World

Politics, World

US 2016: Next Up – the Hillary/Kaine Show (and don’t forget The Bernie)

US 2016: Next Up – the Hillary/Kaine Show (and don’t forget The Bernie)

Gearing up for another week of sleep deprivation, J. BROOKS SPECTOR previews the US political week ahead as the Democrats move into their nominating convention in Philadelphia. There is no suspense about the nominees, but some things still may unsettle the storyline.

Now that the princes of darkness and their miscellaneous jesters, henchmen, wives and children have fled the stage in Cleveland, it is time for the Democrats to try their own luck with their party’s convention in Philadelphia. This one starts on Monday and runs until Thursday and will not be subjected to a boycott of the party’s leading figures – especially its current president and vice president or the preceding chief executive, although it is still an open question as to how raucous the discord from some as-yet-reconciled Sandernistas as delegates will be because of their champion’s loss of the nomination to Hillary Clinton.

And then, suddenly, there was another question unsettled – a data dump of embarrassing e-mails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC). As Politico noted, “For once, things seemed to be going Democrats’ way. They said they thought the Republican convention encapsulated everything wrong with the party. They had a smooth vice-presidential pick and rollout. And then the DNC became a problem – again. The DNC didn’t choose to leak 20,000 e-mails to Wikileaks, but the massive document dump is yet another headache and distraction for Team Clinton as they head to Philadelphia to begin the general election campaign. And, surprising no one, it has resulted in another round of calls for Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s [the party’s chair] firing. (Wasserman Schultz did announce her resignation late on Sunday – Ed)

“D.C. Democrats are doing their best to push back on the narrative that the DNC was always some big pro-Hillary machine. To be honest, it’s an unconvincing argument. DNC staffers were pushing storylines to halt Bernie Sanders’ rise in the most personal way possible, including raising questions about his faith,” Politico noted.

“The argument coming from establishment Democrats is that the damaging e-mails (there are many) represent individual staffers discussing their preferences – not the DNC officially getting behind a candidate.

“Fair enoughaides at all the party committees (DCCC, DSCC, NRCC, NRSC) have their favoured candidates and try to spin reporters off the record, provide us opposition research and push us polling about why they’re right. Politics is hand-to-hand combat, and often the jousting is within the same party. But make no mistake – the DNC dump is BAD for Democrats, and they know it. You’re just getting a peek at how things really go down.” And it will inevitably be fodder for unreconstructed Sandernistas, miscellaneous conspiracy theorists and Republican trolls and omnidirectional spammers alike.

Of course, this issue may well pale in comparison to the way the discord played out over in Cleveland, as with Senator Ted Cruz’s “vote your consciences” moment, or the boycott in Cleveland of two presidents and a whole passel of other senior GOP bigwigs. For example, if former President Bill Clinton were to skip the upcoming Philadelphia programme, that would be something to write home about. But he won’t, especially since his wife, the former secretary of state, a former senator and former first lady, is scheduled to accept the party’s nomination on Thursday to become its candidate for the presidency.

Still, even if the roiling about the leaked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee has been stilled by the time Hillary Clinton gets to give her acceptance speech, she will still be in a kind of emotional competition with the rhetorical quality of the speeches from her husband, the former president, from the current president, Barack Obama, from his wife, the current first lady – and, now, perhaps her choice of running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, as well. This Kaine decision was announced over the weekend to hopefully provide a bit of a bounce going into the convention and his performance has, so far, played to rave reviews among most of the faithful.

At their joint rally in Miami, Florida, on Saturday, Kaine proved to be a stunner as a speaker, giving the lie to a self-deprecating reputation as just another boring pol. Drawing on his ability to deliver in Spanish as well as English, gained from his time as a lay missionary in Honduras, the candidate electrified a largely student (and substantially Hispanic-American) audience. He wove the many elements of his life story together with his political and social credo and his personal and policy choices in a conversation with his audience that sounded both natural and engaging.

Wags have already started saying Kaine’s personality and warmth on the campaign trail may well help soften and humanise the ticket’s headliner’s much stiffer, starchier demeanour – and he might even outshine her in their campaign efforts. After their joint Florida event, Kaine had told the crowd – and thus the nation – that, as usual, he would be in his pew with his family in his thoroughly integrated church in downtown Richmond. This is something that may also help with his appeal to those who take such behaviour as a key to a candidate’s character, and, in turn, of character as a revelatory map to and an understanding of a person’s political behaviour.

Speaking of his squeaky-clean reputation, the Republican candidate has already tried to besmirch Kaine’s reputation by calling him “crooked”. This is for his acceptance of a series of gifts while he was Virginia governor, including air flights and use of a house on a secluded Caribbean beach. In fact, the gifts were properly declared to state officials, the air flights largely were related to Kaine’s campaign role in 2012 on behalf of Obama’s re-election bid, and Kaine has insisted the beach holiday only included the cost of the residence. He says he paid for the air flights there and back and covered all meal costs while there. And, in any case, the individual whose house it was had no business pending before any state agencies. So, maybe this will end up being a non-starter, and thus the first nickname that won’t work for Trump.

The appearance in Florida was an early moment in the campaign’s efforts to stake a claim to Florida’s plentiful electoral vote total – and Kaine’s bilingual speech was intended to reach a larger audience of Hispanic-American voters countrywide. Although Clinton, in the end, chose not to select a woman, an African-American, or a Hispanic-American running mate, she did select someone who appears to understand the sensibilities of many such ethnic voters and who understands their aspirations every bit as much as Obama cabinet members Labour Secretary Thomas Perez and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro – both names that were frequently listed as possible nominees. Or, for that matter, other potential names such as Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren or New Jersey Senator Corey Booker, an African-American. (Ticket balancing used to be more a geographic or ideological-wing-of-the party issue. Now it seems more to relate to ethnicity and gender, at least among Democrats, although the Kaine pick seems even more to respond to questions of temperament.)

