A Boring Biden - Tim Kaine as VP Pick Will Deliver Virginia Plus adds Remarkable Contrast, as an Issues Veep (UPDATED)

Now we know the tickets. Hillary has picked Tim Kaine the Senator and former Governor from Virginia as her VP choice. A safe but boring pick. An utterly competent VP and a centrist moderate Democrat. Lets dig in to what this means to the election.


UPDATE - revision on the bottom added right after the Intro event in Florida


First off, to readers of this blog, obviously I was wrong. I predicted back in 2014 that Hillary would pick Julian Castro the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from Texas, as the first-ever Hispanic for Vice President. And we know he was in the mix and considered but clearly I was wrong, Hillary picked Kaine. So I am sorry, this is the first major guess I made in 2014 that has gone wrong (and against that, please consider that I predicted among other things that Hillary would crush the ‘generic’ Republican whoever it would be, with fund-raising; that Hillary would hug President Obama in the campaign - something John McCain did not do with W Bush and Al Gore did not do with Bill Clinton, so its not a normal thing all candidates do; and I predicted Obama’s popularity would recover and be above water - as it has, obviously - but when I predicted that in 2014, his popularity was way under water). Now, that being said, yes on this one point, I was wrong. But now onto Tim Kaine. An excellent choice yes.

First off, he’s ready to be President ‘on Day 1’ and is VERY competent and experienced, has very competent governing experience with an excellent record of a diverse large state; and has the competence also on international side from his duties in the Senate sitting on two committees relating to national security (what Trump’s VP, Mike Pence lacks totally). So Hillary can safely say, judge us by our actions. Trump picked a VP so bad, even Trump can’t remember his name when introducing him. But Hillary’s pick is instantly accepted everywhere as one of the most competent politicians on either side of the aisle.

He is gosh, plain vanilla boring. The one speech I saw him together on the stump with Hillary, he was repeating himself on a very poorly written speech and he was getting only a mild response from a strongly partisan crowd. BUT these are things that you can improve with good speech-writing and good speech-coaching (see Hillary herself) and if you want inspirational speeches, the Hillary campaign has the two best political speakers alive of our lives - Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Arguably Elizabeth Warren is in their class. The last Republican speaker to deliver speeches so widely loved was Ronald Reagan long since departed. Inspiration, that the Democrats have in spades and many voters will have doubts about electing another ‘hope’ candidate of great oratory, they may want far more a ‘doer’ than a ‘talker’. And hence, two boring technocrats on Hillary’s ticket. But people who got things done.

Kaine is not at the liberal wing of the Democratic party like say Warren or Cory Booker, and the Bernie Sanders supporters will be initially quite disappointed. But I think when they hear the story, tomorrow Saturday when Hillary introduces Kaine, and then at the Convention, I think most ‘progressives’ will be won over, that this is a moderate, fair-minded ELECTABLE candidate, who has TRULY stood up when it counted, and VOLUNTEERED when it mattered. So on issues, he is pro-abortion, he is for raising taxes on the richest, he is for reasonable gun control (Bernie was not!), he is for Planned Parenthood, he is for environmental protections etc. He is VERY far the person they will like, and with this pick, Hillary is putting her money where her mouth is, she shows she is willing to fight for these kinds of issues. But Kaine is a moderate, one of the areas he differs with the ‘Socialist wing’ of the Democrats is - like Bill Clinton and Hillary herself (and Obama) - on trade. He is for the TPP the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal that is now being ratified in the various countries. This is something the liberals hate about him. Too moderate. Ok, I can understand that, but it would be suicidal for Hillary to go FURTHER LEFT in her campaign. You pivot to the middle and this is a VERY smart pivot.

So on a few specifics. Kaine is a hunter and gun-owner but he enacted tougher anti-gun laws in Virginia, a battleground state with a lot of hunters. Furthermore, Virginia is the home and HQ of the NRA (National Rifle Association the most powerful gun lobby). The NRA utterly hates Kaine and give him an F rating. This should immediately get some on the left to accept Kaine, gosh, he is that willing to fight the good causes and better than some futile talk, he passed anti-gun laws in Virginia? This guy does get things done. Serious, meaningful, useful, progressive things done. And against VERY strong opposition, at the very home of the NRA.

