Saturday, July 23, 2016

Clinton Chooses Kaine

As predicted by the Globe:

"Clinton taps Kaine for VP" by Annie Linskey Globe Staff  July 23, 2016

ORLANDO — Hillary Clinton picked Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia to be her running mate, selecting a low-profile, middle-of-the-road politician who comes with an unblemished reputation and could help Clinton expand her appeal to voters outside her liberal base, but won’t do much to excite the base itself. 

She is taking the base for granted.

The pick is widely seen as a safe choice for Clinton because the Virginia senator adds gender balance to the ticket and is, as well, a popular politician from an important swing state. It signals that Clinton’s campaign wants to peel off some of the moderate white Republicans who are uneasy with GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s harsh rhetoric but who have yet to warm to Clinton.

But what is safe in a normal year might not be safe in 2016. With Kaine, Clinton bypassed liberal favorites like Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to select a career politician of a distinctly centrist stripe. She is doubling down on government experience in a year where strong outsider currents are running through the electorate. It’s a solidly bold-faced establishment ticket in an antiestablishment year that saw Trump prevail in his party and Bernie Sanders rattle Clinton with an energized insurgent campaign.

Clinton and Kaine are set to appear together at a rally around noon Saturday in Miami.

The pick was widely expected, and came with a flurry of supportive statements. David Axelrod, a top Democratic strategist applauded the pick as a “really solid choice” for Clinton and called him a “thoroughly admirable man.”

Underscoring Kaine’s appeal to some on the right, conservative Bill Kristol, the influential editor of the Weekly Standard, complimented the Virginia senator on his Twitter feed, saying Kaine and the Republican vice presidential pick Mike Pence are both “good guys.”

“Couldn’t we reshuffle the tickets, and have a choice between Pence-Kaine and Trump-Clinton?” he asked.

There is always Weld, Bill, and I can't think of a better reason to vote against her. The neocon Zionist war hawks like her?

Kaine reassures the party’s centrists who have been worried that Clinton tacked too far to the left during her unexpectedly tight primary challenge from populist Sanders. He is personally against abortion, though he believes women should have the right to choose. And he voted to give President Obama fast-track approval for the massive Trans-Pacific Trade accord.

But the choice of Kaine for vice president disappointed the progressive wing of the party, whose leaders had hoped that Clinton would select an ideological ally like Warren or even Labor Secretary Tom Perez.

Aren't they used to it by now?

“The mood of the country is a populist one,” said Stephanie Taylor, cofounder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, in a statement. “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.”

Last week, as news leaked that Kaine was a front-runner for the position, progressive groups became irate, noting that he had signed on to a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau requesting lighter regulations for some small financial services organizations.

“Our presidential ticket cannot beat the billionaire bigot by simply being not-Donald Trump,” said Charles Chamberlain, the executive director of the liberal group Democracy for America. “To win in November, our ticket needs to have an unquestionably strong record in the fight against income inequality, one of the defining issues of the 2016 election.”

Clinton’s campaign announced the news via text message several hours after she held a roundtable meeting with Orlando leaders who are still reeling from the mass shooting inspired by the Islamic State at a gay nightclub.

The announcement was evidently delayed by several hours as attention focused on an apparent terror attack in Munich. This dynamic echoed the timing surrounding the announcement of Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, which was postponed after a terrorist attack in France.

Yeah, it's pushed Europe over the edge, as does the shell game shuffle regarding my pre$$.

"The Munich mall is near the city’s Olympic Stadium, the centerpiece of the 1972 Summer Olympic Games that became known for tragedy when Palestinian terrorists took Israeli athletes hostage and killed 11 of them. Munich is about 40 miles north of Germany’s southern border with Austria, and the city has been deeply affected by a huge influx of asylum seekers sparked by upheaval in the Middle East. German security forces have been on heightened alert since Monday, when a 17-year-old Afghan armed with a knife and an ax attacked passengers on a commuter train near Würzburg. At least five people were injured. Police fatally shot the attacker as he tried to flee. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the train attack, but German authorities have said there is no evidence of direct links between the teen and the group. Last month, German authorities arrested three Syrians on suspicion of planning an Islamic State attack on the city of Düsseldorf. The men had entered Germany with a wave of migrants fleeing war and mayhem in the Middle East. German officials said investigators were looking into the possibility that Friday’s attack was motivated by anti-immigrant sentiments, as well as the prospect that Islamist extremism was behind it. Authorities were also investigating whether the gunman may have been motivated by anger at immigrants. Language against foreigners can be heard on a recording from the scene of the shooting, but it was not immediately clear who was speaking." 

That means nothing now.

On heightened alert and still.... sigh?

Been updated with the official story, and authorities also noted it was the fifth anniversary of a lone-wolf massacre in Norway, and this is feeling like another FALSE FLAG for unknown purposes!!

It's all to take your mind off something else, and if worst comes to worst they will wave women in your face.

What a difference a week makes, huh?

There are other similarities between the two picks. Like Clinton, Trump filled his vice presidential slot with a well-connected party insider, Pence, Indiana’s governor. In Trump’s case, Pence is meant to bring some stability to an undisciplined ticket.

