Gillian Brassil works in video production in Santa Fe. She has previously written for GQ and the New York Times Magazine.

From 2008 to 2010, Beau Cribbs served as the body man—a politician’s ever-present personal assistant—for Tim Kaine, then the governor of Virginia and now the Democratic candidate for vice president. A few hours before the official announcement, I spoke to Cribbs by phone to see what he could tell us about Kaine’s personality behind closed doors.

So, the question on everyone’s mind: Boring or not boring?


A boring person is someone you would dread getting stuck next to at a party, or someone you wouldn’t want to go on a transatlantic flight with. Tim Kaine can talk to you about anything, and he can talk about it much more eloquently than you could. I think he’s just gotten a bad rap because he doesn’t get in Twitter fights, and he doesn’t wear trucker hats with campaign slogans on them.

Is he a funny guy?

Yeah, he is—and I mean this in the most endearing way possible—he’s got dad jokes. … He gets all kinds of humor, but he’s just kind of—I don’t know, he’s not deadpan; he’s a little goofy. Here’s a story. It’s not about him cracking me up, but it just kind of gives you a picture of his personality. So, we spent lots of late nights together in the car, on the road, and he knows a lot about baseball trivia. He would try to stump me in the car. I’m a sports nerd too, so we’d try to stump each other that way. We’d also play really weird songs that we had in our libraries and try to stump the other person. Like, “Do you know what this song is?” and then we’d play it and kind of go back and forth there—just funny, weird songs that you admit to having.

Like what? Do you remember a specific one?

He used to play—this is kind of funny—he used to play a song by Elvis Costello called “Blame It on Cain.” The chorus is, “Blame it on Cain, don’t blame it on me. It’s nobody’s fault, but we just need someone to burn” or something like that. So if he was getting beat up by Republicans or beat up in the media, he’d say like, “Hey, want to hear my favorite song?” And he’d play “Blame It on Cain.”

Anyone who’s seen Veep knows that the body man has to carry the boss’s bag of stuff. What was in Tim Kaine’s?

You’re not going to believe this—he would always carry a few harmonicas in his briefcase. He’s pretty good. He’s not, like, a virtuoso, but he can hold his own.

You’re not going to believe this—he would always carry a few harmonicas in his briefcase.”

Any other daily rituals?

I was instructed by the person I replaced: “If you see a Dr. Pepper in a green room, snag one.” So he would have a mid-afternoon Dr. Pepper, a 2 or 3 o’clock post-lunch Dr. Pepper.

Obama vetted him for VP in 2008, but passed him over. How did that go over?

One thing I really admire about Kaine is that he never gets too high or too low when things are going well or not so well. He’s got a very steady hand, and he was that way the whole time I worked for him. And he was more or less that way the whole time. He just did his job and knew that like, 99.9 percent of this was totally out of his hands, so he just kind of let things happen the way they did.

One time, we were in the car late at night driving back to Richmond. I just blurted out: “Do you ever play what-if? Do you ever think about what it would be like if Obama had picked you and not Joe Biden?” And he said, “Look, I get one shot at being governor. I can’t play the what-if game, because it would drive me crazy, and it would be a distraction.”

So if I ask you “What’s the happiest you saw him and what’s the angriest you saw him,” there wouldn’t be notable times?

The happiest I saw him was the day after Obama got elected. He was basically skipping through the hallways. But the next day, he did his post-election interviews then went right back to work.

People seem to be mad that he’s not more controversial.

There was an interesting article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Thursday. A longtime political columnist named Jeff Schapiro interviewed the person Kaine beat running for governor 11 years ago, and the person he beat running for senate four years ago. And basically it was about: Don’t underestimate a guy like Tim Kaine. He’s a lot more politically savvy than you might think, and he makes really strategic decisions. He comes off as Mr. Nice Guy, and he is a nice guy, and both of them say he’s a nice guy, but it’s not like he’s Mr. Rogers.

Does that accord with your experience of him, this like, “He’s a nice guy, but he’s no Mr. Rogers”?

No. I guess I meant he’s no Mr. Rogers meaning: Mr. Rogers wouldn’t know how to run for Senate, you know what I mean? And Mr. Rogers didn’t go to Harvard Law School. No offense to Mr. Rogers—I love Mr. Rogers. Let’s not turn this into an anti-Mr. Rogers piece, please.

That’s the headline.

Yes, “Kaine Staffer Hates Mr. Rogers.”

Tim Kaine vs. Mike Pence, improv comedy duel. Who wins?

Well, I can speak for Kaine. So, in addition to being a speechwriter, I am an occasional comedian here in Richmond. I have a comedy show, and the first guest on my first show, two years ago, was Kaine. He came on, and he was genuinely funny. He sent me an email earlier in the day and said like, “What should I wear? Should I look like a slightly respectable aging hipster, or should I look like a minor-league third base coach out for a night on the town, or should I look like a soccer dad wearing jeans? How should I look here?” And I read it on the show; it was like, “I’m just going to read this email,” because it was super—it was genuinely funny.

Does he have a signature dance move?

Oh, boy. Uh, yeah, it’s dad dancing. He’ll shake his hips occasionally. I think there are lots of rules for politicians, one of which is: Try not to dance if you can help it, and I think that’s one of them. So, I don’t know what his signature move is, but whatever it is or whatever it’s called, I’m sure his children are mortified.

Did you ever see Kaine do anything that could upend the campaign if news got out? It sounds like the hip shimmy could be it.

It could be. We’ll see. I’ve totally derailed the Clinton campaign now that his secret’s out.

This interview was edited and condensed.