Then I remember being disappointed when hearing Kaine do his speech in a joint event with Hillary a few weeks ago. How ‘Al Gorishly’ boring and such bad delivery and poor timing on his one joke he kept repeating etc. But I didn’t remember who Kaine is. Now that I looked into him a little bit, I was instantly reminded of his ‘breakout’ speech at the 2008 Democratic Convention. It was the one where he switched into speaking Spanish for a while. I LOVED that speech. Its the same guy. If you let the professionals help him, he can do a good speech and then toss in the Spanish, he will do well with the Hispanics. Not as a ‘late convert’ - anyone, ANYONE who watched that Convention remember the one guy who suddenly started to speak Spanish, fluently, and was a totally plain-vanilla white guy. That is the kind of outreach that the Democrats had been doing and he’s certainly already known and a friend to the Hispanic community today. He doesn’t have to start on that journey.

Which then brings up the other even more incredible tidbit that I didn’t know but now discovered. Kaine is the first Senator to deliver a whole speech on the Senate floor in Spanish. If the Hispanics can’t have Castro or Perez or some other Hispanic on the VP slot, this is a VERY good substitute, if they had to accept some white guy. I do not know what his ratings are among Hispanics, but I would guess he already has a positive rating there and once the Hispanics figure out, this guy has fought for them for a decade already, he’s not a bad gringo at all..

Kaine won’t bring a surge of Hispanic voters in the way that probaby Castro or some other Hispanic could have, but he will not be ‘hated’ by the Hispanics either, where perhaps ‘another’ black ahead of them (Cory Booker) might have suppressed some Hispanic enthusiasm. But talking about those blacks. Kaine has a remarkable coincidence in his background that seems to make him perfect for the year 2016. Kaine started his political career in Virginia by campaigning and then fighting for low cost housing and against discrimination by slumlords. And would you know it, the first time Trump was in the news, was the same time - and Trump was of course a slum landlord in New York who was convicted and fined massively for his discriminatory slum lord behavior, in particular against blacks. So Kaine raises a great argument about yet another repugnant side of Trump and Kaine is PERFECTLY credible for arguing that, because Kaine was fighting for the poor on the opposite side of that battle against the rich. This will endear Kaine to most progressive-hearted voters. And it will expose a FAR TOO MUCH ignored part of Trump’s past and reinforce the narrative that Trump sounds like a racist now, because he has been a racist all his life. And furthermore that his bullshit of being a ‘blue collar Billionaire’ is mere propaganda. He’s a CONVICTED racist slum landlord bastard.

Kaine is a moderate, he will not scare away Republicans. Two moderate Democrats, Hillary and Kaine, both VERY VERY competent on foreign policy, an area dear to the hearts of many moderate Republicans. And against a ticket where Trump talks about breaking up NATO, abandoning South Korea, extorting Saudi Arabia and arming Japan with nukes. Plus admiring Putin, Kim Jong Un and Assad.

Tim Kaine is a VERY competent manager. He got the Virginia economy to grow while the world was going into recession. That will play VERY well with the argument that Democrats are the sensible money party while Trump is selling Reagan’s Trickle-Down voodoo economics, but turbocharged. Kaine sits PERFECTLY in a world where Hillary points to the last time the economy was driven to a ditch, by Reagan-Bush 1, then recovered and grew under Bill Clinton then driven to an even deeper ditch by W Bush-Cheney and now fought back to modest growth by Obama. What moderate Democrats do, is sensible fiscal policy and they run good economies, Trump’s policies will destroy jobs and cause worldwide economic disaster. Excellent choice as VP to carry that message, and with deeds, not just words.

Kaine is also a successful campaigner, hasn’t lost an election yet, and doing this in a purple state where every race is tough. He is highly popular back home in Virginia and admired around the Democratic circles.

Two very telling personal details will be noticed, and to me, these tell about the character of this man. First, the more practical but for me, very personal side. Tim Kaine enacted the first law in any state forbidding smoking indoors. He is one of the people who really put his political life into that battle, against the cigarette lobby. I have deep respect for that and so will many who had family members who died out of smoking related illnesses. And would you know it, on the other side, the VP choice Mike Pence is one of those truly despicable politicians who took money from the cigarette lobby to then argue that cigarettes do not kill. Yes, Pence was still claiming that cigarettes are healthy !! And Kaine was on the opposite side, where the obvious medical evidence already was conclusive. This tells us much about Kaine (and about Pence).

