Tim Kaine, Clinton’s VP hopeful, is a Democrat Wall Street can like
Rick Newman
July 22, 2016
The Virginia Senator is a centrist Democrat who may turn out to be the most conventional member of either party’s ticket. Unlike Donald Trump, he supports free trade. Unlike Mike Pence, he served as governor of his state without inciting a major controversy. And unlike his own running mate, Hillary Clinton, Kaine has made no notable leftward lurch to appease Bernie Sanders supporters seeking a heavier federal hand on the tiller of the U.S. economy.
Kaine grew up in Kansas City, Mo., and was a whiz kid who graduated from the University of Missouri in three years, then went to Harvard Law School. Along the way, he spent a year volunteering with Jesuit missionaries in Honduras, where he learned Spanish. He moved to Richmond, Va., to practice law, developing a specialty representing minorities facing housing discrimination. Kaine got elected to the Richmond City Council in 1994 and eventually became mayor.
Next: a stint as Virginia’s lieutenant governor, then his election as governor in 2006. Kaine took office as the Great Recession was brewing and spent most of his term dealing with shortfalls in the state’s budget. He kept it balanced by cutting nearly $5 billion in state spending, without raising taxes. It helped that Northern Virginia, which abuts the nation’s capital, is home to hundreds of federal contractors whose businesses remained stable. The unemployment rate in Virginia peaked at 7.4%, well below the peak national rate of 10%.
With the Virginia governor limited to just one term, Kaine ran for the Senate in 2012 and won. He has been a relatively quiet senator whose major interest is safeguarding his state’s heavy concentration of naval bases and other military installations. Like most other Democrats, Kaine has fought congressional efforts to repeal Obamacare (which passed in 2010, before he arrived in Washington, D.C.). He opposed the government shutdown in 2013.
As both governor and senator, Kaine has been a vocal supporter of free trade. In 2007, while governor, Kaine described himself as “passionate” about free trade, while saying those who favor tariffs and other protectionist measures have “a loser’s mentality.” Trump would seem to fit that description, which could make the 2016 presidential race the first in memory in which the Democratic ticket is more firmly committed to free trade than the Republican one.
In 2015, Kaine was one of only 13 Senate Democrats to vote in favor of a free-trade bill meant to pave the way for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the controversial free-trade agreement that’s awaiting approval by the Senate (and may never get it). Kaine has praised certain elements of the TPP, without saying whether he plans to vote for it. That may be in deference to Clinton, who once supported the TPP but changed her mind as voters showed a surprising animosity toward free trade in both the Republican and Democratic primaries.
Kaine has also sided with business in a few other ways. As governor, he affirmed Virginia’s status as a “right-to-work” state that prohibits unions from requiring membership or the payment of union dues as a condition of obtaining certain jobs. Like other southern states, Virginia under Kaine touted its looser labor laws when trying to lure businesses from more heavily unionized states.
Kaine is friendlier toward the coal industry than many Democrats, since it has a sizable presence in Virginia. He has also backed expanded oil drilling off the Virginia coast, another pro-business stance. And Kaine lobbied recently for easing regulations on regional banks and credit unions, which claim they are being hobbled by rules meant to rein in risk-taking at megabanks such as Citigroup and Bank of America. Since they’re far smaller, regional banks argue, they don’t pose the same existential risk to the financial system if something goes wrong.
Liberal Democrats oppose Kaine as Clinton’s VP pick, saying he’s too cozy with big business and deaf to the dissatisfaction voiced by millions of Bernie Sanders supporters fed up with crony capitalism. Even the GOP pointed out the many policy differences between Kaine and Sanders. Thing is, Sanders isn’t running for president, and Clinton may welcome a tug from the center.
Rick Newman’s latest book is Liberty for All: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Financial and Political Freedom. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman. |
