U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., tried to say, in a conference call with reporters on Friday, that his position on Joe Biden and the 2024 presidential race “has not changed,” but it sure seems that it has.
This is bad news for Team Biden.
First, what Kaine said, from the transcript that we produced from the call:
“I believe Joe Biden is going to make the right decision for the United States, to put country first. I’m not in the inner circle in those discussions, although I am sharing my views privately with the White House, but I don’t have any doubt that Joe Biden is going to make, the decision that Joe Biden makes, is going to be the patriotic one for the country,” Kaine told reporters.
Contrast this to what Kaine has been saying for the past three weeks, and you can see, this isn’t even nuance.
For starters, in the immediate aftermath of the June 27 CNN debate that precipitated the calls for Biden to step aside, Kaine dismissed the momentum in that direction as coming not from within the party.
“It’s the pundits, it’s the editorial writers,” Kaine said during a July 1 campaign stop in Petersburg, responding to a request from the city’s vice mayor, Darrin Hill, to push his Democratic colleagues to “turn down the noise” about calling for Biden to withdraw from the race.
At a second campaign stop that day, Kaine seemed to go all-in for Biden.
“The campaign’s going to do what the campaign’s going to do, but I think, more settings where the president is interacting with everyday people and demonstrating that, that’s his super power,” Kaine said, adding later: “President Biden, where he shines, is not at a rally with 100,000 people and it’s not on the debate stage. Where he shines is in a town hall meeting with regular people where he can really interact with them. That’s his superpowers, his empathy and his communication skills with everyday people.”
Speaking with reporters on July 8, then Kaine had this to say: “Joe Biden is the best Democrat. I can’t say it better than I said. He won a race against Donald Trump in 2020 here in Virginia and nationally and has done a great job as president.”
The shift in Kaine’s thinking first popped up in a July 11 call with reporters.
I have to admit, I overlooked this at first glance, after producing a transcript of that call, and reviewing what he had to say, but his answer in response to a question on Biden on that call, in retrospect, clearly should have merited reporting.
“My position about President Biden has been kind of very consistent. I was traveling around the state all last week, and every time I got asked, every time I’ve been asked this week, my answer has been kind of the same, which is, Joe Biden’s a patriotic guy, he always puts country first over self, puts others over self, and you know, he is going to make a decision, and I’m going to respect that decision, and I have no reason to doubt that he’ll continue to do what he’s always done, which is, put country first,” Kaine said on that call from last week.
This isn’t even a subtle shift in thinking from Kaine, who, in the past three weeks, has gone from suggesting the push to get Biden to step down was media-driven, and that all Biden needed to do was schedule more town halls, to, Biden is going to make the best decision for the future of this country, and whatever that decision is, Kaine will support him.
It’s obvious why Kaine has to split hairs on this. He’s up double-digits on a relative unknown Republican opponent who doesn’t seem to want to leave his Northern Virginia campaign headquarters to campaign.
The less Kaine does to draw heat his way, the better he can not only coast to his own re-election, but redirect some of his time to helping whoever the presidential nominee is get over the top in Virginia, which right now is playing as a surprise swing state, though I doubt that will be the case once the dust settles on whoever the presidential nominee on the Democratic side ends up being.
The news here, then, isn’t that Kaine is waffling because Kaine is a waffler, but rather, that Kaine, a guy who just a couple of weeks ago was solidly Team Biden, is now conceding, by saying Biden has a choice to make, that maybe the president needs to step aside, for the good of the country.