But then one aspect that will endear Kaine to progressives and especially to religious voters. Tim Kaine is a Catholic (but he is pro-choice) but not just a Sunday-show-pretend Christian. He really did it. Gosh, he volunteered early in his career to serve as a missionary and lived in Honduras among the poor. This is a genuinely good man, who had put the needs of the poor and helpless and weak, against the powers of the strong, the rich and the powerful.

If you want to use the selection of VP as the first true test, of what is the potential President really going to do, then compare Trump and Hillary. Trump picked Mike Pence, and Trump admitted, he was not Trump’s first choice (we know it wasn’t even his 12th, at the very best, it was his 13th choice) and Trump picked a guy who stands on opposite sides of at least half a dozen major issues where Pence literally has said this is totally the wrong thing, what Trump has been doing or saying. And Trump says, to Pence's face, on TV a interview - that it doesn’t matter. Trump literally says about Pence's opinions that he is irrelevant. And Trump admits, he picked Pence to heal the party, because the party was torn. And for Trump, Pence was so much an irrelevant person, Trump didn’t even bother to go have dinner with him on the biggest day of Pence’s life, but left Pence alone in New York City, to take his family out to have dinner at a local Chico’s. And yes, we know, the night AFTER he had picked Pence, Trump was saying on TV that he had not made his ‘final final’ decision. Trump picked an irrelevant place-holder person who will have no say in his administration, and Trump even ADMITS this, not his first choice, was selected only to get some conservatives to buy into the Trump ticket Trump is in effect telling Republican voters - I know you know I am lying, but lets pretend I like and respect what Mike Pence says and stands for; I do not, he will be ignored: vote for ME, I am the greatest!

Then consider Hillary. Total, TOTAL opposite. She picks one of the most competent and experienced VPs ever. Its a person fully competent in governing and in legislation, and has both domestic and foreign policy experience. Hillary picks a moderate (the right pivot to win) but a candidate who can appeal to many areas of not just Independents and undecided voters, but even moderate Republicans via his Catholic and clearly very deeply convicted religious actions, not just words; his personal gun experience as a hunter (so any anti-gun laws will be ‘reasonable’ and will not come to confiscate your guns as the NRA will scream and yell); and the needed foreign policy competence. When Hillary says she will fight for you, and that she’s done it her whole life, gosh so has Tim Kaine. Fought for the little guy and the oppressed guy and the minority and the Hispanic haha (did you spot that, he was a missionary in Honduras!!). They say that Kaine is Obama’s favorite Senator. That will say a lot to Democrats, if the Senate had more Tim Kaines, then more of Obama’s true intentions would have passed, but now were obstructed by the Republicans for 8 years.

This is a VERY VERY strong pick. It will essentially guarantee Hillary wins Virginia. Virginia is a battleground state (Indiana where Mike Pence is the unpopular Governor, is not a battleground state, the Republicans in most years win Indiana easily; even a 10 point landslide will not flip Indiana to the Democrats). Kaine is a very VERY strong campaigner and like Hillary mentioned, he hasn’t lost an election in his life. (Hillary also agrees Kaine is boring).

If we think of the electoral college map, this pick takes Virginia off the table. Nate Silver at 538 blog calculated that the home-state VP pick typically adds 2 points of the winning margin in that state, and no other benefit nationwide; Hillary was already slightly ahead in Virginia before this, so now Kaine puts VA out of reach for Trump. What does that do for the rest of the race? It means Trump cannot win by any combination of winning only 3 of the states that were battlegrounds in 2012, that Romney lost. Even if we give Trump Florida and Ohio, any other battleground state alone is not enough. Trump needs Florida and Ohio and 2 of the others that Obama carried (Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Wisconsin). Note that before the Kaine pick, Hillary is ahead in all RCP polling averages in all of these battlegrounds today. Or else, Trump has to have a miracle showing taking a larger state that was not a battleground in 2012 like Michigan, Pennsylvania or New York - states Trump has talked about and arguably Pennsylvania this year is in play. But Virginia is a vital pick because it forced Trump to have to win both Florida and Ohio, plus either two more battleground states or Pennsylvania, and in all those Hillary has a lead currently. But Hillary also has modest leads in a few states that Obama lost like Arizona and North Carolina which then makes it far far harder for Trump to find any map that delivers for him, once Virginia is off the table for him.

