How Clinton chose Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate
Hillary Clinton’s search for a vice-president started with a commanding victory in the New York primary and a special delivery in a plastic Duane Reade bag. Three months later, it ended with a phone call to a shipyard office, where Virginia Senator Tim Kaine was waiting.
From the start, Kaine was a front-runner to join Clinton on the Democratic ticket. A senator, former Virginia governor and mayor of Richmond, he hails from a top battleground state and, as a fluent Spanish speaker, could help in another: Florida. Victories in both would likely put the White House out of the reach of Donald Trump and his running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
But Clinton grew personally comfortable with the likable and even-keeled Kaine as they campaigned together in recent weeks and discussed the vice presidency. Clinton ultimately concluded that she had “unshakeable confidence in Kaine’s readiness to do the job”, according to a Clinton aide familiar with her thinking. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the private deliberations over her selection.
It wasn’t an easy decision. Clinton was also drawn to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor who remained in the running until the end. A person close to the campaign, also speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations, said Clinton had a hard time not choosing her longtime family friend and political loyalist.
Campaign chair John Pod esta started the process after Clinton’s convincing victory over Democratic rival Bernie Sanders in April’s New York primary, dropping off binders of information with Clinton at her home in Chappaqua, New York. The information on potential running mates was delivered in a bag from Duane Reade, a New Yorkdrugstore.
As Clinton dealt with an up-and-down series of primary contests against Sanders, her team delved deeply into several potential running mates, scouring public information and ultimately asking a select few to provide detailed financial and personal information, and consent to interviews.
Clinton’s team maintained a tight control over the information. Her screeners included Washington attorney James Hamilton, former State Department chief of staff Cheryl Mills and Podesta, along with a group of attorneys and top aides.
Clinton and Kaine met that evening at her Washington home for 90 minutes, and she invited Kaine and his wife, Virginia Education Secretary Anne Holton, to her home in Chappaqua two days later. This time, lunch was served and the Kaines joined Bill Clinton and the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea, and son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsky.
Kaine’s name remained at the top of the speculation for vicepresident, but he kept his head down, telling reporters that he enjoyed being senator. He started the day of his selection at a fundraiser in Boston and then traveled to Newport, Rhode Island, to headline a fundraiser for the state’s Democratic senator, JackReed.
Podesta and a small team of campaign aides, meanwhile, slipped out of their Brooklyn headquarters in a freight elevator and flew to Rhode Island aboard a private plane to meet Kaine. When they arrived in Newport, they waited in their carina beach front parking lot— Podesta was wearing a suit and didn’t want to draw suspicion.
The offer finally came in a 7:32 pm EDT phone call from Clinton, who was in a holding room after wrapping up a rally at the Florida state fairgrounds in Tampa. Kaine took the call in a shipyard office in Newport strewn with rope and boating equipment, and he quickly accepted.