(BARF ALERT!)DNC chairman: 'We're going to play for the big win'

“Our panzers will smash through the Ardennes and hurl the allies back to the beaches! Victory is within our grasp, if we but act boldly enough!”

The Hill ^

DNC chairman: 'We're going to play for the big win' By Michael O'Brien - 02/26/11 11:40 AM ET

President Obama isn't playing for a narrow victory in his 2012 reelection effort, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Tim Kaine promised Saturday.

Kaine, speaking to party members in Washington at the DNC's Winter Meeting, said that the president's reelection would kick off sometime in the second quarter of 2011.

That campaign wouldn't be looking, though, to eke out just enough electoral votes to put Obama over the top.

"We're going to play for the big win," Kaine told DNC members, to cheers. "We're going to play in every corner of this country."

Kaine explained that locating the party's 2012 convention in Charlotte, N.C. was part of that strategy. Obama won the state in 2008 despite its having voted mostly for Republicans in previous presidential elections. It may be tough to win again in 2012, but the DNC's decision to locate its convention there signals that Obama plans to play with an expanded map.

"We're going to go into territory that the other guy thinks is theirs," Kaine said.

Kaine also formally announced several developments within the DNC and campaign infrastructure as the reelection effort gets underway in Chicago.

As had previously been reported, the DNC's executive director, Jen O'Malley Dillon, will leave the DNC to work on the reelection. Patrick Gaspard will take her place as executive director at the DNC. Kaine also announced that the DNC's political director, Clyde Williams, will depart for private opportunities in New York.