Did Kaine actually help?

[Shadows]

There's a PBS debate in WI with 2 very biased mods. Clinton in a completely unrelated questions suddenly kept attacking Bernie viciously on Obama to polarize the black vote. Look @ what the mods did, they didn't allow Bernie a proper chance to respond after a 1 minute attack from Clinton & said you can use your closing statements to respond  - What a disgrace ! And they were whispering negative stuff against Bernie which was caught in a hot mic.

That's just one example. Look @ the Univision Miami debate. They took an old Bernie video from the 80's where he opposed military intervention & cut 1 line without context about Castro & tried to tie him to Castro. And they found out some old video about him complaining about wages falling being a concern for immigration reform & used it in Florida.

Against Hillary they used stupid Benghazi videos. There was a video of Warren alleging Clinton sold votes as a Senator due to receiving money with a lot of details - That would have been Massively damaging. There are videos of Clinton blaming ordinary people too for the Wall Street Crash or talking about building a Wall before Trump, videos of her flip-flopping including TPP as Gold Standard.

[MeanBeanMachine]

No one cares who the VP nominees are except for partisan hacks.  His bumper sticker comments at the debates were juvenile saying things like a you're hired vs. you're fired president.  He acted like it was a race for class president in 3rd grade.  So no he didn't help because undecided voters care more about the economy, having money in their pockets, food on their table, and their sons and daughters overseas.  The guy who breaks ties in the senate isn't on anyone's mind nor should it be. 

[60+ GOP Seats After 2018 GUARANTEED]

Ok---not sure exactly where you are coming from ahugecat.

It's pretty clear that much of the Democratic Party establishment was 100% behind Clinton. Simply take a look at the "super-delegate Gap".

And? If Bernie showed momentum the superdelegates would have switched.

Bernie lost by 3 million votes LOL. He's not some super popular guy that everyone loves. Black people (who make up like 30% of the Democrats) absolutely loathed him. He got CREAMED by black voters except doing OK in Michigan. That's it. Same with women. He didn't appeal to older women as much as well.

He's not going to win on the basis of young voters only.

Was she the best choice for the nominee of the Party in 2016 in an anti-establishment year?

Who says Bernie would have been better? Remember, Feingold lost to Johnson in Wisconsin. It's not guaranteed Bernie would have won. Trump had to fend off 16 tough GOP candidates and then took on the Clinton machine, something Bernie could not do.

[60+ GOP Seats After 2018 GUARANTEED]

Republicans had 12 scheduled debates while Dems had 6 & then Clinton forced in a NH Debate when she was losing & a couple got added. The timing of the debate were bad along with the limited schedule. Then you have Super-Delegates with Clinton starting at a 500 odd lead.

Everyone who brings up the debate schedule forgets (or maybe on purpose) to mention that the Democrats only had 6 sanctioned debates in 2008. They added more once it was clear it was going to be a close race. The GOP in 2016 only had half of the debates than 2012 as well.

You had WP running 16 negative stories a day, the DNC branding him as an atheist & feeding talking points to the media, etc. You had Claire McCaskill implying Bernie as a communist ! He was up against Cuomo, Schumer, Gillibrand, De Blasio in NY, Brown in Ohio, Booker in NJ, Boxer-Feinstein in CA, Manchin in WV & so on - Mayors, Senators, Gov, State Rep, DNC people all fighting for Clinton. And ofcourse Obama, the sitting POTUS was backing Clinton "Tacitly".

Trump had to go through 100 times this and won.

If Bernie can't handle a little adversity how can he handle Trump?

[Shadows]

Republicans had 12 scheduled debates while Dems had 6 & then Clinton forced in a NH Debate when she was losing & a couple got added. The timing of the debate were bad along with the limited schedule. Then you have Super-Delegates with Clinton starting at a 500 odd lead.

Everyone who brings up the debate schedule forgets (or maybe on purpose) to mention that the Democrats only had 6 sanctioned debates in 2008. They added more once it was clear it was going to be a close race. The GOP in 2016 only had half of the debates than 2012 as well.