In the end, Clinton went with someone who had a wide breadth of experience at the federal, state and local levels and as a civil rights attorney in private practice; who spoke convincingly to Midwestern middle America based on his own life as the son of a welder (and where those skills he had learnt from his father had come in handy when he was in Honduras for the church); who could help carry a key purple state (i.e. one contested between the parties) like his adopted home of Virginia; and who could – eagerly and skilfully – take the fight right to Donald Trump, without hesitation or reservation. Moreover, his demeanour may also stand in a vivid contrast to his vice presidential rival, Mike Pence, in terms of personal warmth and engagement.

The leftward fringe of the Democratic electorate may still need some convincing, however. In his career in the Senate, Kaine has been an enthusiastic proponent of international free trade agreements; he has supported offshore oil drilling, and he has expressed his personal opposition (although not in any of his official actions) to abortion rights, by virtue of religious grounds. He is, however, a committed proponent of increased gun control and he has earned a failing grade from the National Rifle Association, so that may help somewhat with party dissenters having any difficulty coming over to his corner.

And so, on Monday it is off to the convention. Even before the convention is formally brought to order, there will be a whole slew of ethnic- or cause-related caucus meetings to help rally the faithful. Then the Democratic convention is scheduled to be gavelled to order at 16:00 Eastern Time (22:00 South African time) with early speeches by representatives of families affected by substance abuse, undocumented alien families, people with special needs and disabilities, and social change activists. Then, in what will be an eagerly awaited (or feared) speech, Senator Bernie Sanders will address the convention, followed by Michelle Obama (who almost certainly will not be cribbing from Melania Trump’s remarks last week).

On Tuesday, roughly the same pattern will prevail. Before the convention itself is gavelled to order, there will be special group sessions, including, respectively, a women’s and an LGBTI caucus, a Jewish round table, rural and youth councils, and events devoted to children at risk or with disabilities, as well as a session devoted to dealing with gun violence.

There will also be caucus sessions dedicated to emergency first responders and survivors of 9/11, as well as people whose health circumstances still remain substantially unprotected by the Affordable Care Act’s provisions. Then, once the Tuesday plenary session is gavelled to order, first up will be the candidate’s spouse and former president, Bill Clinton, who is set to highlight his wife’s lifetime efforts of “working to make a difference for children, families, and our country”, followed by representatives from Mothers of the Movement (against police violence).

On Wednesday, the same pattern holds again. There will be caucus sessions including the Native American Council, the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus, the Ethnic Council, the Disability Council, the Small Business Owners Council, the Veterans and Military Families Council, and the Labor Council.

Then, when the plenary is brought to order, the first speaker is the daughter of the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School who had been killed while trying to protect her students during the massacre there. She will then be followed by two of the survivors from the shootings at that church in Charleston, South Carolina. After these emotionally driven speakers, the widow of a military helicopter pilot killed while on a search and rescue mission in Iraq will speak. (The DNC has noted that while she was a senator, Clinton had been part of a bipartisan coalition to increase the death benefit of fallen veterans from $12,000 to $100,000.) After these heart-string-tugging moments, Vice President Joe Biden will do his turn at the podium, and then, wrapping up the evening, President Obama will give his speech.

On Thursday, followed by the now-routine special interest caucus sessions, a healthcare worker will speak to the call to increase the national minimum wage to $15/hour, followed by a woman who must work at two low-paid jobs to make ends meet, as well as a woman who had been fired from her job at a restaurant for querying why she earned less than her male equivalent.

Then, making the point that Muslims as well as the rest of Americans are subject to terror attacks, the next speaker will be the son of a Muslim US Army serviceman killed in the line of duty. Following this speaker, presidential candidate daughter Chelsea Clinton will introduce her mother, the candidate, who will be the final speaker of the convention. On that last night, the candidate is expected to outline her vision for the country and touch on, in the language of the campaign, how she’s convinced “we’re better as a nation when we all work together”.

Somewhere in all this, too, the delegates will be voting for their presidential and vice presidential nominations, and Senator Tim Kaine must also have a chance to have his say to the convention, although current information does not yet specify when that will happen, although it will probably be Wednesday night, after voting for the candidates takes place. By the time this whole event is concluded, there will have been an unhealthily large amount of coffee consumed in this writer’s household to allow him to give readers a full flavour of this second national candidate’s nominating convention. DM

Photo: Supporters hold signs and cheer as US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (not pictured) introduces her Vice Presidential candidate Senator Tim Kaine at Florida International University in Miami, Florida, US, 23 July 2016. EPA/RHONA WISE.

Gallery

Please peer review 3 community comments before your comment can be posted

X

This article is free to read.

Sign up for free or sign in to continue reading.

Unlike our competitors, we don’t force you to pay to read the news but we do need your email address to make your experience better.


Nearly there! Create a password to finish signing up with us:

Please enter your password or get a sign in link if you’ve forgotten

Open Sesame! Thanks for signing up.

We would like our readers to start paying for Daily Maverick...

…but we are not going to force you to. Over 10 million users come to us each month for the news. We have not put it behind a paywall because the truth should not be a luxury.

Instead we ask our readers who can afford to contribute, even a small amount each month, to do so.

If you appreciate it and want to see us keep going then please consider contributing whatever you can.

Support Daily Maverick→
Payment options

Become a Maverick Insider

This could have been a paywall

On another site this would have been a paywall. Maverick Insider keeps our content free for all.

Become an Insider

Every seed of hope will one day sprout.

South African citizens throughout the country are standing up for our human rights. Stay informed, connected and inspired by our weekly FREE Maverick Citizen newsletter.