Tim Kaine Notes

First of all, Tim Kaine is not from Virginia, he is from Missouri by way of Harvard. This is good and bad but no one from Virginia would for a moment think he was from Virginia, so you should know that. Second, he is not old-school Southern Democrat. That is good. Third, he is not a racist. Most of my ignorant west coast friends think all Southerners are racists. Fourth, he has been elected to political offices on a regular basis in a state that is heavily gerrymandered, has a large African-American vote, but which is a very conservative state, in the classic sense of the word.

Kaine is not in any way a radical, a progressive, or anything else along those lines. He will reinforce the Hillary Clinton approach to things, which is to say, a Rockefeller Republican approach. He may help to trivially increase education benefits. He may understand how hopeless the poor and the minority population is in this country, but he is not likely to stick his neck out too much unless Hillary tells him to, which I doubt. When it comes to foreign policy, he will be a solid American representative and will not embarrass us.

I can not emphasize the following too much. Kaine is a representative of the Harvard/Washington elite. If you have been happy with that elite's governance of America, then vote for him. If not, dont vote for him. He is not unlike John Kerry, if you will.

I dont think that voters in this country have any choice in who they will have to vote for in November. And I am not at all happy about this. Do not think that these people represent a big chunk of America just because they win in November. We had a gun to our head, and you know what I am talking about here.

I will update this post with new information about Kaine as it comes in.

Autobiographical note.

For what it is worth, I was born and grew up in Virginia (and California). A Californian friend of mine recently told me that Virginia was the Deep South. Another friend was angry that they had to have votes from the Southern states, e.g. that the South had votes in the House of Representatives and the Senate. I didn't have the heart to tell her that this was not the fault of the South, they did not want to be part of the Union either. There was a war about that, recall? It is my impression that most of my friends out here don't know much about the South but are completely certain that they do, a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.