You had WP running 16 negative stories a day, the DNC branding him as an atheist & feeding talking points to the media, etc. You had Claire McCaskill implying Bernie as a communist ! He was up against Cuomo, Schumer, Gillibrand, De Blasio in NY, Brown in Ohio, Booker in NJ, Boxer-Feinstein in CA, Manchin in WV & so on - Mayors, Senators, Gov, State Rep, DNC people all fighting for Clinton. And ofcourse Obama, the sitting POTUS was backing Clinton "Tacitly".

Trump had to go through 100 times this and won.

If Bernie can't handle a little adversity how can he handle Trump?

In 2008 there was no exclusivity clause which meant Hillary & Obama had close to a 25 odd debates. The Republicans had around 10 Debates pre-Iowa while the Dems had 5.

And it is not handling Trump. Bernie would destroyed Trump with more than 400 EV, that was never the concern, the concern was trying to win in such a big margin that you get close to 60 Senate Wins.

And I don't care what Trump went through considering he was appealing to insanely ignorant, low information, uber religious bigoted freaks! You don't need to do much to win a GOP primary, they are/ the dumbest voting base ever.

Ok---not sure exactly where you are coming from ahugecat.

It's pretty clear that much of the Democratic Party establishment was 100% behind Clinton. Simply take a look at the "super-delegate Gap".

And? If Bernie showed momentum the superdelegates would have switched.

Bernie lost by 3 million votes LOL. He's not some super popular guy that everyone loves. Black people (who make up like 30% of the Democrats) absolutely loathed him. He got CREAMED by black voters except doing OK in Michigan. That's it. Same with women. He didn't appeal to older women as much as well.

He's not going to win on the basis of young voters only.

Was she the best choice for the nominee of the Party in 2016 in an anti-establishment year?

Who says Bernie would have been better? Remember, Feingold lost to Johnson in Wisconsin. It's not guaranteed Bernie would have won. Trump had to fend off 16 tough GOP candidates and then took on the Clinton machine, something Bernie could not do.

You continue to peddle ignorant & stupid 3M count which ignores caucus state votes most of which Bernie won.

I don't want to start a discussion about Hillary losing to an insanely stupid bigoted unelectable candidate like Trump who was the most hated candidate in history. A ham sandwich would have beaten Trump!

[60+ GOP Seats After 2018 GUARANTEED]

You continue to peddle ignorant & stupid 3M count which ignores caucus state votes most of which Bernie won.

I don't want to start a discussion about Hillary losing to an insanely stupid bigoted unelectable candidate like Trump who was the most hated candidate in history. A ham sandwich would have beaten Trump!

Thanks for reminding me about caucuses - virtually the only way Bernie was able to win states was through undemocratic caucus states in states with little to no diversity. Remember how he dominated the Washington caucuses but then got demolished during the Washington primary? That sums up Bernie's campaign. He wasn't able to appeal to black people or women. That will doom you in a Democratic primary.

Obama won in 2008 due to brilliant delegate strategy. He focused on running up the score in states he was strong in (Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin), he kept states close even when Clinton won (California and Pennsylvania for example), and even in states he lost he got more delegates due to strategy (Texas, Nevada).

Bernie wasn't as popular as people think. Not to mention it wasn't the DNC that forced him to say "Nobody cares about your damn emails!" That was when I realized he would lose - he had no fight in him. Trump can barely comprehend the email issue but he kept hammering it down at least.

Kaine was a boring VP choice, but Bernie I doubt would have done much better. As I said, Feingold lost to Johnson in Wisconsin. Trump was and is just an unstoppable juggernaut of monumental proportions.

[SPQR]

He was good for the strategy she had. The problem was it was the wrong strategy.

Exactly.

Also - wasn't the general consensus in this forum that VP's barely move any votes?

[Shadows]

You continue to peddle ignorant & stupid 3M count which ignores caucus state votes most of which Bernie won.

