Clinton, a former secretary of state, will be formally nominated as the party’s presidential candidate at next week’s Democratic convention in Philadelphia.
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While many pundits and political observers were quick to praise Hillary Clinton’s pick of Tim Kaine as her running mate on Friday, the choice wasn’t met with universal acclaim.
Clinton and Kaine will now hit the trail to campaign against the controversial Republican nominee and billionaire Trump, who secured the Republican nomination on Tuesday.
She felt confident perhaps that she could keep left-leaning Democrats on her side while broadening her appeal with a centrist running mate, reach out to those independents and even moderate Republicans turned off by their party’s candidate Donald Trump.
In the end, Mrs. Clinton decided that Mr. Kaine, 58, a former governor of Virginia who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had the qualifications and background, and the personal chemistry with her, to make the ticket a success.
With the pick, Clinton moved into the political spotlight a day after newly crowned Republican nominee Donald Trump closed out his convention with a fiery address accusing his general election opponent of “terrible, awful crimes”. Clinton and Kaine will face Trump and his vice presidential choice, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. Jeff Flake of Arizona: “Trying to count the ways I hate @timkaine”.
Kaine reinforces that the Democratic ticket is your conventional, standard fair, business as usual option, opposed to the unconventional Trump.
Clinton settled on Kaine after vetting a diverse group of candidates that included Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro and Labor Secretary Tom Perez.
At a joint campaign appearance last week in Virginia, which served as a final audition, Clinton stood side-by-side Kaine and beamed as he spoke of her virtues in Spanish.
Alongside Clinton in Miami, Kaine is expected to flex his crossover appeal to young South Florida Latinos as a fluent Spanish speaker and surrogate for Clinton’s outreach to the fastest growing demographic in America.
By picking Kaine, Black said in a statement, the presuptive Democratic nominee has revealed her preferences when it comes to the financial industry and the economy at large.
“Delegates are intensely discussing and considering options”, said Norman Solomon, a San Francisco delegate who called Kaine’s selection “unacceptable”.
Kaine’s selection by Clinton leaves his Senate seat open. And it’s why he was long considered a front-runner in the race to join Hillary Clinton’s presidential ticket.
“Is it the same Kaine that took hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts while Governor of Virginia and didn’t get indicted while Bob M did?”
Tim Kaine as her running mate gives her a safe, if not boring, sidekick who was already winning plaudits in Boston, where he spent time glad-handing Bay State pols just hours before officially bursting into the White House sweepstakes.
According to Ruth Conniff, editor-in-chief of The Progressive magazine speaking to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes when the news broke on Friday, the choice of Kaine will do nothing to excite people who voted for Bernie Sanders.
For his part, Kaine tweeted that he was “honored” to be her running mate.
The Wall Street Journal, citing Democrats familiar with the search, said she was likely to make the announcement on Friday and Kaine was believed to be the pick.
After 10 years working as a civil rights lawyer and lecturer at the University of Richmond’s law school, Kaine mounted a successful campaign for city council from Richmond’s Northside.
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His wife, Anne Holton, is the daughter of a former Virginia governor and is herself a former state judge and the state’s education secretary. They have three children; their eldest son, Nat, is a Marine. “Do you want a trash-talking president or a bridge-building president?”
