Hillary Clinton named Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia to be her running mate Friday, selecting a battleground state politician with working-class roots and a fluency in Spanish, traits that she believes can bolster her chances to defeat Donald J. Trump in November.

Mrs. Clinton’s choice, which she announced via text message to supporters, came after her advisers spent months poring over potential vice-presidential candidates who could lift the Democratic ticket in an unpredictable race against Mr. Trump.

In the end, Mrs. Clinton decided Mr. Kaine, 58, a former governor of Virginia who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and speaks fluent Spanish, had the qualifications and background and the personal chemistry with her to make the ticket a success.

Mrs. Clinton had entertained more daring choices. She considered Thomas E. Perez, the secretary of labor, who would have been the first Hispanic on a major party ticket; Senator Cory Booker, of New Jersey, who would have been the first African-American to seek the vice presidency; and Adm. James G. Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who served as the supreme allied commander at NATO, but had never held elected office.

In the end, Mrs. Clinton, who told PBS she is “afflicted with the responsibility gene,” avoided taking a chance with a less experienced vice-presidential candidate and felt no political need to push the historic nature of her candidacy by adding another woman or a minority to the ticket.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Kaine have similar centrist positions on foreign policy, education and criminal justice and they are said to share an easy rapport and a love of granular policy-making. “I do have a fondness for wonks,” Mrs. Clinton said in the PBS interview.

Asked whether Mr. Kaine was boring, Mrs. Clinton said “I love that about him.” She added, “He’s never lost an election.”

At a campaign stop with Mrs. Clinton in Annandale, Va., last week, Mr. Kaine tried out for the role. “Do you want a ‘You’re fired’ president or a ‘You’re hired’ president?” he asked the crowd. “Do you want a trash-talking president or a bridge-building president?” He compared Mrs. Clinton’s record of public service to that of his wife, Anne Holton, Virginia’s secretary of education. In recent days, President Bill Clinton and the White House had expressed support for Mr. Kaine.

Known as a pragmatic governor and senator, Mr. Kaine could help Mrs. Clinton appeal to independent voters and moderate Republicans displeased with Mr. Trump. But he could also turn off some liberal Democrats with his support of free trade agreements, which Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont criticized to great effect in his nominating fight against Mrs. Clinton.

The son of a welder who owned a small metalworking shop, Mr. Kaine, a Roman Catholic, grew up in the Kansas City area. He attended a Jesuit boarding school and took a break from law school at Harvard to spend time as a Catholic missionary in Honduras, an experience that his family has said shaped him and helped him become fluent in Spanish.

Mrs. Clinton is expected to formally introduce Mr. Kaine as her running mate during a campaign swing through Florida, either at a rally at the state fairgrounds in Tampa on Friday or on Saturday at Florida International University in Miami, which has a large number of Hispanic students.

Mr. Kaine worked on fair housing and civil right issues as a lawyer. He was elected to the city council in Richmond, Va., in 1994, then proceeded to climb the ranks of elected office in the state. He became city’s mayor in 1998, the state’s lieutenant governor in 2002 and its governor in 2006. He also served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

As governor, Mr. Kaine drew some support from rural parts of the state as well strong backing in the state’s Democratic-leaning suburban areas. He led the state through one of its darkest times, the shooting at Virginia Tech that killed 32 people in 2007. In 2013, Mr. Kaine implored the United States Senate to find a “small measure of courage” to fight the gun lobby and impose tougher background checks on gun ownership.

Mr. Kaine was an early endorser of Senator Barack Obama’s presidential bid in the 2008 nominating fight against Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Kaine was also considered on Mr. Obama’s short list of vice-presidential candidates before Mr,. Obama selected Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware. In 2012, Mr. Kaine defeated George Allen, a Republican, to take the Senate seat being vacated by the Democrat Jim Webb.

Mrs. Clinton’s choice of Mr. Kaine underscores the changing demographics of Virginia, with its growing urban and minority populations.

Mr. Obama defeated John McCain in the state by more than six percentage points, the first time since Lyndon B. Johnson’s victory in 1964 that the state had voted for a Democratic presidential nominee. An NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll from July 15 shows Mrs. Clinton ahead of Mr. Trump for the state’s 13 electoral votes by nine percentage points.

With just days remaining before her announcement of a running mate, Mrs. Clinton had not yet made up her mind as her advisers debated what attributes voters might want in a vice president. She told Mr. Kaine and the other candidates of her decision in a round of phone calls on Friday. Mrs. Clinton came to the process with a unique vantage point, having been closely involved in her husband’s selection of then-Senator Al Gore of Tennessee in 1992, a choice that brought youth and Southern charm to a ticket already overflowing with it.

Mr. Trump, in contrast, had different needs. He selected Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana as his running mate, selecting a man with whom he has had little prior relationship. Mr. Pence, however, was chosen to help the New York businessman win the support of far-right conservatives who are skeptical of Mr. Trump’s social positions.

Mrs. Clinton has called Mr. Pence the “most extreme pick in a generation,” highlighting his positions against same-sex marriage and abortion rights and his support for prayer in the schools.

Scared she's gonna lose Virgina. Only reason, otherwise it would have been Cory Bookers lame ass.

How boring. Some boring moderate pick for a moderate Democrat who's completely tone deaf to the new outcry for the corrupt Democratic party to change.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/tim-kaine-probably-wouldnt-win-clinton-the-election/

"Tim Kaine would increase Clinton's chance of winning the Electoral College by ... 0.7%"

Quote from: Icy on July 22, 2016, 09:34:47 PM

Quote from: Azumarill on July 22, 2016, 09:17:20 PM

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/tim-kaine-probably-wouldnt-win-clinton-the-election/

"Tim Kaine would increase Clinton's chance of winning the Electoral College by ... 0.7%"

VP's don't win a campaign - the primary rule is to do no harm.

ill take "no shit" for $500 alex