To many — in the White House, in and around Hillary Clinton’s orbit, and among top Democrats — the question of “Could Tim Kaine be a good vice president?” is settled. It's how the Virginia senator would do as an attack-dog running mate that’s still in question.

And when the opposition is a bully bomb-throwing genius who seems ready to say just about anything, when people worry that Bill Clinton will spend the campaign bouncing off the walls complaining that they're not hitting back enough, that has top Democratic operatives nervous.


The Virginia senator has been on every speculative vice-presidential short list for years. And not just among the kibitzers: After all, he was the runner-up on Barack Obama's short list in 2008, and Clinton uber-confidant Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe has this year been pushing Kaine constantly in conversations with both Clintons, who’ve been talking about him more, too (McAuliffe’s spokesman said the governor’s been urging them to consider both his state’s senators).

And Clinton’s been paying special attention to Kaine: In May 2014, when she was officially still undecided about running but Kaine went to South Carolina to endorse her at a Ready for Hillary breakfast in the hopes of maximizing his impact, he was one of the rare supporters she called to thank, according to people familiar with their interactions.

On Tuesday afternoon, Kaine put himself farther out than he usually does, heading to the Senate floor for a speech tied to the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education that was a sly, prosecutorial pincer on Senate Republicans for giving “second-class treatment” to President Barack Obama. Why could that be, he wondered aloud, since Obama did win two presidential elections with majorities, and he’s still popular, according to the polls.

“In what way is this president so different from all who came before to justify such treatment?” Kaine asked, just letting the question hang in the air. “Obviously, I do not know the answer. I cannot say why the Senate would be so willing to break its historic practice and the commands of the Constitution to refuse consideration of a nomination made by this particular president.”

It’s not easy to suggest that the entire Senate Republican conference might just be racist and certainly without principle, and walk away without most people noticing, especially while speaking about the most politically charged standoff in Washington these days. But that’s what Kaine did, without any charts or blow-up pictures, no hand-waving or Dr. Seuss books.

And according to his admirers, that’s exactly what he’d be able to do if he leaves the Democratic convention in Philadelphia hired as Clinton’s point man to take on Donald Trump.

This is a guy, they point out, who has already literally had Adolf Hitler used against him — in an unaired but released ad from his opponent in the 2005 Virginia governor’s race that featured a man saying Kaine’s complete opposition to capital punishment meant he wouldn’t even kill the Nazi leader — and turned it into a winning issue.

Kaine, by the number of ads, the scripts and the amount of time they were on the air, actually ran a more negative campaign that year, as aides acknowledged then and now. But according to a poll taken the week before the election, voters thought Jerry Kilgore ran the more negative campaign by a margin of 4 to 1 — a result Kaine’s aides credit to his delivering many of the attacks himself in direct-to-camera ads.

“He is really able to fillet you before you realize it, and before you know it, you’re on the grill. And all done with a smile,” said his longtime media consultant David Eichenbaum.

Others aren’t as convinced, especially in a news cycle dominated by Trump, Trump and Trump.

“He would have been a great candidate for president, and I think he'll make a fantastic VP,” said a top official who worked with Kaine when he was Democratic National Committee chair. “What he's not is an attack dog. He never enjoyed that part of the gig as chair of the party. It's not his natural disposition. He's a thoughtful guy who likes to play in the world of facts and policy. He doesn't shoot from the hip, and he's not a sound-bite master.”

Kaine, according to people who know him, has tried to tamp down the speculation this time, given how close he came in 2008. Even people close to him address the topic gingerly, careful to point out that while they'd like to see him get the job, that's a lot different from the stage-whisper campaigns that some of the other prospects have been deep into for months. And sure enough, Kaine's office quickly declined an interview request with him to discuss his chances.

That’s how Kaine tried to keep it himself, in a brief conversation on the Senate subway Tuesday shortly after leaving the Senate floor.

“People have to have something to talk about,” Kaine said, dismissing the subject. “I was speculated [about] eight years ago, and it never seemed that real to me, and I don’t feel that different about it now. It doesn’t seem that real to me.”

The Clinton campaign isn’t talking much about the running-mate selection process, now in its early stages, and a spokesman declined comment about the approach or about Kaine specifically. People familiar with the thinking acknowledge that given a race between two well-defined behemoths at the top of the ticket, picking someone to win a particular state or appeal to one political or demographic group isn’t the right way to think about things.

In fact, they don’t appear convinced that a running mate is going to make much difference at all, except if that difference is causing a problem. Kaine, who projects a squeaky-clean image and passed the Obama vetting in 2008, would seem to pass that test, though Republicans say they’re ready to leap on questions raised since about his travel as governor that came up during the corruption trial of Bob McDonnell, his Republican successor.

On the upside, Kaine’s got 20 years of experience in office without ever having lost an election, from Richmond City Council to mayor to lieutenant governor to governor to DNC chair to Senate, in the race that attracted the most outside money of any candidate ever other than Obama in the 2012 presidential race. He was a civil rights attorney, and he’s married to the daughter of the Republican governor of Virginia who integrated state schools. He’s a regular member of a black church where they love him, and can speak about faith with a fluency that comes from going every Sunday instead of getting speechwriters to pull choice Bible verses for him.

He’s so serious a Catholic that he took a year off of law school to be a missionary in Honduras, where he just happens to have picked up fluent Spanish, of the level that lets him cut radio ads and do interviews in his own voice. To the extent that Clinton can make any dent among white men, he’d be the guy to do it, and to the extent that she’ll need to appeal to the suburban moms and the dads that go with them, he has a record of connecting with them in Virginia.

Lining up against Kaine is the boring factor — both that he doesn’t come off as the most interesting person himself, and that at this point, his selection is so widely expected that the announcement wouldn’t excite many in the political world or the political press corps. Being the white guy won’t automatically excite the Obama coalition, and at 58 he’s old enough not to be a young, fresh contrast to Clinton. In an anti-establishment year, he’s a career politician. In a year of Bernie Sanders venting progressive rage against the Democratic Party machine, Kaine’s left of center, but he’s not an identified lefty to the people who care most about that.

People also wonder if what’s made him effective in past races will work if he’s got to go on the attack as Clinton’s No. 2 against a Republican nominee who dispatched his 16 GOP rivals in brutal fashion.

“While he may have some personality traits that allow him to carry a negative with a smile, that effectiveness is still tempered by who he’s carrying the message on behalf of,” said Chris LaCivita, a Republican consultant who’s been on the other side of Kaine in several Virginia races and is supporting Trump but not working for his campaign or one of the Trump super PACs. “It’s not sunny Tim Kaine saying whatever he’s going to say, it’s Sen. Tim Kaine, professional politician who is the vice presidential nominee for Hillary Clinton carrying the message.”

Kaine’s suggestion Tuesday afternoon to Clinton about how to go up against Trump: “I do not know. She’s got to be natural to her. She shouldn’t be adopting anybody else’s terms.”