Who the hell is Tim Kaine?

The stage was set: Hillary and a progressive favourite vs. the milky white reps of the conservative boys club. But which firebrand would it be and which minority group would she aim for? Would she appeal to loyal Democrats and Latino voters with ex-San Antonio mayor Julián Castro? Mobilize hardcore progressives with the Wall Street-bashing Elizabeth Warren? Bring energy and African American representation to her campaign with the enthusiastic Cory Booker? And the winner is: a pasty, moderate male no one’s ever heard of. What was she thinking, and who the hell is Tim Kaine?

1. A Virginia Favourite
Virginia and states like it can make or break elections. As Al Gore could tell you, a handful of votes in Florida can determine the United States’ direction for the next four to eight years.
Picking a Warren or Booker meant attracting east coast states Hillary already had in the bag; picking Kaine means improving Hilary’s chance of winning a crucial swing state.
As Virginia’s current junior senator and former governor, Kaine carries enough popularity in his home state to swing some centrist voters to Hillary.

2. Moderate, but just progressive enough
A major question of Hillary’s VP selection was whether she’d aim for centrist voters or try to appeal to disenchanted Bernie Sanders progressives. Kaine comes in somewhere in between the two approaches.
As governor of Virginia, Kaine showed a willingness to compromise. Though personally opposed to the death penalty, he allowed some executions to go through. When he couldn’t raise taxes, he agreed to cut spending.
If he’s a moderate in practice, though, he’s just left-leaning enough in his rhetoric to put liberals at ease.
In his first appearance as Hillary’s VP choice, he called for debt-free college, immigration reform, increased taxes on Wall Street, and universal background checks on firearms. Speaking of guns…

3. A staunch supporter of gun control
Keep an eye on this one; this could be a defining issue of the election.
The Trump/Pence ticket leans heavily on its National Rifle Association endorsement and refusal to restrict guns in any way.
Meanwhile, though Kaine is a gun-owner himself, he’s made a name for himself as a vocal activist for gun reform.
After the brutal Virginia Tech shootings, Governor Kaine called for universal background checks on firearm sales and signed an executive order banning individuals legally declared mentally ill from purchasing weapons.

4. A good Irish-American Catholic boy
Kaine’s mother is of Irish descent, and his father is of Scottish and Irish ancestry. He went to a Jesuit high school, helped out at a Jesuit missionary school in Honduras, and is a practicing Catholic.
As a result of his time in Honduras, Kaine is fluent in Spanish, a huge plus to Hillary’s campaign. For Latinx voters, Kaine the Catholic Spanish-speaker reads much differently than Donald “Mexico is sending rapists” Trump.
His Catholicism influences his view on abortion, which he is morally opposed to. Though he supports some legal restrictions on abortion, however, he calls himself “a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions”.

5. Lovable
On Full Frontal, Samantha Bee likened Kaine to a “walking hug”. Indeed, if there’s one thing Republican and Democratic senators seem to agree on right now, it’s that Kaine is a nice guy. Republican Senator Pat Toomey says Hillary “would be a disaster as president” and voices his “high regard and respect for Tim Kaine” in the same breath; Republican Senator Jeff Flake calls Kaine “a good man and a good friend”.
And the American public seems to agree! Twitter blew up about Kaine’s dad vibes and dad jokes during his DNC speech, and words like “nice”, “gentle”, and “good” come up again and again to describe him.
In the end, that may be what set Kaine apart as a VP candidate: with people of all political affiliations distrusting “Crooked Hillary”, Clinton needed someone to bring warmth to her campaign.
She got it in Kaine.