Tim Kaine Just Killed It In His First Speech

As far too many Bernie Sanders supporters remain unable to get their heads out of their asses and grasp the extreme danger that Donald Trump poses to America - and their own role in potentially handing him the White House - Tim Kaine showed his merits in his first speech with Hillary Clinton. While Kaine is well known to many Virginians, many Americans have yet to get to know the man.  In my view, if Berniacs would pull their heads out of their butts, they might come to realize that Hillary hit a home run when she selected Kaine as her VP running mate.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at Kaine's first speech in Miami and why it was so successful.  Here are highlights:

Holy crap. He killed it.

I’m not trying to spin you. I’m sitting here in shock. Shock. Tim Kaine was unbelievable.
He was natural. He was smart. He was relaxed and funny, and he was serious. He was proud of himself and his wife and family but never arrogant. He was humble without ever being cloying in that way the politically humble can often be. He was genuine. He was unbelievable.
 And part of the way through, this thought struck me: He is the perfect choice for her because he comes across as so at ease and so real. These are two things, as we know, that Hillary Clinton has a lot of trouble with. She’s too scripted, she’s a phony, all that stuff. Kaine was just so easy-breezy, so comfortable with himself and in this role, that he has the potential to wash away a decent chunk of that negativity about her.

How can I sum up the speech? Oh, he attacked Donald Trump here and there, including a funny hit on him about his tax returns (“raise your hand if you think those returns are going to show that he paid his fair share”). He made sure to cover his progressive bona fides and was great in the way he relayed his biography—his civil-rights law work, his time in Honduras, his dedication to education and integration.

He did a wonderful job of communicating his values—my creed, he said, was “do all the good you can.” He had a couple powerful serious moments, notably when he talked aboutthe Virginia Tech massacre, which happened while he was governor, telling the story of one professor who’d come to the United States from central Europe many years ago. Can you imagine, he asked; a man “who could survive the Holocaust? Who could survive the Soviet takeover of his country? But who fell victim to the horror of American gun violence because he blocked the door and told his students to go out the window?”

But the most important thing about the speech wasn’t any of these things. It was the vision for the country embedded within it. If Kaine made a convincing case Saturday afternoon that he’s a perfect companion to Clinton, he made an even stronger case that he represents the antidote to savage Trumpism and Uriah Heep-grim Pence-ism. Yes, there are problems in the country and world, obviously. But we don’t confront them by insulting people and pumping fear into people and calling our military a disaster and trying to pass severe discrimination laws. We confront them by heeding the words of Harry Truman: “America was not built on fear. It was built on courage, imagination, and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”

And he did it all without an ounce of ego. That maybe was what was most refreshing of all.

Lots of people are going to like this guy. He’s a happy warrior who is clearly genuine about being of service to others and to community and country. He embodies what we all think is best about this country and what we hope still exists. It exists in Tim Kaine.

I know the political science says vice presidents don’t matter. But politics is as much art as science. We just met an artist today.

Donald Trump and the Incurious Mike Pence:

While The Donald is claiming that he has not yet selected his VP running mate, most speculation is that it will be Indiana governor Mike Pence - a man who is no friend to the LGBT community and who set off a fire storm with corporate America when he signed Indiana's falsely named "religious freedom" law last year.  Naturally, given the GOP's most extreme and anti-gay platform every, Pence is the choice of most Christofascists, including those here in Virginia who often rally under the flag of The Family Foundation, a hate group in all but formal designation.  A piece in Salon looks at Pence and why he is a perfect fit for Trump's racist and xenophobic agenda.  Here are excerpts:

A lowly pool has been reduced to four B-list candidates: Mike Pence, Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, and Jeff Sessions, three of whom found their way to Indianapolis on Wednesday (Christie reportedly spoke with Trump over the phone). You could make a case for all four. As I wrote last week, both Newt and Christie are plagued by scandals (much like Trump) and have bottomed out as politicians. Neither has much to lose at this point, which makes joining Trump’s dumpster fire campaign less risky. Sessions is a largely unknown conservative senator from Alabama. An anti-immigration culture warrior, he was among the first Republicans to publicly endorse Trump. But he’s the obvious outsider here. Of the final four, Sessions seems least likely to get the nod.

Although it’s still unofficial, The Washington Post is reporting that Pence is the pick. If true, that makes the most sense for Trump, and here’s why.
 First, we have to remember that Trump’s campaign is essentially a TV production. As such, he needs a hype man, someone who can pump propaganda without overshadowing the star of the show. . . . The Republican nominee wants an “attack dog,” but not someone who can upstage him. Both Gingrich and Christie, in their own ways, are capable of this.

Pence, however, appears quite comfortable playing second fiddle, and he clearly wants the job. He’s prostrated himself before Trump, lobbying about as hard as any candidate I’ve seen. And his Twitter feed is littered with over-the-top pleas. . . . Normally, VP nominees feign indifference, dismissing inquiries or referring reporters to the presidential candidates. The idea is to express interest without careening into desperation. But this is not how Pence rolls. . . . Right out of the gate, Pence lavished praise on Trump, making it all about him.
 If Pence believes Trump is the greatest leader since Reagan, why did he endorse Ted Cruz for president 10 weeks ago? Trump “never turned his back on Main Street”? We know Trump loves “the poorly educated,” but I doubt that’s what Pence means by “Main Street.” We know Trump has outsourced much of his labor in order to cut costs and avoid paying American workers a livable wage. Was that a boon for “Main Street?” We know that Trump inherited $40 million dollars from his father and has now convinced hordes of working-class whites that he feels their pain and knows their struggle. Perhaps that’s what Pence is referencing here. . . . The goal was to show Trump how effectively he can wag the pom poms. On that score, he succeeded. There’s another, perhaps more obvious reason why Pence wants this job: He might lose his. After his disastrous attempt to impose the anti-LGBT Religious Freedom Restoraction Act on Indianans in 2015, Pence’s popularity has plummeted. Even the business community turned against him. According to a May poll, his approval rating is down to 40 percent, with only 60 percent of Republicans supporting his re-election. The Indiana GOP would be happy to dispense with Pence and make way for a more attractive candidate.

In any event, a man this shameless in his pursuit of the nomination suits Trump well. Trump likes lackeys, and he appears to have found one in Pence. And because he’s staring down defeat in his home state, a VP nomination is an escape hatch for the Indiana governor, a chance to skirt failure and boost his national brand. Pence is also a safe pick with less baggage than Newt and Christie and a fair amount of experience on Capitol Hill. In addition to bowing to Trump, he’ll appeal to social conservatives and bring message discipline to a campaign without any.

So Pence might not be the sexiest pick for Trump, but he’s the safest. And considering the paucity of respectable candidates willing to stand on a stage with Trump, this is as good as it gets.