This week during the Democratic National Convention, all eyes will be on Tim Kaine – Hillary Clinton’s pick for vice president, and her running mate for the remainder of the 2016 election. “He is ready to step into this job and lead on day one”.
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After a bruising primary campaign in which Bernie Sanders threatened Clinton’s front-runner status by painting her as a friend of the financial industry, Clinton faced pressure from within the party to show her willingness to hold banks accountable. Bernie fought for nothing!. The two only briefly posed for photos at their campaign kickoff.
Clinton, 68, acknowledged in an interview earlier this week that even Kaine admits he is boring, and said she did not mind. 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. “It’s great he speaks Spanish – he’s able to communicate with our community”.
“Behind that smile Tim also has a backbone of steel”. When he was Virginia’s governor in 2007, he said that advocates of protectionism have a “loser’s mentality”.
In 2013, Kaine helped initiate a letter to the president backed by AIPAC urging intensified sanctions to force Iran to suspend its suspected nuclear weapons program. Clinton praised the deal when she was secretary of state, but has since distanced herself from it.
Kaine, 58, is a married father of three with a son in the Marines who is about to deploy to Europe.
“I’m a Catholic, and Hillary’s a Methodist but I tell you, her creed is the same as mine, do all the good you can”, says Kaine. The couple planned to attend 9 a.m. Florida is the nation’s premier battleground state, and the bilingual Kaine is likely to be a valuable asset in Spanish-language media as the campaign appeals to Hispanic Americans turned off by Trump’s harsh rhetoric about immigrants.
Trump, in a text to his own supporters, said Obama, Clinton and Kaine were “the ultimate insiders” and implored voters to not “let Obama have a 3rd term”.
On Twitter a few seconds later, Clinton described Kaine as “a man who’s devoted his life to fighting for others”.
The Democratic National Committee offered its “deep and honest apology” to Bernie Sanders, his supporters and the entire party for what it calls “the inexcusable remarks made over email”. “Bernie fought for nothing!”
As governor of the state, Kaine accepted about $160,000 (£122,000) worth of gifts from political supporters, which was legal under the state’s lax gift laws. It came at a crucial moment for Clinton’s campaign, on the heels of leaked emails suggesting the party had favored the former secretary of state through the primaries despite a vow of neutrality. “He was a world-class mayor, governor and senator and is one of the most highly respected senators I know”.
Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, asked the Virginia senator to join the ticket Friday night.
“The next president is going to be the one celebrating 100 years of women getting the right to vote”, Kaine said. “His life has been those kinds of choices”.
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And the biggest difference between Kaine and McDonnell is the latter never disclosed his gifts, and there were real accusations of quid pro quo in his case.