I don't want to start a discussion about Hillary losing to an insanely stupid bigoted unelectable candidate like Trump who was the most hated candidate in history. A ham sandwich would have beaten Trump!

Thanks for reminding me about caucuses - virtually the only way Bernie was able to win states was through undemocratic caucus states in states with little to no diversity. Remember how he dominated the Washington caucuses but then got demolished during the Washington primary? That sums up Bernie's campaign. He wasn't able to appeal to black people or women. That will doom you in a Democratic primary.

Obama won in 2008 due to brilliant delegate strategy. He focused on running up the score in states he was strong in (Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin), he kept states close even when Clinton won (California and Pennsylvania for example), and even in states he lost he got more delegates due to strategy (Texas, Nevada).

Bernie wasn't as popular as people think. Not to mention it wasn't the DNC that forced him to say "Nobody cares about your damn emails!" That was when I realized he would lose - he had no fight in him. Trump can barely comprehend the email issue but he kept hammering it down at least.

Kaine was a boring VP choice, but Bernie I doubt would have done much better. As I said, Feingold lost to Johnson in Wisconsin. Trump was and is just an unstoppable juggernaut of monumental proportions.

You will deserve the award for most ridiculous poster in here. WA primary was a make-up exercise & I know 1000's of people who didn't participate in the primary. It was non-binding flowery primary with no effect on the results - Why would young people go for it? If you believe Hillary was gonna win WA you're clueless, Seattle is the highest per capita donation for Bernie.

And we talk about Bernie not being able to do well in diverse states, well Hawaii is the most diverse state in the union & we know what the result was.

I don't think the Trump comparison is valid. We don't compare with clowns here. I don't understand the Feingold base, are we going to pretend every progressive is the same, because then I don't how Joe Arapaio lost when Trump won! These arguments are made by little children.

Black voters in general held a very high favorability for Bernie but Obama was the 1st Black president & Clinton his heir & someone even considered Bill Clinton as kind of a black president due to his affinity. He was never going to win that demographic but he was getting 1/3rd of the Black votes later in the Northern states.

And Bernie did phenomenally well against women despite the Hillary 1st ever female President thing. Women under 45 broke for Bernie in a landslide state after state & Hillary never had a huge gender advantage the way she was supposed to have.

Everyone knows the GOP primary base is a downright dumb one & is good for clowns like Palin, Bachman, Carson, Trump ! IF Trump ran for the Dem primary, he would have got 0 states & wouldn't even have got 1% of the Black votes! So let's not talk big  - He won because the GOP primary was almost entirely white, old & full of racist dumb bigots !

And he would have been destroyed by Bernie, you know deep inside your heart & any random candidate would have beaten him. I won't carry on this discussion with you because you are not a rational poster !

[60+ GOP Seats After 2018 GUARANTEED]

You will deserve the award for most ridiculous poster in here. WA primary was a make-up exercise & I know 1000's of people who didn't participate in the primary. It was non-binding flowery primary with no effect on the results - Why would young people go for it? If you believe Hillary was gonna win WA you're clueless, Seattle is the highest per capita donation for Bernie.

And we talk about Bernie not being able to do well in diverse states, well Hawaii is the most diverse state in the union & we know what the result was.

I don't think the Trump comparison is valid. We don't compare with clowns here. I don't understand the Feingold base, are we going to pretend every progressive is the same, because then I don't how Joe Arapaio lost when Trump won! These arguments are made by little children.

Black voters in general held a very high favorability for Bernie but Obama was the 1st Black president & Clinton his heir & someone even considered Bill Clinton as kind of a black president due to his affinity. He was never going to win that demographic but he was getting 1/3rd of the Black votes later in the Northern states.

And Bernie did phenomenally well against women despite the Hillary 1st ever female President thing. Women under 45 broke for Bernie in a landslide state after state & Hillary never had a huge gender advantage the way she was supposed to have.

Everyone knows the GOP primary base is a downright dumb one & is good for clowns like Palin, Bachman, Carson, Trump ! IF Trump ran for the Dem primary, he would have got 0 states & wouldn't even have got 1% of the Black votes! So let's not talk big  - He won because the GOP primary was almost entirely white, old & full of racist dumb bigots !

