The pick comes three days before the start of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where Clinton – and now Kaine – will be elevated as the nominees to the party’s presidential ticket.
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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.
Kaine, whom Clinton selected as her running mate on Friday, is “definitely a liberal”, Huckabee said, but added he is still going to disenfranchise Bernie Sanders voters. Clinton and Kaine will be stronger together on the campaign trail, particularly in Trump must-win states of Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida.
Peter Daou, a former adviser to Clinton who now owns a media company, said Kaine’s speech would turn around some of the doubters about the choice.
He is “a leader who cares more about making a difference than making headlines”, Clinton said.
Her announcement was followed within minutes by another in Spanish. Kaine was at a fundraiser in Newport, Rhode Island.
“We both grew up in the Midwest, we were raised by fathers who ran small businesses”, says Clinton.
Kaine said that voters should judge politicians by examining their biographies to “see if they have a passion in their life long before they got into politics. a passion that’s not about themselves”. He went to Harvard law school, but before graduating served a year as a missionary in Honduras. “When he was governor, Tim Kaine took positions we disagreed with and actively campaigned against”.
Fellow Virginia Democrats quickly rallied round.
Kaine lost no time in showing off his fluent Spanish at a campus dominated by Hispanic students and faculty.
But he also gave a mini-stump speech, which included pointing out the importance of Virginia in presidential politics, from its history of nurturing early presidents to its current status as a battleground state.
“Virginia’s loss will be the country’s gain”, he said.
“And while we’re on the subject of taxes, where are Donald Trump’s tax returns?”, Kaine asked the large crowd at FIU.
Clinton has come under fire herself from black activists for her past support for tough-on-crime policies of the 1990s now blamed for a surge in USA prison population and heightened tensions between law enforcement and black communities. “Drawing a blank. Congats to a good man and a good friend”.
Clinton tried to reassure party liberals about Kaine, offering an extended list of his efforts on behalf of low-income workers, education and civil rights, and for expanded gun control laws and immigration reform.
“I think that he is a man who knows, who’s had a lot of experience, who would be an excellent asset to Hillary”, Goldfeld said.
Clinton and her vice-presidential nominee were received with resounding applause by those attending the Miami meeting in a packed auditorium at Florida International University, or FIU. It’s been tarnished by recent political corruption cases that have implicated many Democrats across the state.
Clinton announced Friday that Virginia Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a favorite of the party’s left wing. She was in Miami, making her first joint appearance with Virginia Senator Tim Kaine since naming him to be her running mate.
Childhood: Kaine grew up in the Kansas City area.
Clinton tells a campaign crowd in Miami that behind Kaine’s smile is a “backbone of steel”.
“We’re thinking about letting him get a solo”, Williford said.
Both he and Clinton drove home what is emerging as a key campaign message: that Trump is a deeply divisive figure with despotic tendencies – and that Clinton is his polar opposite.
“Optimism always beats pessimism in an election”, he said.
DNC and Sanders campaign officials weren’t immediately available for comment.
“There is no doubt in my mind, because I’m here with him, that Tim is so qualified to be vice president”, Clinton said.
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“Do you want a “you’re fired” president or a “you’re hired” president?” You just can’t find anyone with a bad thing to say about him, from the staff who’ve worked for him to the Republicans who’ve served alongside him. “That it’s not the bridge fuel everyone thought, that using eminent domain to build export pipelines has to end, and that if we are going to live up to our climate goals we cannot keep building pipelines and digging up fossil fuels”.
