Let me start by explaining the numbers.
The Republican ticket consists of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. That’s the two.
The Democratic ticket consists of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine — and their respective spouses, Bill Clinton and Anne Holton.
You may see Mike Pence’s wife on the trail, but only with him, almost certainly not by herself.
Don’ expect to see Melania out campaigning.
All four of the Democrats listed above can and will be out campaigning as individuals.
But then again consider.
We start with our Presidential candidate — Hillary Rodham Clinton, Wellesley and Yale Law, a long and distinguished career of her own.
Our Vice Presidential Candidate Tim Kaine — U of Missouri and Harvard Law, who besides service as a city councilman, a mayor, a Lt. Governor, a Governor, and a US Senator, has been a Jesuit Missionary and a civil rights attorney (and plays a pretty mean harmonica).
Then there are the spouses. Bill Clinton — Georgetown U, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Attorney General and Governor of Arkansas, two term US President who left with an approval rating of over 60%.
And then there is Anne Holton. She is a graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law. She serve as a legal aid lawyer and a juvenile court judge. She has served as Virginia’s Secretary of Education. And she has a long commitment to social justice.
Of our four, she is probably the least known. Which is why I strongly suggest you read a piece titled Kaine’s wife, Anne Holton, no stranger to political stage, which appeared at the website of WTOP, Washington DC’s all news radio station.
Anne’s father, Linwood Holton, was born in Big Stone Gap in the coal country of Southwest Virginia. He became Virginia’s first Republican governor since the end of Reconstruction. He was a moderate. He sent his children to Richmond public schools at a time when many white were abandoning them. Anne lived in the Governor’s Mansion and went to a primarily black middle school to start her time in her father’s tenure as Governor.
I have seen Anne campaigning. I remember serving as accredited press as a blogger for a major Virginia blog at an event at George Mason University in Fairfax where she was the person who introduced Michelle Obama to the crowd.
She is about as down to earth as anyone you can imagine.
She is comfortable in her own skin, as her husband Tim is in his.
Read the article. You will be impressed.
And remember what I said: it is our 4 (plus Barack and Michelle and Joe and maybe Jill) against their two.
Two Yale Law grads
Two Harvard Law grads.
Two terrific couples.
One terrific slate.
Just saying.