And he would have been destroyed by Bernie, you know deep inside your heart & any random candidate would have beaten him. I won't carry on this discussion with you because you are not a rational poster !

The fact your best example of him winning a diverse state is Hawaii perfectly illustrates my point: he could only win in undemocratic caucus states.

The only 2 quality wins he got were Wisconsin and Michigan. Other than that, in the pivotal general election states like Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, etc. etc. he got blown into smithereens.

In reality, Bernie was done after the second Super Tuesday when he didn't even win ONE state LOL (not even Missouri). He should have quit his failed campaign right then and there.

Trump took on the GOP AND Democratic Establishment, but Bernie - who couldn't even put a dent in Clinton - was going to beat him? LOL Okay.

The ONLY benefit I could see Clinton picking a Sanders-approved candidate for her running mate is to get some of the third party young voters on her side, but I doubt it makes much of a difference: the Trump Train would have kept on rollin' regardless. Progressiveness isn't as popular as people think or else Feingold would have beaten Johnson in WISCONSIN.

[Del Tachi]

Let's be real for a minute here. There was only one correct choice for Hillary's VP: when your primary opponent is getting record enthusiasm, raising huge sums of money through small donations, and drawing even bigger crowds than Trump, it should be clear that his message is resonating and that you need him on the ticket in order to fire up the activist base and get them out in force. It was dumb of her not to pick Bernie, and not shoring up her Left Flank was what cost her the election. Add to that it would have united the party and greatly limited the Wikileaks/DNC hack damage.

I agree that Sanders would have been the best choice.

Under the same reasoning, was Hillary the best VP choice for Obama in 2008?  After all, she did actually beat Obama in the popular vote in 2008.  Or does your argument only apply to self-described "socialists" like Bernie?


Back on-topic, Kaine was a good choice for Hillary in 2016.  He definitely helped her in VA, and his non-offensive "fatherly" figure helped cement HRC's strategy of  going after more moderate, college educated Whites.  While this strategy proved to be futile, picking Kaine was a play straight out of that playbook.     

[uti2]

He didn't help, but he would've helped for 2020, which is why Hillary picked him.

[uti2]

I think Kaine was an honest, true-to-herself pick. As her campaign and herself explained, she chose a running mate base on who got along with her most and who could be the best partner instead of making a strategic reaching-out choice. The irony is that she was criticized for not being honest or sincere, yet the VP choice she makes that is sincere and true is criticized for a missed opportunity to pander.

Overall, Kaine was a sound choice, in the context of Clinton's potential re-election campaign, since he didn't hurt or help her original campaign.

But of course, she could've simply picked Sanders for this year only, and then have Sanders 'retire' into another position for 2020.

[uti2]

By the way, since the Clinton campaign claims that they were hurt by the russian hacks, they could've simply neutralized the effect of those hacks by putting Bernie on the ticket, since the hacks were all about Bernie anyway. Bernie would be out there as a member of the ticket on the campaign trail calling the hacks absurd and dismissing them outright.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

There's a PBS debate in WI with 2 very biased mods. Clinton in a completely unrelated questions suddenly kept attacking Bernie viciously on Obama to polarize the black vote. Look @ what the mods did, they didn't allow Bernie a proper chance to respond after a 1 minute attack from Clinton & said you can use your closing statements to respond  - What a disgrace ! And they were whispering negative stuff against Bernie which was caught in a hot mic.

They even ended the debate right after he got attacked.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yeah, that the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen from the moderators in a debate. They basically made up an attack ad of Bernie with some out of context quote from over 30 years ago.

[NOVA Green]

He was good for the strategy she had. The problem was it was the wrong strategy.

Exactly.

Also - wasn't the general consensus in this forum that VP's barely move any votes?

I think this is absolutely true that the VP candidate themselves doesn't generally impact election outcomes, although it can potentially flip a state sometimes....

