Bill didn’t need help either, but he wanted another big, experienced brain in the room with him. As great as the Bill/Hillary partnership is, they know what the other is thinking and have heard each other’s arguments ad nauseum. A third voice of equal stature is essential, and that’s what Al Gore brought to the table. Tom Vilsack or Tim Kaine will do the same.
I understand Kaine also brings the advantage of Spanish fluency. That seems like a no-brainer to me, although I don’t know much else about him except that he’s apparently on the short list.
I like Kaine fine, but I worry that Hillary needs someone who will help maximize enthusiasm and turnout like Warren, and/or that it might be a mistake to pass on solid Latino candidates who could help boost Latino turnout.
Absolutely, the way Ferraro brought out women for Mondale.
She brought them out, but then they saw Mondale and went back in. 
Yeah, Mondale would have won if he had picked a governor…
It’s not a massive deal… No one votes just based on VP. But if it helps a little with turnout, and especially Hispanic turnout, that could be a big deal in the long run.
And, of course, I reject that Kaine or Vilsack would necessarily be better presidents than Warren, Perez, or Becerra.
The point is that reaching for an obvious AA pick just to excite some demographic group is doomed to fail. There are qualified black candidates, but qualified Latino candidates are a lot harder to come by, thus the talk of minor cabinet secretaries and an unremarkable Congressman. If excitement is really a problem for Clinton, it’s not going to be solved by a VP pick, except perhaps for Warren. She probably gets Sanders supporters more interested. But she also gets voters like me turned completely off. I’ll happily watch Clinton go down in flames to Trump before I see Liz Warren a heartbeat away from the Presidency. That goes for Perez too.
A safe choice keeps anti-Trump Republicans at home or loosely in Clinton’s camp. A partisan choice forces us to pick a side.
I don’t accept your characterization of the Latino candidates, nor your political analysis. I think almost every sentence of your post is extremely false, and you’re just substituting once again wishful thinking and feelings for analysis.
Just a difference of opinion.
Well, to you, anyone’s qualified if they have the right views.
Anyway, it looks like it is Tim Kaine:
Outstanding pick if it’s true. Should be announced this morning according to UPI.
Kaine is ready to be President on Day 1, has eight years of executive experience, four as mayor and four as governor, plus he has Washington experience. He is also young enough to succeed Clinton as President in 2024 if she should serve two full terms, and probably guarantees that VA stays blue, which makes the GOP map very, very difficult even if they win Ohio and Florida.
Hats off to Clinton for a great pick and it looks like she even left her comfort zone a little. I was sure it was going to be Vilsack.
I find this offensive. Obama found a well qualified Latina justice for the Supreme Court, there are a great many well qualified Latinos who could be president or vice president.
If I’m Hillary, I let the coverage of the failed Trump convention continue for a day before naming the veep. If every speaker at the Democratic convention does nothing more than hold a microphone to their ass and fart, they’ll still have a more successful convention than Trump.
In the end, she’ll choose one of two candidates. I prefer Vilsack but can tolerate Kaine.
If so, it’s going to be about intangibles, not resume, because only Bill Richardson has the resume. All the other qualified Latino candidates, resume-wise, are Republicans.
I’d also note that Democrats close to Clinton’s process seem to agree with my reasoning:
Views, and judgment, and some minimum level of experience (which all the candidates so far meet).
I like Kaine fine, but if this is true, I’m a bit disappointed. But I was also a bit disappointed with Biden, and he turned out great. So we’ll see.
Biden didn’t add anything to the ticket, but he was of course a great Vice President. Kaine also won’t add much to the ticket(although his state is important), but will be just as good a Vice President.
The Democrats have a long record of selecting well qualified VP candidates and nothing about that seems to have changed. Good on them. The Republicans should follow suit and quit being gimmicky with the VP picks.
It’s a Catch-22 but true. Heard the same thing in a radio discussion about moderators for the upcoming debates.
Being qualified means already having top-level experience. Getting chosen or hired for top-level experiences requires being qualified.
How to change that? From bottom up, and not overnight.
I agree with that. Picking Warren means Clinton is weak on the left of her party, that she cannot motivate them with the threat of Trump. I think to win she must do that herself, motivate her party’s base herself, people with every reason to come out and vote against Trump. And Warren is nothing special in terms of helping govern, and too old for rebuilding the Democratic bench: she’ll be as old as Sanders is now by 2024.
The VP pick should address the middle of the electorate where Clinton has problems she probably can’t fix herself, for example her problem with male voters, hardly improved with an all female ticket, and where Warren creates a new problem: with centrist or non-ideological voters afraid of (what they view as) an out of control far left Democratic party, who might react by going out to vote for Trump on ideological grounds. If Clinton is ambiguous between centrist and leftist, it’s as you say, a chunk around the middle which might vote for Trump doesn’t bother or votes against Trump on personal grounds, because he’s unfit.
A choice like Kaine is a no brainer for her IMO.
538 asserts today that a VP pick only helps by about two percentage points.
That means the likelihood of Kaine helping the ticket is small; he swings Virginia only if Clinton would otherwise have lost it by a very narrow margin. And if she loses Virginia without Kaine, that is not an independent event; it suggests she has lost the election.
Clinton, according to 538’s best estimate, is winning Virginia by two to three points. She would, roughly speaking, have to drop nationwide by 3-5 points to be losing Virginia by a margin Kaine could make up for. But if THAT happens, then she has lost Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and possibly Pennsylvania… she’d be toast.
She needs t pick someone who can deliver Florida.
If Hillary wins VA and PA she could plausibly survive losses in Ohio, Florida and NC. Kaine may help a bit in NC also.
“…of course a great Vice President”? He’s been a frequent gaffe generator and more often than not an embarrassment to the White House. Kaine, at least, will be neither.
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First thing she should do is pick someone who would be a competent President in the case of her death. Second thing is to pick someone who she can work with.
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Not all movements are lockstep with each other. Being more sure of VA is a defensive move to be sure but, playing with the interactive here, a Clinton win in VA leaves Trump with relatively few paths. In a popular vote tie VA could be the tipping point. It was close to being at tipping point in 2012. It also means she can focus on it less and spend more energy on PA, OH, FL, and others.
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It also matters how he plays more broadly. He is competent and speaks Spanish well. He is little risk to cause harm.
Not my first choice but he’d do.