Virginia's junior senator is a good man but basicaly a republican

I cane to Virginia in 1973 and after being in the front lines in the protest movement was shocked by how out of it they were here. My first joke was "What do you call a Virginia Democrat in the rest of the country?....Answer: a republican. Being stuck with what was here I remained active and did my best but never could even communicate with most Virginia Democrats.

Working at the Miracle College on Pill Hill in Richmond I was active in Richmond politics. I worked for Tim Kaine when he ran for mayor. As time wore on I found myself more and more disappointed in him in the Senate.

It should be no surprise that Clinton picked him and is distancing herself very openly from the left. The Goldwater Girl has returned to her roots.

There is little more to be said at this point. Jill Stein looks better every day. I wonder how it will be living under Trump?

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Pro TPP, has nothing to say about the near global slaughter conducted by the US government, and he's just partnered with one of the biggest bags of vomit in DC...by "good man" I assume we mean someone you wouldn't mind lending your lawn mower to.

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“If there is no justice for the people, may there be no peace for the government.”

don mikulecky's picture

The context of my post gives you the background here. In that context he is a good man. In the big bad world he is a republican.

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An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.

He's a pro-Wall Street corporatist that would never try to overturn Citizen's United. He's pro-life, and his nomination puts more than just late term abortion rights at risk. Those are two of the biggest issues that would otherwise be used to scare liberals back into line. All negated because he's practically a Republican.

I honestly don't see how he helps Hillary at all, except to make her even more unappealing. If she thinks that Tim Kaine is going to get Republicans to vote for her, well, good luck with that, your highness.

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Galtisalie's picture

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boriscleto's picture

Picks a DINO running mate. Not a surprise at all. I knew she wasn't going to go with Vilsack, he wasn't from a swing state.

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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

Not Henry Kissinger's picture

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

Lenzabi's picture

Yep, the Dems are totally lost souls. I am done with them.

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So long, and thanks for all the fish

Christine.MI's picture

they had souls to begin with. Wink

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Centaurea's picture

Some of them had souls, until they got mixed up with that fellow, Dr. Faust.

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"Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep ... Don't go back to sleep."
~Rumi

"If you want revolution, be it."
~Caitlin Johnstone

Their focus was on business issues, and less about social policy. There were people like Marshall Coleman, Linwood Holton (Tim Kaine's father-in-law), John Warner.

Things shifted with the rise of movement conservatives in the 1980s and 1990s -- Oliver North, George Allen, Jim Gilmore, Cuccinelli. So in a real way these kind of more socially moderate Republicans have moved into the Democratic Party, as the GOP has moved to the far-right.

I don't know Kaine personally, but I know a couple people who have worked closely with him over the past decade. He sounds like a very good guy. Unlike Mark Warner, he's remained fairly grounded and power hasn't gone to his head.

On foreign policy, he has considered views -- he is not a neo-con. On economic and social policy, he and Clinton are probably pretty close. He's not a transformational figure, and he's very much a small "c" conservative. The impression that he's very much a team player and part of the political establishment.

I think some of the generals that were being mentioned, Mark Warner, Corey Booker, would have been much worse. Kaine, kind of elicits a more ambivalent response. I don't think he's Joe Lieberman 2000, although if he spends enough time in Clintonworld, he might get there. I think Sherrod Brown would have been a better pick in terms of the electoral calculation. But, the problems are systemic right now -- bigger than any one party or candidate.

This move probably secures Virginia for the "Ds", but the "D" establishment is also grossly misreading the national mood. I think there's a very real chance the Dems could win Virginia, and still lose PA, Ohio and Florida.

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Hillbilly Dem's picture

OK, Kaine took $160,000 in gifts. But that was over his entire career as Governor and Lt. Governor. That's chump change to Hillary. Why, she has $160,000 in the bank just 40 minutes into one of her Wall Street speeches!

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"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey

Now we know WHAT he is, it's only about the price-and I'm sure it will go up astronomically after the Clintons tutor him.

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k9disc's picture

Nice piece Don.

I've been thinking a lot about language and framing these days and just about anything of impact that I read gets those synapses firing trying to find an end run around corporate sponsored public policy.

Open, Public, and Honest Elections

We need open and honest elections. Can anyone say that what we have, electorally, in the United States is open and honest?

The parties, Republicans & Democrats, are electoral conspiracies, doing all of their business in back rooms with cigars and caviar. I mean, Hillary hasn't even spoken to the public in a year.

Our elections are not public, open, and honest. They are closed and manipulated letting well connected insiders wheel and deal for the future.

Gerrymandering? Democrats don't plan on ending the odious, anti-democratic practice. They can't wait until 2020 to screw the Republicans and leverage it to their advantage. It's ugly.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

in 2018 Democratic senators (the few that will be left, assuming that conservadems get swamped in 2018) won't vote to impeach her no matter what she does. This strategy works if the Republicans don't have enough senate seats to impeach her successfully by themselves.

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On to Biden since 1973

It's more what it says about Clinton, reinforcing our understanding of her- that she's a liar and has nothing identifiable as core values (because I don't think that sociopathy in the pursuit of power and wealth is a "value").

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Matthew Yglesias:

What are you going to do — vote for Donald Trump?

Zach Carter, Senior Political Economy Reporter, The Huffington Post:

Progressives inside the Beltway got the message. “This sends a signal to liberals that they don’t matter,” said one progressive Senate Democratic aide.

[snip]

“This decision definitely impacts the relationship that progressives are going to have with a potential Clinton administration going forward,” said Neil Sroka, a spokesperson for Democracy for America, a progressive organization that rallied against a Kaine nomination.

[snip]

“She already starts with a trust deficit on these issues and she has just set herself back before she even takes office,” another Democratic Senate staffer told HuffPost.

“Kaine is Clinton’s first major hiring decision, and it shows she’s not looking to shake things up and seems to think Washington is working just fine,” said another Democratic staffer.

Zach Carter's conclusion:

She and Kaine can probably win. Trump is deeply unpopular. But they’ll have to do something come January. In October, Clinton told a debate audience that she was a progressive, but “a progressive who likes to get things done.” The Kaine pick presents reasons to doubt both of those claims.

My emphasis.

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Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.

Posted just above by neoconned:

This decision definitely impacts the relationship that progressives are going to have with a potential Clinton administration going forward,” said Neil Sroka, a spokesperson for Democracy for America, a progressive organization that rallied against a Kaine nomination.

Impacts how?

"Progressives" aren't going to do SHIT. Nothing they say or do matters to the party. There is zero cost to angering "progressives". They are liberal punks.

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“If there is no justice for the people, may there be no peace for the government.”

CambridgePulsar1919's picture

As guv he signed an amendment defining marriage in VA. as 'between a man and a women'.

But hey, he's a Democrat, so the pragmatists will insist that it's all good...

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Because he is her friend (from some time ago). As much as I dislike Killary, I will give her this pick.

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featheredsprite's picture

My daughter hooked up with a guy who isn't poor and he moved the both of us into one of the Philly burbs. I went to a couple of meetings of the local Democrats and came to wonder who the hell these people were. They probably wondered the same about me.

In contrast, I was living in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, where a lot of things are different.

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Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.