Jeff Greenfield is a five-time Emmy-winning network television analyst and author.

PHILADELPHIA—If you’re a fan of recycling, you’ll love the likely choice of Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as Hillary Clinton’s running mate. Because as the bland, affable, centrist middle-aged candidate takes to the trail, a mouthful of old jokes are about to be recycled, all of them aimed at mocking a “boring” choice.

Here’s one retrofitted from Senator “Scoop” Jackson, another legendary droner: “Tim Kaine gave a fireside chat and the fire went out.” Or this one, born in the days of the monotonous Al Gore: “Tim Kaine can light up a room just by leaving it.” Then there’s another Gore chestnut (told by the ex-Veep himself): “Tim Kaine is so boring his Secret Service code name is ‘Tim Kaine.’”


Had enough? Of all the complaints that can be leveled against a vice-presidential choice, “boring” may be the single most pointless. For one thing, it pulls the focus away from a slightly more relevant question: Is this person capable of taking the reins of the presidency in an instant? And that is the criterion that Hillary Clinton—she who considers herself afflicted with a “responsibility gene”—says she’s using.

In a moment when Democrats have been galvanized by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, it’s perfectly reasonable to argue that Kaine is too centrist for today’s party—insufficiently committed to abortion rights, too fond of trade deals. It’s fine to raise questions about Kaine’s ethics in accepting questionable gifts. (See this POLITICO column for details.) But Kaine also possesses a remarkable set of assets. He took a year off from law school to spend a year in Honduras, working with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. (As a result, he speaks fluent Spanish.) He was elected as mayor of Richmond in 1998 by a city council that was majority black. His 18 years of public life—he’s been a mayor, a governor, and a U.S. senator—have given him public experience at every level.

And given what’s happened when presidential nominees have chosen “unboring” running mates—well, it’s not all that clear that being boring isn’t an asset too.

In 1984, Democratic nominee Walter Mondale, knowing he was well behind President Reagan, decided to shake up the race by doing something exciting: He named third-term Rep. Geraldine Ferraro as the first woman nominee ever selected by a major party. The excitement at the crack in the glass ceiling was quickly replaced by excitement of a different kind; her husband, real estate entrepreneur John Zaccaro, turned out to have holdings in some dicey ventures including buildings that housed distributors of hard-core porn. She also found herself answering a barrage of questions about why her husband’s holdings were not included in her Congressional disclosure forms. While Ferraro can hardly be blamed for Mondale’s humiliating 49-state loss, it’s notable that by the campaign’s end, large majorities of American thought she’d been chosen for her gender, not for her qualifications.

Four years later, George H.W. Bush, seeking to signal a connection to the future, chose the very inexperienced Indiana Senator Dan Quayle. “A bold choice across generational lines,” enthused campaign manager Jim Baker, before quietly informing any and all that he he’d played no role whatsoever in the selection. Quayle, a highly attractive candidate on paper—young, handsome, experienced—turned out to be a not-ready-for-prime-time candidate. Everything from his draft record to his deer-in-the-headlights nervousness became grist for the mockery mill, and when in the VP debate he compared his experience to that of JFK's—accurately—Sen. Lloyd Bentsen was ready with one of the most memorable of ripostes in modern American politics. (“I knew Jack Kennedy. …Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”)

As with Ferraro, it’s hard to argue that Quayle tilted the outcome—Bush won handily—but he was hardly an asset.

Finally, there’s the least boring VP candidate of all, Sarah Palin. Years of Tina Fey impressions may have obscured the fact that she was—for 48 hours—a brilliant choice. A reformist governor of Alaska who had cracked down on the big oil boys, she was a rising star: attractive, feisty, a real-life version of the salt-of-the-earth Hollywood heroine. Her acceptance speech had the Obama campaign genuinely worried—until it turned out that she lacked the civics knowledge of an 11-year-old, and—as per “Game Change”—was prone to descend into fugue states when sharply questioned about anything serious.

So yes, Tom Kaine will likely not set pulses racing, nor adrenaline flowing. Yes, the press may find their eyes glazing over as he talks about the magnet school he helped create as mayor of Richmond, or the land-use policies he championed as governor. He may turn nuance into a defining trait as he talks about abortion—personally opposed, but pro-choice—or how he squares his support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership with Clinton’s new-found opposition. (And can you say “Trans-Pacific Partnership” without feeling the need for a nap?)

And yes, Kaine will underscore Clinton’s intention to position herself as a stale, reliable safe alternative to an opponent who may leap off the rails at any moment—with consequences we can only imagine.

His selection, in fact, may wind up giving heart to the countless men and women who fear they lack the chromosome that triggers waves of excitement among colleagues, friends, and lovers. We may even see bumper stickers adorning the automobiles of a constituency too often snubbed by the political class: bumper stickers that proclaim “Boring is Beautiful—Okay, Reasonably Attractive.”