PHILADELPHIA — Hillary Clinton’s decision to tap moderate Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate has angered liberals and on Wednesday he’ll make his pitch to a convention that has struggled with with intense infighting over the direction of the party.
Kaine, D-Va., is among an all-star line-up of convention speakers Wednesday night that will be capped by President Barack Obama. The rest of the speakers list leans decidedly left. It includes former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, California Gov. Jerry Brown, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and civil rights activist Jesse Jackson.
But Kaine, who will take the stage before Obama, has a far more moderate record when it comes to key Democratic issues including abortion, which he personally opposes, and trade deals, which he has publicly supported as recently as last week.
The convention’s most liberal faction of delegates, now crestfallen over the end of Bernie Sanders’ campaign, said they are in no mood to listen to Kaine even though the DNC tried to placate them by moving the Democratic party platform to the left.
“Tim Kaine as a VP pick,” Maine delegate Denise Grove said. “They throw us a bone and then spit in our face.”
Clinton introduced Kaine on Saturday as a progressive, but many progressives say he is further to the right of their agenda, and they are not happy about it.
Pro-Sanders delegates had plotted earlier this week to try to oust Kaine from the ticket, but dropped it when they lacked the votes needed to pull it off.
Kaine personally opposes abortion although he said he is not in favor of the government taking any action to limit the procedure. In the past, Kaine has backed a federal law banning taxpayer dollars for abortion, only recently suggesting he would begin opposing it.
But it is Kaine’s stance on trade that has caused the most alarm among the throng of DNC delegates who have waved signs from the convention floor this week denouncing the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership deal with Asian nations, which they believe will kill jobs and damage the nation’s economy.
Kaine, who voted to grant Obama fast-track authority on trade deals, talked positively about the TPP in the days leading up to the announcement that he would join Clinton on the ticket.
He told The Intercept that the deal is “an improvement over the status quo,” in part because it included provisions protecting intellectual property rights.
Kaine has since joined Clinton in saying he will formally oppose the trade deal but, like his stance on abortion, it has not convinced some in the party’s liberal wing.
“Unfortunately, since Tim Kaine voted to fast track the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Republicans now have a new opening to attack Democrats on this economic populist issue,” Progressive Change Campaign Committee co-founder Stephanie Taylor said. “The mood of the country is a populist one. The center of gravity in the Democratic Party has shifted in a bold, populist, progressive direction, regardless of who is selected by Hillary Clinton as vice president.”
Kaine so far appears ready to reshape his political views to fit the Clinton ticket, which could calm the party’s left wing.
His speech Wednesday is likely to focus on issues like gun control, immigration reform and campaign finance reform, where he is firmly aligned with party liberals.
Kaine’s public addresses have so far been widely praised and he has impressed the party by switching with ease from English to Spanish, making the case for electing Clinton and opposing GOP nominee Donald Trump.
A CNN/ORC poll found that, like other vice presidential choices in past elections, Kaine’s place on the ticket may neither harm nor hurt Clinton in November. The survey found that 78 percent of registered voters said Kaine “won’t have much effect on their vote.”