There is one obvious exception----1960- Kennedy picking LBJ was the difference between a win and a loss.

If we look at where the VP impact might have changed outcomes in particular states:

1968: Humphrey picking Muskie might well have won him Maine in '68, Nixon picking Agnew might have made Maryland closer than it otherwise would have been (IDK--- the Wallace vote probably played a larger factor there).

1980: Reagan picking George HW Bush probably made the difference with him snagging Mass & Maine

1988: George HW picking Quayle might have had enough of rural bleed-over into Illinois to make the difference

However---- where I think the selection of a VP candidate does make a difference is in much less obvious ways. This is one of the most watched decisions that the party nominee makes, at a critical time in the campaign season.

McCain's selection of Palin helped reinforce a narrative that he had a tendency to shoot from the hip and was prone to "going on tilt" hence casting concerns on his judgement under pressure, and occasionally making irrational decisions.

Granted, this certainly was not the deciding factor in the 2008 election, where American's were suffering from seven years of war wariness, combined with a catastrophic economic collapse wouldn't have likely made much of a difference. McCain suspending his campaign to fly back to DC in what was widely seen as an erratic move reinforced the image of the candidate.

So, generally Presidents select their VP based upon balancing out the regional coalitions, reaching out to elements of the party in contested primaries in order to create party unity and the like.

Trump's selection of Pence was a traditional classical selection.... someone with immaculate pedigree in the eyes of the Christian Conservative wing of the Party, who also happened to be from the Midwest. He chose not to go with more of a Kasich or Rubio style Republican, that in the primaries performed extremely well in high-income precincts/counties.

Clinton chose to go with a Governor from Virginia, even though she had been hammered during the primaries by both Sanders and Trump as representing standard "Washington insider politics".

So here, Trump was actually quite successful at holding the evangelical base of the Party, plus chipping off a significant number of Obama 1x/2x voters in rural and small-town areas.

Clinton's VP choice was not widely received positively by the Bernie wing of the Party, let alone many independent and even some Republican voters. The optics of the Kaine selection and then later the DNC hacked emails, reinforced an image/stereotype of Clinton as a Washington "insider".

Yes--- VP choices rarely can be directly correlated to Presidential Election outcomes.

However, the choices that a candidate does not make somehow with historical perspective, can potentially have played a bigger role in the outcomes than the decisions that they did make.

[badgate]

He was good for the strategy she had. The problem was it was the wrong strategy.

[Fuzzy Bear]

Kaine was the .260-hitting SS with a decent glove who might win the Gold Glove some years.  He filled a role and filled it OK.  If you've got Mickey Mantle as your cleanup hitter, you can win with that. 

Kaine didn't boot ground balls he should have fielded.  He was steady, unspectacular, but he "made all the plays".  The problem is that Hillary needed to have an ordinary Mickey Mantle season to put Trump away, and what she got was Mickey Mantle's last season. 

Trump was NOT a great candidate, but he had strategic advantages no one realized until he won, and won in the way he won.  Trump was Dave Kingman, but he hit lots of HRs and he had a Gold Glove SS (Mike Pence) and a team of hungry rookies making things happen. 

For those who don't follow the baseball analogy:  Pence was a help to Trump in ways that Kaine was not a help to Clinton.  Pence was serious and thoughtful to where folks put off with Trump's persona would look at the calm, sober Pence and conclude that Trump couldn't be THAT bed if THIS guy is with him.  He came off as an endorser with credibility.  Kaine came off as a do-boy and a flunky.  He's more than that, but he came off that way. 

Kaine is a talented pol with excellent diverse experience in both politics and government.  He's a guy that's qualified to be President, and he's the guy the Democrats would be talking about for 2020 if he had been Ed Muskie on the trail, but he wasn't.  He was Dan Quayle.  That's not an insult; Dan Quayle is a sharp politician who was an able VP, and he wasn't a bad campaigner, but he had his moments where others made him (unfairly, IMO) look bad, and he never got off the ground as a Presidential contender.