Let’s call this what it is, an unforced error.
Democrats close to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign signaled strongly Thursday that she would choose Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her running mate, rounding out the ticket with a popular politician from a battleground state
Supposedly, it’s not a done deal, so while that seems unlikely at this late junction, let’s hope it’s true.
Clinton has done an admirable job of bringing the party together, but much of that work was predicated on convincing people that she truly believed and would fight for her primary platform. Yet here we are, poised to have this on our ticket:
Kaine, by contrast, is setting himself up as a figure willing to do battle with the progressive wing of the party. He has championed the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that both Sanders and Warren oppose, and he is now publicly siding with bank deregulation advocates at the height of Clinton’s veepstakes.
If you wanted to reinforce every bit of suspicion liberals have about Clinton, you couldn’t find a better choice than Kaine. So if this is who we’re stuck with, congrats, Hillary, you are about to reignite the primary wars, just as we’d gotten past them.
And Kaine defenders? Perusing the news, one word was used over and over again, “honorable.” If that’s the best you can do to describe someone, perhaps you should’ve kept looking, particularly if this is your definition of honorable.