I do assume that early on, Trump-Pence will not give up on Virginia. But by late September or October, he will pull his troops and TV ad spending out of Virginia, admitting that is a lost cause. It will be because of Tim Kaine. He will deliver his home state, rather easily to Hillary.

Now baggage? I do not see any initially (where much was obvious with Mike Pence right at the start). There always are some issues that arise over time but this seems to be a genuinely good guy, who really did the work in the trenches in his past and has stood on the good side of the major fights all through his life. As a choice, if Hillary wants to signal to the nation that she will have totally competent respectable and honorable people in her Cabinet, this is a magnificent start. Hispanics, their hopes were raised and now crushed but even for a gringo, this is about as good as they come and a mile above and ahead of what the other side has to offer. Will this produce a bounce for Hillary, I think thats a safe bet. Not a huge one, but it will stomp on what modest bounce was supposed to come from Trump's Convention (by the way, that Trump himself is already stomping on, by starting fresh fights with the reluctant rebels of his party, now with renewed fights with Ted Cruz, exactly the morning after his Convention ended and seemed to be rather unified). BUT.. over time... over time this Tim Kaine selection will become an ever better choice, because of a deep resume of a lifetime of great achievements which will play well to voters, when contrasting the clowns on the Republican side. And as to a Veep in office, I think its safe to say, Hillary can safely give Kaine plenty of responsibility starting with the gun lobby and passing some sensible gun reforms.

As to my forecast. I had factored in a wave of Hispanic support coming in with a Hispanic VP pick which Hillary had clearly been considering (among her finalists Castro, Perez etc) but now that this is not the case, my MODEL is wrong. It has over-estimated a Hispanic wave. In some states like Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, Colorado, Arizona (and Texas) my model is now off. I will recalculate it but my gut feeling on playing with the numbers says the general election outcome would be down 1.5% roughly, so between 1 and 2 points of the final outcome. Instead of what I last published as a 20% landslide (assuming Castro and Hispanic wave on top of historic Female voter surge etc) the model looks like an 18% landslide instead. This is still in the scale of Mondale's loss in 1984. Note that we have OTHER factors that have to be taken in (Trump catastrophic campaign and lousy VP choice etc) and MOST OF ALL my model in March assumed a 2-way race and now we have a 3 or 4-way race, which will change the dynamics quite a lot. so there are OTHER factors I ALSO have to recalculate since my last model update in March. I will be doing that this coming week. But those who are 'following the math at home' yes, we need to downgrade the model by about 2 points in the final election compared to the assumptions I had in March. Still heading to November, Hillary is safely headed to a landslide epic victory so big, it will flip not just the Senate but also the House. This VP choice does not change that forecast but her margin is now slightly less. I will do the full math with you in coming days, don't worry. You'll have a new model effective end-of-July which incorporates both VP choices.


UPDATE - immediately after the Miami event. Wow. This is NOT a boring guy! He is a good speaker (already) and with pro coaching and good speech-writing and experience, he is going to be VERY good. He seems to be eager to learn and grow (as a public speaker) and that means, he could even grow to be excellent (see how far Warren grew from her start in the Senate). So please remove the term 'boring' in this blog. I was mistaken. Kaine is NOT boring. He is very strong and is able to sell a good speech. He had a REPUTATION of being boring - no, he is NOT boring. (and PS - obviously THIS is how you do a Veep intro, perfect, 10 out of 10, home run event. Total perfection, She introduces him, he then admires her, and he does most of the talking. THIS is how you do it, compare to Trump who did it of course all wrong)

Comments

[cornelius]

Hi Tomi,

Good analysis but you didn't mention the main reason why Clinton chose Kaine: national security. Tim Kaine serves on the Senate’s Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees. With the waive of terrorist attacks the national security issue has become one of the most important issues for this election. And Clinton needs to kill Trump's claim of being the "law and order candidate". BTW Trump instigates racial hatred but he is the law and order candidate. What a joke he is.
And I can't end my comment without congratulating myself for correctly indicating the VP again. I wish Clinton chose Castro but apparently he had some baggage. He broke a federal law by endorsing Clinton. Kaine seems a far safer pick. And it makes sense because Clinton is leading so a safe pick consolidates her chances of being elected.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi cornelius

