There’s been much speculation this week that Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine may be “very, very high” on Barack Obama’s VP shortlist, as Politico has described it.
We have no insider knowledge of the vetting process, but the parallels between Kaine and Obama – both of whom are Harvard-educated attorneys with Kansas roots and a civil rights orientation – help explain their unusual chemistry. But those similarities could also prove a liability for the Democratic ticket.
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Like Obama and his wife, both Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, a lawyer and former judge, graduated from Harvard Law School. Holton and Michelle Obama also attended Princeton, although at different times.
That background no doubt attests to both couples’ smarts, but at a time when so many Americans are wary of intellectual achievers whom they see as elitists, the notion of four Harvard-educated lawyers in the White House may not play well in some quarters. (Perhaps that’s why The New Republic has posted a video of Kaine riffing on a harmonica with a blue-grass band as evidence he might cut it with regular folks.)
Kaine, 50, an early Obama supporter, also shares Obama’s preoccupation with civil rights. After graduating from Harvard, Kaine had a law practice specializing in representing people who had been denied housing opportunities because of race or disability. He also taught legal ethics for six years at the University of Richmond Law School.
Like the presumptive Democratic nominee, he boasts of a bipartisan orientation, an assertion that owes less to his record in the Virginia statehouse than the fact that his father-in-law, Linwood Holton, was the state’s Republican governor from 1970 to 1974.
Howard Fineman over at MSNBC points out that Holton, who is about to turn 85, remains a hero to liberal Democrats and African Americans in the Old Dominion.
Back in the 1970s, when public school busing and racial integration was creating a new faction of the GOP — one appealing to the fears and prejudices of working-class white southerners — Holton stood his ground.
As governor of Virginia, he sent his children, including his daughter, Anne, to public schools in Richmond to prove his point.
The political friendship between Kaine and Obama is said to have begun shortly after Obama spoke before the Democratic convention in 2004. At Kaine’s invitation, Obama came to Virginia to campaign for him in 2005 as he ran for governor.
Kaine reciprocated last year by becoming the first prominent elected official outside of Illinois to endorse Obama for president.
It may be relevant too, as Fineman suggests, that the two men share a political consultant – the Benenson Strategy Group whose founder, Joel Benenson is advising Obama. The group’s principal consultant, Peter Brodnitz, who gained his reputation handling Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, is advising Kaine.
Kaine does bring some things to a Democratic ticket that Obama lacks. A practicing Catholic who spent close to a year working as a missionary in Honduras, Kaine would presumably appeal to swing Catholic voters, even though political scientist Larry Sabato points out, “he is pro-choice in effect while projecting a pro-life image and accepting of the death penalty despite personal opposition to it.”
Kaine is also fluent in Spanish and would presumably appeal to growing numbers of Latino voters.
Most critically, if he could help Obama win Virginia, which has voted Republican in 13 of the last 14 presidential contests, that could give Obama a decisive Electoral College advantage, according to Sabato.
On the negative side, however, those skeptical of Obama’s readiness to lead the nation may feel the same way about Kaine. With scant background in military and foreign policy, in particular, Kaine would be unlikely to reassure those who have trouble seeing Obama as commander in chief.
Although Kaine has more executive experience than Obama as a sitting governor and a former mayor of Richmond, many pundits there say his record of achievement as a state leader is mixed, in part because he has been unable to move much through a Republican-controlled state legislature.
Finally, as someone relatively new to the Big Leagues, he could hammer away at the Democrats’ change theme – but that would cut both ways since he has little national name recognition.
Which is to say, he might be “Obama squared “– a smart, charismatic and a formidable campaigner, but without enough of a track record to make his promise of change seem credible.
Here’s a taste of Kaine on the harmonica:
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