MIAMI — Tim Kaine is not going to be an easy target for Republicans. After all, they all but love the guy.

As a rank-and-file Democratic senator, Kaine has shown deal-making tendencies with top GOP lawmakers and an affinity for breaking with his own party that’s earned him respect across the aisle.


Those traits would make him especially valuable as Hillary Clinton’s vice president: The Virginia senator would be her line into Senate Republicans, a direct conduit to a group that’s been extraordinarily reluctant to work with President Barack Obama.

Kaine’s most high-profile achievement is work in the trenches on a bill that allowed Congress a vote on Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Working with more conservative Democrats and deal-cutting Republicans, Kaine helped drive a 98-1 vote in the Senate, effectively forcing Obama to sign it and begin the task of lining up Democrats to support it in a roll-call vote.

“He’s sort of Biden-lite on the engagement with the Hill,” said South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who’s been part of negotiating groups with Kaine on Iran and preventing terrorists from buying guns. “Tim would be a good steady hand for her. He’d be well received on our side of the aisle if he’s an emissary from the president.”

But it’s not just aisle-crossing Republicans like Graham who Kaine knows well; he's also rubbed shoulders with the Senate’s conservative firebrand class. Upon entering the Senate, Kaine began getting to know Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who would later run for president as a rock-ribbed hero of the right and is perhaps the least compromising lawmaker in the halls of the Capitol.

After being oriented together as part of the class of 2012, Kaine dined with Cruz at the house of independent Maine Sen. Angus King, and the two have spoken regularly about books and legal issues.

“We get along great,” Kaine said of Cruz in an interview in 2014, reported for the first time here. “We’ve socialized together. Took dinners, sometimes he and I together, just the two of us. Sometimes with others. We’re often disagreeing, but we’re both serious about our work.”

In his first rally with Clinton in South Florida on Saturday, Kaine’s centrism was in the background as the Democratic Party digested the selection of a senator who has been amenable to new trade deals and occasionally out of step with liberals on abortion issues. Clinton and Kaine instead talked up immigration reform and health care expansion — red meat for a crowd of revved-up partisans.

“And here’s how we’re going to continue that work: With a strong, progressive agenda,” Kaine said emphatically.

Close friends don’t expect Kaine to advertise his bipartisan leanings in front of most audiences.

“He won’t be talking about reaching across the aisle. But he’s got a record of doing it,” said Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat.

Despite his reputation among Senate Republicans, at his core Kaine is an ally of Democratic leaders and Obama. He eventually supported the president’s Iran deal, as did all but four Senate Democrats. But initially the administration and its allies on the Hill were reluctant to even put the Iran deal up for a vote — a vote that the GOP was clamoring for.

Kaine’s blessing for a congressional review helped drive other Capitol Hill Democrats to the bill but also had a side benefit for Democrats: Kaine’s work with Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) made it more difficult for the GOP to try and amend the bill with conservative goodies.

“The greatest example you can point to is the role he played in fashioning the Iranian compromise,” said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, among the most conservative Democrats in Congress. “It illustrates some of the work he’s always done behind the scenes that you may not see every day.”

Indeed, the parade of cheers among some Senate Republicans is more enthusiastic for Clinton's VP selection than for GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey, who has not endorsed Trump, praised Kaine as a “good choice for the Democratic ticket” and highlighted all the work they’ve done together on fighting opioid addiction, sugar subsidies and keeping people with mental illnesses from obtaining guns.

Corker, an increasingly vocal Trump backer, deemed the selection of Kaine as “solid.”

“He’s very bipartisan,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz).

“Well-respected,” chimed in Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).

But the most hard-core partisans quickly moved to light up Kaine.

“One of President Obama's most loyal 'yes men' in the Senate,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

There’s likely to be more negativity toward Kaine as the campaign progresses, and he could lose his bipartisan sheen. Over the weekend, conservative outside groups tried to sow discord between liberals and the Clinton-Kaine ticket by highlighting positions that could rankle progressives.

“I don’t see how he can escape coming out of it as more partisan,” said Mike Thomas, who ran former Republican Sen. George Allen’s campaign against Kaine in 2012.

In the Senate, Kaine’s collegial manner is a throwback to another era — he’s a liberal-leaning lawmaker who simultaneously realizes that 60 votes are needed in the Senate and that his purple-state status means he needs to come off the sidelines. But perhaps even more than Kaine’s yearning for big fiscal deals and bipartisan agreements on foreign policy, his bipartisan brand of politics is driven by his belief that the Senate should vote on tough issues.

It’s not always welcomed by other Washington Democrats. Party leaders ignored his frequent calls for holding a vote on authorizing the war against the Islamic State, and Corker eventually shot down the idea after a retinue of media showed up with him to an otherwise dry Foreign Relations hearing last November at which Kaine tried to force the issue.

Kaine also disagreed publicly with Obama over whether the White House could escalate its presence in Syria and Iraq without Congress' blessing. It won him new respect from Republicans for taking such a bold position.

“The president shouldn’t be doing this without Congress,” Kaine said in a 2014 speech at the Center for American Progress, widely viewed as a rare rebuke of Obama. “Congress shouldn’t be allowing it to happen without Congress.”

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) eventually worked hand in hand with Kaine to introduce a draft bill that was shunned by both parties. But it had the benefit of deepening the relationship between the first-term senators.

“Trying to count the ways I hate [Kaine]. Drawing a blank. Congrats to a good man and a good friend,” Flake said after Kaine was selected by Clinton. Flake has yet to endorse Trump.

Sen. Jeff Flake: "Trying to count the ways I hate [Kaine]. Drawing a blank."

This summer, as the speculation around Kaine as Clinton’s running mate swirled around him, Kaine was still advocating for a vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal with other Pacific Rim nations that Clinton helped negotiate but now opposes. Shortly after Kaine was selected as her running mate, he announced he'd vote against it, but suspicions among the left are unlikely to be immediately quelled by that assurance.

But Kaine is no scourge of the left. Just a few weeks ago, Kaine’s work with rank-and-file Republicans also put GOP leaders in a tough spot.

Kaine collaborated with Republicans like Graham, Flake, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Susan Collins of Maine to write a bill that created a small list of suspected terrorists that could be blocked from buying firearms.

“He was very helpful,” Collins said. “I believe his participation was instrumental … in convincing other Democrats to give their support to the compromise.”

The bill eventually stalled under strong opposition from McConnell. But it ended up pitting conservatives like Ayotte and Flake against the NRA, an unusual occurrence that happened, in part, because of Kaine's deep GOP relationships.

“Behind that smile, Tim also has a backbone of steel,” Clinton said Saturday. “Just ask the NRA.”