Great points (and congrats, good call!). I agree the committee experiences are valuable but probably not the highest priority for her, because Hillary already has impeccable foreign policy credentials herself. Trump coulda used that kind of a pick haha, he 'needs' it while with Hillary it only enhances her strenghts in an area she already dominates over Trump. Although of course Trump has managed to over-propaganda the voters that somehow screaming about terrorism makes him the stronger candidate on that issue. I think he will hold that edge up to the first debate, and after that debate, that attribute will shift to yet another area where Hillary leads, because, obviously, Trump is clueless of how to solve terrorism and his solutions are essentially magical thinking. The terrorism will be defeated because, Trump, of course. So in that way, Kaine as VP won't help any more with those who aren't thinking, than before. BUT it is a further item showing Kaine is fully qualified to step in as VP (vs say Dan Quayle or Sarah Palin haha) and yes, for Hillary, a foreign policy hawk, his foreign policy credentials matter and do help.

On Castro yeah, the gossip took him out of the top discussion several weeks ago. I thought it was a head-fake, she had decided (that it was Castro) and therefore put him off, onto the back burner and kept other names on the forefront to make it a bigger splash when he (Castro) was then brought out. I was wrong. This is the most risk-free way to proceed (typical Hillary, why did I think otherwise) and she signalled a long time in advance who she liked, then narrowed her field, then the gossip very late said it was likely Kaine or Vilsack, and it was Kaine. This way nobody is surprised and the Democratic supporters have had plenty of time to prepare for the eventual Kaine pick, good especially as he clearly is a very well suited candidate.

BTW interesting angle on how to use Obama in the race (that we haven't seen in decades). When Trump has a big moment and does something that seems to catch fire, but in typical Trump, it also has errors in it - Obama arranges a big press event and then lambasts Trump simply for the errors in Trump's facts. Obama doesn't have to say 'and I endorsed Hillary' but he, as a highly respected, highly liked sitting President, can come out and call out Trump for his lies. As long as they don't do this every day haha, this can be a VERY effective approach to deflate some of Trump's hysteria and hyperbole.

The battle is on several fronts currently. There is a traditional middle ground undecided Independent voter. This 'rational' argument, that Trump numbers are not accurate - that helps here and Obama is a great messenger. Then there is a contest for moderate Republicans, especially on foreign policy/national security matters; but also on free trade capitalism arguments. That is a group that is in play, and devastatingly for Trump, many moderate Republicans are obviously saying Trump is wrong (and a few have already endorsed Hillary, many more will come onboard especially in the NATO mess aftermath). A third battle is for Bernie voter support. Bernie's speech at the Convention is very important in this but also Elizabeth Warren. And it would be good to have Bernie on the road a couple of times very visibly with Hillary (both of them may not want to do this). And to a lesser degree, I sense that some religious voters are in play. The 'evangelical' voters are very strongly solidifying around Trump but the continued fights with Ted Cruz do not help, and now a 'devout' Catholic Tim Kaine, who volunteered as a missionary abroad, that should help draw some seriously religious voters away from the very nasty and un-religious Trump. I would expect that a (modest) bunch of religious leaders will come to the Clinton-Kaine ticket where they were against Obama-Biden in 2012 and 2008.

Haha one Republican Senator said of Kaine (in a Tweet) that he was trying to think of something bad to say, and could not think of anything (as a kind of backhanded complement to someone on the other side).

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[grouch]

"First off, he’s ready to be President ‘on Day 1’ [...]" -- Tomi Ahonen

That's the scary part; there's no disincentive to the crazies out there.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/trump-vets-adviser-clinton-should-be-put-in-the-firing-line

[grouch]

Tomi: Typo, 3rd paragraph:

"(what Trump’s VP, Tim Pence lacks totally)"

Is it Tim or Mike?

[Winter]

@Tomi
Hillary is behind Trump in one imprtant demographic: Older white men. Will Kaine help here?

Maybe Hillaries deep data has directed her choice?

http://www.insidesources.com/clintons-challenge-older-white-men/

[Winter]

Donald says it like it is, about why he chose Pence:

"See, now if I don't win, I'm going to blame Mike, right? We have to blame Mike."

