can cut your way to prosperity.”

No family has ever done that, Kaine said. No business has ever done that.

“As I often like to say, I always, when I look in the mirror, wish I was thinner,” he said. “I never wish I was weaker. I never wish I was weaker. And an all-cuts approach is like looking in the mirror and wishing you were weaker. We’ve got to be stronger. We’ve got to be tougher. We’ve got to make the investments to do that."

He also spoke of the need to find common ground in politics. He painted Allen as a “name-caller."

“I know one thing to a rock-solid certainty,” he said. “We don’t need more of that in Washington to fix what’s wrong with Washington. We’re not going to fix Washington by fighting with each other. We’re going to fix Washington by listening and working together.”

Kaine thanked volunteers, whom he contrasted to large donors to super-PACs. 

“You are what is standing between maintaining a tradition of person-to-person politics in this country and a brave new world of super-PACs and negative ads and undisclosed secret money,” he said. “We do not make to make the wrong choice when it comes to that choice. And we want to hold on to what is so fantastic about this great American political system we have, and what’s fantastic about it is exactly what you’re doing by being here tonight.”

U.S. Rep Jim Moran (D-8th) also spoke, praising Warner and Kaine for encouraging research, development and innovation during their stints as governor and stumping for Kaine.

“(Warner) has made us tremendously proud,” Moran said. “But, the way we repay the favor right now is to give him a colleague, a partner, somebody that he can work with day in and day out, that shares his values, that shares the principles of the Democratic Party, the principles that have made this state the success it was during the Warner and Kaine administrations.”

Warner encouraged volunteers to spread the word about how, under President Obama, every citizen has a fair shot at success.

“We are fighting not only candidates who have opposing views, but we’re also fighting something, that, quite honestly, that is unprecedented in American political history. And that is just (that) this campaign season is awash full of money from unrecorded sources, that think somehow they can make all of you, and all of us, quite honestly, irrelevant.”

“They can,” cried a man from the audience.

“They can’t,” Warner countered. “And we’ve got to send a message that that kind of approach to our government, to our politics, we categorically reject,” he told a cheering crowd.

Listening Monday was campaign volunteer Maribel Ramos of Alexandria, who said she supports Kaine in particular for his record on women’s rights.

“I think it was great,” she said. “I think he’s right as far as we need to show our support and ensure that our calls, and our door-knocking, are making a difference versus the other side, who really wants to buy people’s votes. I feel that that one-on-one contact with individuals and ensuring they know the difference between the two candidates is very important.”

Warner and Kaine also campaigned Monday in Norfolk, Richmond, Fredricksburg, Manassas and Dale City.