Sorry, progressives, Kaine is the smart choice for VP
Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine is not Mr. Excitement, as he’d be the first to say, but he is the smartest vice presidential pick Hillary Clinton could have made.
Kaine is not going to fire up the Bernie-or-bust crowd and he is, there’s no way to avoid noticing, a middle-age white guy. But he does have the virtue of checking every other box on Clinton’s wish list — starting with the confidence that, as she put it Saturday in Miami, her running mate “is qualified to step into (the presidency) and lead on Day One.”
She called that her top priority. It is ours as well.
If résumé is destiny, Kaine was inevitable. He is, as he noted Saturday, one of only 20 people who’ve been a mayor, a governor and a senator. As governor, he even had to prove himself in the tragic role presidents must play all too often, as consoler in chief after a mass shooting (the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre). In the Senate, he has become a student of war and foreign policy.
Kaine’s political credentials are also unmatched. A former national party chairman and a former Catholic missionary to Honduras, he has never lost an election and has a solid approval rating in his state. He speaks fluent Spanish, as he demonstrated Saturday at his first official event, the Miami rally with Clinton. He comes from an important swing state with 13 electoral votes — more than twice as many as Iowa (home of another finalist, former governor and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack). And, key to Democratic dreams of a Senate majority, Kaine’s successor would be named by a Democrat, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
Low-maintenance and low-key, Kaine, 58, isn’t a partisan pit bull. But Clinton will have plenty of willing and ferocious attackers.
Those on the populist left would have much preferred a progressive firebrand such as Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren on the ticket with Clinton. Instead, they’re stuck with Kaine, who is personally opposed to abortion ( but has a pro-choice voting record) and who has been enthusiastic about trade agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Kaine’s abrupt post-selection transformation into a TPP foe is unconvincing. But the reality of Donald Trump may help drive up turnout among Sanders holdouts, even if the Democratic ticket is all they never wanted.
Kaine’s other potential looming liability is his acceptance of $160,000 in legal gifts when he held state office. His aides say most of the money was for workrelated travel, there has been no question of any quid pro quo, and he went well beyond requirements for both disclosure and reimbursement. Trump, who was already launching broadsides to capitalize on widespread mistrust of Clinton, immediately expanded them to include Kaine.
Like Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, his Republican counterpart, Kaine brings a steady temperament and unpretentious personality to the race. Self-deprecation in a candidate is an attractive quality, one that Pence displayed last week in his Cleveland convention speech. But as close as they are to the perfect VPs, neither Kaine nor Pence can solve the real problem plaguing both their parties: a flawed, unpopular nominee at the top of the ticket.