Donald Trump just gave another absolutely epic press conference
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/22/donald-trump-just-gave-another-press-conference-for-the-ages/

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi grouch & Winter

grouch - on disincentive.. ouch, oops. True. On the typo thanks, obviously Mike not Tim. have corrected it.

Winter - LOL yeah true. If Hillary wins white WOMEN (always vote more Republican than Democrat) she's home safely and she's ALREADY up on them now, before her convention even starts. The white men can go haha themselves.. (or talk to an empty chair like Clint Eastwood).

On the Dumpster Trumpster, gosh he is a character. He just can't stop himself and he will just dig dig dig, his hole gets deeper and deeper. There was a good pundit on one of the news shows, I think it was Steve Schmidt the GOP strategist for McCain who said that because the big GOP money is sitting on the sidelines, the Convention ORGANIZATION was a key to them whether the Trump campaign is 'worth investing in' - and that he's never seen as disorganized and poorly run campaign - then he listed the long series of MANAGEMENT problems related to the Convention, all signalling a horrid campaign for the Autumn - and Steve argued that this means, most of that money will not come in. They see its a lost cause.

But now, after he was hoping for a Convention bounce? Trump re-starts old fights with Ted Cruz. (this will help 'heal' a horribly divided party, for sure). Then Trump said haha, I can't believe this but why not, its Trump - that the National Enquirer should win a Pulitzer. And for those who haven't lived in the USA, the National Enquirer is the tabloid newspaper that regularly discovers Elvis is still alive or they interview the guy who was just abducted by the UFO etc. This cheapest pulp fiction is to Trump worthy of the highest prize of journalism. Sure thing Trump. You're clearly sane and have good judgment and should be allowed to run the country.

Now Trump discovered his fave nickname for Tim Kaine - its 'corrupt Kaine' alongside crooked Hillary and Pocahontas.. well. Some of his nicknames have some 'merit' ie low-energy of Jeb Bush for example, but Kaine, certainly is NOT known for corruption (but both Trump and Mike Pence ARE, why do you raise this issue, moron Trump?). But yeah.

And then he's been allowed onto Twitter again, unmonitored. He was on with a new Tweet bringing back 'Pocahontas' again. Just when we thought he had abandoned this racial slur, and that Trump might be a bit more presidential (his official Tweet about the shooting in Germany was very subdued - obviously not authored by Trump himself) but now, he's on the loose and again Tweeting wantonly. Pocahontas! (and Trump has no idea all this is further damaging him).

Oh, one of the big anti-Trump papers has now declared Trump insane; while the Washington Post has broken with tradition and made its choice already now, before the Democratic Convention has even started - and declared it will not be considering Trump for its eventual editorial endorsement of a candidate for President. Yeah. Mr Presidential..

At some point I do expect a trickle of registered Republicans to start to un-endorse Trump. He's now past the Convention and still his 'Trump 3.0' conversion is not holding. The party is headed for an epic loss and the sane members of the party have to start to consider their way out. And I can see a trickle of un-endorsements becoming a flood even - haha, and THEN it would be funny to see, if Mike Pence himself said in the last days just before the election when the polls are saying 20% landslide catastrophe - I will not vote for Trump for President but I will vote for myself as VP haha... (no, Pence cannot do it, he's screwed and can't get out of it)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

The US got the best family man their politics had to offer, ever and you know how they appreciated it.

With Obama, the Personal Is Presidential
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/15/opinion/with-obama-the-personal-is-presidential.html

Compare this role model of a husband and father with this

Make America Hate Again
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/opinion/make-america-hate-again.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-3&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article

"The man who couldn’t manage his own convention, the creator of a “university” built on fraud, bet his shot at the top job in the world on a panicked public and collective amnesia of his serial misdeeds. “I will restore law and order to our country, believe me, believe me,” he said.

And the instigator of four corporate bankruptcies, the man who stiffed plumbers and carpenters, the failed casino owner, promised to use his dark arts to “make our country rich again.”

One of the main speeches, that of Melania Trump, was stolen in part from the wife of a president that Donald Trump has long tried to delegitimize. That and the speech of Ivanka Trump, which would have fit perfectly at a Democratic convention, were the only hints of hope."

