So, Hillary plays the cautious card: Vanilla Ice.
“Safe” seems to be Kaine’s middle name. The Spanish-speaking former missionary and onetime swing-state governor sits on both the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees in the Senate. And while the Warren-Sanders wing of the Democratic Party may object to some of his positions on trade and Wall Street regulation, Kaine rarely takes controversial stands or makes painful gaffes, thus fulfilling the Hippocratic oath for vice presidential nominees: First, do no harm.
Kaine, for all the buzz about his chances, has been deeply self-effacing during the awkward public tryout process. When asked during a “Meet the Press” interview last month if he was ready to be president, he said no. “Nobody should ever say they’re ready for that responsibility, because it is so, so huge,” he said in what some saw as a tacit rebuke of Warren, who answered confidently that she is ready to be commander in chief when asked the same question by Rachel Maddow.
But Kaine’s humble, vanilla persona endeared him to Clinton. “I love that about him,” she told CBS News’ Charlie Rose in an interview earlier this week when grilled about whether he was too boring. Added Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close confidant of the Clintons who has been pushing for his home-state senator: “If anything, he’s only helped himself through this entire process.”
Well, I know some “progressives” (GAWD I hate that word) who aren’t happy with this choice but at this point I just want Trump to disappear permanently from my TV set and country. It’s not Kaine’s policies that will become law so, oh well. Plus, I think help with Virginia and the Rust Belt is likely more helpful than picking a few BOBs in already blue states.
Liberals say they are concerned about Mr. Kaine’s positions on global trade deals and Wall Street regulation. He has been an outspoken advocate of free trade and has defended the North American Free Trade Agreement, which many voters in Rust Belt states blame for the loss of manufacturing jobs to Mexico. He voted in support of “fast track” authority for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade pact that President Obama has championed.
He wasn’t my choice but Democratic insiders seem pleased or at least they are acting pleased on TV. So, you can Google him and his positions. He’s center left and has done well for Virginia. Nate Silver doesn’t think he’ll help with the election so he likely fits in with the Clinton comfort zone in terms of being a trusted adviser.
Kaine has traditional credentials, having served as Virginia’s governor before joining the U.S. Senate. He’s young enough, at 58, that he could run for president himself in 2020 or 2024. He’s not especially liberal, but he’s no Blue Dog Democrat, either. He’s a white guy, although he speaks good Spanish. If Mike Pence is a “generic Republican,” then Kaine is a “generic Democrat.”
The difference is that Kaine comes from a swing state, whereas Donald Trump would likely lose Pence’s home state, Indiana, only in a national landslide. If you’re going to pick someone from a swing state, is Virginia among the better options? And how much difference does the vice presidential nominee really make in his or her home state?
Our previous research suggests that a vice presidential pick adds about 2 percentage points to his party’s margin in his home state. So, for instance, if Clinton would otherwise win Virginia by 3 percentage points, her margin would theoretically increase to 5 points with Kaine on the ticket. Not all VP bonuses are created equal, of course; there’s some evidence that VP nominees chosen from less populous states (for instance, Joe Biden of Delaware or Sarah Palin of Alaska) make more difference than those picked from larger ones. But Kaine seems like a fairly typical case: Virginia is a medium-size state, and Kaine’s approval ratings there are solid but not spectacular.
It actually takes quite a confluence of circumstances, though, for those 2 percentage points in one swing state to change the winner of the Electoral College. For Kaine to swing the election for Clinton, she’d have to be losing Virginia without him (otherwise he’d be superfluous) but not losing it by more than 2 percentage points (otherwise, he wouldn’t help enough). Likewise, she’d have to be losing the Electoral College without Virginia’s 13 electoral votes, but she’d need to have at least 257 from other states or Virginia wouldn’t make a big enough impact.1
What are the odds of all of that happening? About 1 chance in 140, according to our polls-only model, based on a set of simulations I ran early Friday afternoon. That translates into only about a 0.7 percent chance that a VP pick from Virginia would swing the election to Clinton.
And here’s a comedy break:
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