PHILADELPHIA -- Tim Kaine appeared comfortable as he told jokes during a breakfast speech before the Virginia delegation at the Democratic National Convention Wednesday morning.
Kaine will deliver the most important speech of his life Wednesday evening at the convention as he introduces himself to voters around the country.
The vice presidential nominee and his wife Anne Holton;received a thunderous cheer after Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe introduced the couple at the breakfast.
After telling a few jokes and thanking everyone in the room, Kaine focused his remarks on Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Kaine, a U.S. Senator who previously served as both governor of Virginia and mayor of Richmond, attacked Trump for not releasing his tax returns and his past comments about women.
"How many times have women stood to support male candidates and male presidents and been rock solid in support of them," Kaine said. "I think it's great for men to be able to stand and support strong women leaders all across this nation."
Kaine also went after Trump's lack of international diplomatic experience.
"We say we're a Commonwealth, we got to live like a Commonwealth," Kaine said. "There is nothing about the phrase Commonwealth that has any relation to the me-first attitude of a Donald Trump."
Trump and his campaign pounced on the Virginia senator as an opportunity to draw a fresh contrast between Trump's outsider brand and Clinton's status as a decades-long Washington insider -- a contrast Trump drew successfully time and again with his GOP primary opponents.
"If we went to central casting for someone who gives us the clearest contrast against the Trump-Pence ticket, they couldn't have picked a better person from our perspective," a senior Trump adviser said. "They are doubling down on the status quo. They are doubling down on the system as it currently stands."