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi everybody

OMG.. Kasich is now torpedoing Trump. He just said Trump probably can't win Ohio because he's too divisive. OUCH. (its the revenge on Trump's attacks on Trump. VERY VERY smart by Kasich, wait until after Convention but make sure it gets into the press.. also sets up Kasich very clearly among the sane minds when the retributions and expulsions start when the GOP will go through its reformation after November)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi everybody

WOW. Home run! This is EXACTLY how you do a Veep launch. Wow. Hillary, a little attack on Trump but most of the speech is just immense admiration of Kaine in her intro. Then Kaine, he attacks Trump more and talks about his personal background with good stories, but also shows great admiration of Hillary. This is HOW you do the Veep intro event. Perfection. Perfection. Perfection.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

@Tomi
"This is HOW you do the Veep intro event. Perfection."

And "sources close to the campaign" have leaked to the press that Hillary favored Kaine because he could take over the presidency from day one.
Perfection indeed.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/434680/hillary-clinton-tim-kaine

[Winter]

You could not make this up:

Trump’s “Working America” Ad Features A Dutch Stock Photo Model

The photo, which can be seen on Shutterstock, is from Ysbrand Cosijn, a photographer based in Haarlem, Netherlands.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/trumps-working-america-ad-features-a-dutch-stock-photo-model?utm_term=.akPo2VrvQB#.fsQpPX0VGB

[Winter]

Btw, the model is called Jan Jonkhout.

[Winter]

These 3 Charts Show Why Donald Trump Will Lose in November
http://fortune.com/2016/07/22/donald-trump-will-lose-charts/

Its the economy, stupid.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Winter

Gosh, thats AGAIN so Trumpian. His Americans in work are of course foreigners, outsourced work. But this IS Amateur hour. They don't have enough staff to do proper planning and proper execution (or do things like original photographs haha)

Oh, is it Jan? I know Jan. Jan Jonkhout, gosh yeah, I know Jan. No I don't, I'm just kidding :-)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Wayne Borean]

I've done some heavy thinking about Hillary's VP pick. While I would have preferred several other options, in a lot of ways Kaine makes excellent sense.

1) The older white male vote - Kaine is one of them.

2) The older vote - many older people, no matter what background, still believe that having a vagina and female hormones makes a person unstable. If Hillary gets unstable Kaine can take over.

3) The older vote - many older people believe that Democrats are the party of blacks, browns, asians, etc. Kaine will not give that impression.

4) The older religious vote - many older people are upset that younger people don't go to church, and that the Democrats have backed Muslims, Buddhists, Atheists, and all those others who don't believe the way they do. Kaine is a staunch Catholic.

We have a lesbian, married to her long term partner as Premier of the Province of Ontario. The reactions to her by a certain percentage of the population have been extremely negative. Many of the people reacting this way wish that Ontario was still in the Fifties, which to many of them seems a perfect time.

Kaine gives people who think like that an out. They can vote for Hillary knowing that a good, religious man stands ready to push her aside and take over if her hormones cause her to loose it, and decide to declare war on the Ducky of Grand Fenwick.

He's not perfect. They'd rather of had him as the Democratic Presidential candidate instead of Hillary. But he is a safety vale for when she does loose it, which she assuredly will, being a woman.

There are a hell of a lot of people who think like this. Too damned many in my opinion.

But demographically they are a shrinking breed. By the next election their numbers will have dropped significantly, and Hillary will have proven that she can govern without her hormones causing her to loose it.

[Millard Filmore]

Here I am working away in my hotel room, bored with CNN so surfed on over to Bloomberg ... on the right under Top News was a blurb that Trump will create Super PACs dedicated to crushing Cruz and Kasich in future runs they might make.

Its what any good honorable conservative or Republican would do, right?

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/288940-report-trump-to-create-super-pac-to-attack-cruz-kasich

[Wayne Borean]

On Donald Trump and Civil Rights

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2016/07/trump-does-not-know-what-civil-liberties-are-and-that-should-be-terrifying.html

[Wayne Borean]

There's an attempt to change or eliminate Super Delegates in the Democratic Party

https://newrepublic.com/article/135296/democrats-spoiling-one-last-fight

[grouch]

The Dumpster just keeps on giving...

http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/trump-sends-cease-and-desist-to-art-of-the-deal-ghostwriter/

Isn't political speech supposed to be the most protected of all speech by the 1st Amendment?