Hillary Clinton Made The Right Choice By Choosing Tim Kaine For VP

Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 02:03 pm

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Hillary Clinton had to weigh how her VP choice would impact the Democratic bid to retake the Senate. She also was likely thinking about some Trump insurance by picking the Senator from a swing state. Kaine is an ideal fit for the Clinton campaign, and he was the right choice to be her running mate.

Clinton made the announcement via a text to supporters and a tweet:

While a dream ticket with Elizabeth Warren would have been nice, the problem of Warren’s seat possibly being filled by a Republican if she became vice president ruled her out as an option. Sen. Warren herself expressed concerns that having two women on the ticket would harm the Democratic Party’s chances of winning in November. In the end, Sen. Warren may have been too big of a risk for the Clinton campaign to take.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) has long been a favorite potential VP in Democratic Party circles. Kaine is a former mayor, governor, DNC chair, and current Senator. While his record will be picked apart by the left’s ideological purists, Kaine brings the South on to Clinton’s ticket in a way that none of her other top contenders could.

The Kaine choice signals that Clinton is making a play for white male voters that aren’t sold on Donald Trump. Kaine is also a great insurance policy against Trump in Virginia, and since he comes from a state with a Democratic governor, the Kaine choice doesn’t carry the same penalty to Democratic Senate hopes that picking a Warren or Booker would have.

Some of the Bernie Sanders supporting holdouts will predict doom for Clinton because she didn’t choose someone who was far enough to the left to appeal to them, but the blunt truth is that Democrats don’t need the Bernie supporting progressives to win. Hillary Clinton is already beating Donald Trump without the twenty percent or so of the Sanders supporters who are holding out. She doesn’t need all of their votes. She already has enough of Sanders’ supporters to get the job done.

Hillary Clinton made the smart practical choice for her running mate. Tim Kaine isn’t going to set the world on fire, but neither did Joe Biden or Al Gore. The vice presidency is a very limiting job that most often doesn’t attract top talent with their own White House ambitions.

Donald Trump made his running mate choice in an effort to unify his party, but Democrats are already unified. Clinton needed a steady running mate who could be trusted and maybe help a little bit in a swing state, and that is exactly what she got with Sen. Tim Kaine.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association