Vice presidential hopeful Tim Kaine has a string of events already scheduled over the next 10 days. | Getty Tim Kaine's other role: Cash machine

When newly minted vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine first showed his face in Philadelphia at the Democrats’ convention last week, it wasn’t on stage at the Wells Fargo Center. It was in the tony private suites high above the festivities, where he dropped in on a handful of the campaign’s highest-flying fundraisers.

That was no coincidence. Much has been made of the Virginia senator’s suburban dad-like mien and his Spanish-speaking skills as he’s started to attack Donald Trump, but Kaine also brings to Hillary Clinton’s ticket an under-appreciated resume point: his stealth status as one of the Democratic Party’s most powerful fundraisers.


Now, after holding his first campaign finance event in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Tuesday, the vice presidential hopeful is expected to play a major behind-the-scenes role on the money circuit, in addition to his public campaigning.

He already has 10 more events scheduled around the country over the next 10 days, according to invites obtained by POLITICO.

Kaine won’t just serve as a shiny new attraction: His talent at the art of big donor maintenance dates back to his time running the national party, and fundraisers close to the campaign are hoping his position as a full-fledged member of President Barack Obama’s finance circles will help pull any remaining skeptical Obama-era tycoons off the bench for Clinton.

“Hillary is going to be limited in her fundraising ability based upon the time that she needs to actually campaign, prepare for debates, and just be engaged,” explained Jay Jacobs, a Clinton fundraiser from New York, looking at the final 98 days before Election Day. “While she’ll do some fundraising, those are going to have to be some events that raise a lot of money at the highest level, and that means that the campaign is going to need to rely upon people like Tim Kaine, President Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, and perhaps even President Obama and Vice President Biden to be out there as the other high profile attractions."

The Clinton campaign isn’t exactly struggling to raise cash against the perpetually under-funded Trump. Clinton’s $90 million haul in July — between the campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and state parties — dwarfs Trump’s $35.8 million, leaving her with $58 million in cash on hand to start August, not even counting the big money super PACs supporting her White House bid.

Obama himself held his first event for Clinton on Monday in Atlanta, and Biden’s inaugural fundraiser had to be postponed last month, but is expected to be rescheduled soon.

Clinton has been leaning on high-dollar events while her general election campaign schedule intensifies. On Monday that meant headlining a 15-person reception hosted by Warren Buffett’s daughter Susie in Omaha that cost $100,000 to attend — meaning the intimate event earned her at least $1.5 million. Meanwhile, at last week’s convention, the campaign’s finance team was pushing fundraisers and donors to give up to the maximum amount for the primary contest up until the very moment Clinton's nomination became official on Tuesday, even though her race against Bernie Sanders had effectively been over for more than a month.

Kaine’s addition is already bringing new energy to the fundraising department, as some top Democratic finance operatives detect new interest from some diehard Obama donors heartened to see Kaine’s name on the ticket. As Obama’s first big-name endorser in 2007 — and then as his first DNC chair — the former Virginia governor was at times a high-profile representative for the president to wealthy Democrats.

While his rise in Virginia politics enabled him to build relationships with Washington-area Democratic fundraisers for years — culminating in his 2005 race for governor, in which there were few contribution limits — those bonds deepened when he took the role of DNC chair, effectively making himself the party’s top money magnet.

“Part of the job of the DNC chair is to raise money and to work with your finance chair to get the resources,” explained Jacobs, himself a DNC member. “He never fell short, I’ll tell you that."

Under Kaine, who also worked to build up the online fundraising operation, the DNC out-raised and outspent its Republican counterpart in the 2010 cycle despite the massive political wave working in the GOP’s benefit. Both fundraisers and operatives who worked with him across the country at the politically fraught time recall the then-chair disarming skeptical donors by staying at their homes until late into the night to talk, and by making a point to always thank not only the donors and volunteers at events, but his aides for keeping him on schedule, and the wait staff.

Now Clinton’s top fundraisers are expecting to see much more of Kaine at their own houses and clubs, as well. After making his appearance in the donor suites on Tuesday night last week, he was a last minute addition to a private event featuring campaign chairman John Podesta, campaign manager Robby Mook, and campaign vice-chair Huma Abedin at the finance team’s Philadelphia headquarters on Thursday. There, campaign officials hinted to finance committee members that he would be a full participant in the fundraising operation.

Already campaign donors have requested that Kaine be dispatched to their state or region to raise cash, and the Brooklyn-based finance team is working out his calendar. He is due to raise cash in his home state on Thursday, Michigan on Friday, and Massachusetts on Saturday.

He is then slated for a trio of events in Texas on Tuesday and Wednesday, before tacking on another in New Orleans on Wednesday. That Friday he'll raise cash in New Hampshire before headlining two more events in Rhode Island the next day.

Their bet is that, on top of his public responsibilities, Kaine has the stomach for three months of a high-octane cash dash. Based on his previous work, they don’t anticipate a problem.

“When you agree to do that [DNC] role, you agree to be the point person on fundraising,” said Bruce Thompson, a North Carolina lawyer and Clinton finance council member. “So he doesn’t have the aversion that some politicians have.”