“Tim Kaine is everything Donald Trump and Mike Pence are not”, Clinton told the audience before introducing her new running mate.
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Kaine joined Clinton on stage Saturday afternoon at their first joint campaign event in Miami, Florida.
The most important criteria in her choice was Kaine’s fitness to immediately assume the presidency, Clinton said, in rejecting criticism from some progressives that he’s not a fighter for their causes.
But Clinton warned the crowd: “Make no mistake, behind that smile, Tim also has a backbone of steel”. She said, Kaine is, “everything Donald Trump and Mike Pence are not”.
Earlier this month, Kaine campaigned with Clinton in Virginia, previewing what the Democratic ticket would look like.
Kaine peppered his speech with Spanish, telling the crowd, “Somos Americanos todos” – “We are all Americans” – an implied dig at Trump and his attacks on immigrants.
“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. “Hillary Clinton is the direct opposite of Donald Trump”.
Kaine has maintained a relatively low profile in the Senate, and he is unlikely to initially convince many supporters of Bernie Sanders to throw themselves fully behind Clinton- many of whom were rooting for Sen.
Kaine – a Virginia senator and former governor – got the nod from Clinton in a telephone call Friday evening – days before the party convention begins in Philadelphia.
The rally stood in stark contrast to Trump’s introduction of Pence, which was held at a Manhattan hotel last weekend.
“Do you want a “you’re fired” president or a “you’re hired” president?”
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. “So while Tim was taking on housing discrimination and homelessness, Donald Trump was denying apartments to people who were African American”. Florida is a crucial battleground that will be hotly contested in the fall, and Clinton is moving swiftly to press her advantage with the state’s large Hispanic electorate, many of whom have been turned off by Trump’s hard-line immigration policies.
Trump also announced the choice of his running mate on Twitter, and followed it up with an announcement the next day at a hotel in midtown Manhattan – a curious choice given the state’s strong Democratic leanings. Long viewed as a likely choice to partner with Clinton, he is a fluent Spanish speaker with a reputation for working with Republicans.
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 held two lengthy private meetings with Kaine, including a lunch at her NY home last Saturday with their spouses and children.
“It makes me wonder, is she really going to follow through with all those progressive platforms and things she’s claiming she’s going to get passed through?” pondered Asami Kobayashi also of Honolulu.
Though the news was not a surprise, as Kaine has always been known as a likely choice, Clinton’s pick stirred immediate reaction among the environmental movement.
Kaine “can be a great help to the ticket”, said Schakowsky.
He is a supporter of free-trade agreements, including NAFTA and the TPP, which critics, including Clinton’s former rival Bernie Sanders, claim send American jobs overseas.
“She delivers in the tough times”, he said of Clinton.
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Clinton is a former first lady, US senator and secretary of state.
