What if Tim Kaine ends up on the national Democratic Party ticket in November? This is a serious question as the primary season seems to be winding down.
Bernie supporters are going to scream at this, but reality is that Hillary Clinton is the presumptive nominee, so let’s start there.
Kaine, the former Virginia governor, current junior senator, has already been vetted for the veep slot, back in 2008 when Barack Obama was shortening his list.
Kaine was an early endorser of Obama back in ’08, and an early endorser for Clinton in the ’16 cycle. Being an early backer plays a role in one’s proximity to important decisions, like running mate.
A bigger factor for Kaine is that he represents a battleground state. Virginia went Democrat in 2008 and 2012 as Obama flipped the Electoral College math on everybody, becoming the first Dem to win the state since LBJ in the ‘60s.
This benefits Mark Warner, too, of course, Warner being the senior U.S. senator from Virginia and himself a former governor.
Expect to see his name on short lists for a Clinton ticket, but Kaine, to me, has the inside track.
So again, let’s go with that. Now assume that Clinton-Kaine wins. Next thing that needs to happen is that Gov. Terry McAuliffe needs to appoint somebody to fill the seat until a special election.
This special election would be in November 2017, and it would be to fill out the remainder of Kaine’s term, which would come up for re-election in 2018.
McAuliffe, right now, has nothing left to do politically with Warner and Kaine ahead of him in the U.S. Senate. But get one of those two out of the way, and, well, he’s back in business.
Key to this would be appointing somebody to basically be a seat-filler until the November 2017 elections, giving McAuliffe time to ramp up a campaign as his time in the Executive Mansion winds down.
Smarter still would be McAuliffe stepping aside after the General Assembly session, telling voters that they deserve a full-time governor, allowing Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam to step into the governor’s role and run on the state ticket in the fall effectively as an incumbent governor, a rarity in one-term governor Virginia.
At this point, Republicans would have to find not one, but two candidates to run for marquee statewide office posts, against a stacked deck, andwith a bench basically depleted since the GOP hasn’t been winning statewide elections here in recent years.
A lot of what-ifs here, but damn, what if?
Column by Chris Graham
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