Kaine spent some of Friday in Boston raising money at the University of Massachusetts Club on Beacon Street, where he mingled with about 125 lawmakers, academics, consultants, and lawyers and was pressed on whether he was going to be Clinton’s choice.

“He said, ‘I can look you honestly in the eye and say I don’t know,’ ” said Tom Lesser, a lawyer from Northampton, who attended the event.

Great. He looked him in the eye and lied!

Kaine had other fund-raising events scheduled in Rhode Island and Nantucket Friday and Saturday. His access to big donors is another plus for Clinton, who will be able to rely on him to shoulder some of the money burden during the campaign.

I've been told the Trump campaign is poor and no one wants to contribute.

Kaine, 58, also infuses the ticket with some Midwestern sensibility. He grew up in the Kansas City area and graduated from the University of Missouri before attending Harvard Law School.

His public service began in Richmond, where he was elected to the City Council in 1994 and then became mayor of that majority-minority city. There he developed a reputation of reaching out to — and winning the trust of — the African-American community, a key group that has supported Clinton. He is also conversant in Spanish.

Kaine became governor in 2006 and backed President Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign. That led him to a turn chairing the Democratic National Committee in 2009. He won his Senate seat in 2012 and serves on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Armed Services Committee.

Known for reaching across the aisle to get legislation passed, Kaine is friendly with colleagues, which caused some to draw parallels with the current vice president, Joe Biden.

“He reminds me a little bit of Biden in that he has good relationships,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, who has worked with Kaine.

“Biden can do a lot with Senate and House members because there is a lot of mutual respect there. I think the same is true for Kaine. I think they trust him.’’

Clinton campaigned with Kaine July 14 in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, in a green-and-gold community college gymnasium. The pair looked comfortable together on stage, with Kaine leaning in at one point to comment in Clinton’s ear.

Kaine kicked things off by instructing the crowd on how to say “Ready for Hillary” in Spanish, then wandered into a story about his time in Honduras.

Did he slip up and spill the beans on the coup (translation if needed).

He looked comfortable but his delivery felt more pat and prefabricated than designed to fire up a rally. “Do you want a ‘You’re fired’ president or a ‘You’re hired’ president?” he asked the crowd.

His wife, Anne Holton, is Virginia’s secretary of education. The couple have two sons and a daughter.


US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and US Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, waved during a campaign rally on July 14(SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images).

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Is it me, or did she just adopt the devil as her running mate?

"Tapping Kaine as VP, Clinton chooses the smart, safe path

Just last month, US Senator Elizabeth Warren took the stage with Hillary Clinton for the first time in Cincinnati. Warren galvanized the crowd, hungry for both her populist battle cry and sharp jabs at Donald Trump. Warren had just endorsed Clinton on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, sending a hard-to-ignore message to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party: Winning the White House in November trumps any concerns about Clinton’s hawkish foreign policy or Wall Street speeches.

But that was then. A month is a long time in a political campaign, particularly in an election cycle marked by Donald Trump’s ugly march to power — and distressingly tight polls. All through the arduous primary season, Warren, along with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, seemed continually to nudge Clinton to the left on issues like college tuition breaks, trade, and the minimum wage. Yet the choice of Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as a running mate shows the kind of pragmatism we’ve come to expect from both Clintons over the past two decades.

Kaine is a known quantity: A centrist who has served as governor and then senator in an important purple state. No doubt he doesn’t ignite the liberal base of the party like Warren or Labor Secretary Tom Perez might have, but Kaine has a shot at shoring up support among a demographic that seems to be growing in importance: working-class and middle-class white men.

WHAT? 

They are a MINORITY NOW!

Clinton may be wisely giving independent voters a reason to take a second look at her campaign as Trump rolls out a dark national campaign built on a foundation of fear.

OMG!!! 

Consider where that is coming from! 

The WAR and TERROR PRE$$ who peddle fear!

Kaine — considered a consensus builder from a blue-collar background in the Midwest — was vetted by then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008. Obama, of course, choose Joe Biden, but the calculus was the same. The “hope and change” candidate needed to reassure jittery voters that the voice and experience of working-class whites still mattered to the Democratic Party. Eight years later, unfortunately, there remains a free-floating level of discomfort with any presidential candidate who doesn’t look like the gentleman on the dollar bill.

There will soon be a black woman on the $20.

In an election with little shortage of vitriol so far, it may have made sense for Clinton, who needs to rise above the fray, to choose a pitbull to have by her side.

Kaine, however, has a long record of executive experience, first as governor and now as senator. He is a moderate in an age of extremes, a symbol of continuity and respectful public service in a time of great upheaval, when the opposition is chanting, “Lock her up.” Clinton can’t afford to cede any demographic cohort at this point, and Kaine, who also speaks Spanish, is an attractive candidate and future partner for Clinton in the West Wing. Put another way, her campaign needs a working-class man — who is not Bill Clinton — to serve as Hillary’s mansplainer-in-chief.

There will certainly be some disappointment among liberals in the Democratic Party at this choice. Yet given the dire, isolationist worldview on display this week at the Republican National Convention, it is ever more clear what’s at stake in November’s election. With Kaine, Clinton is showing that she understands the reality of an opponent unbound by democratic norms, who threatens some of this country’s foundational domestic and foreign policy ideas. And with Kaine on her ticket, Clinton is in a stronger position to make that case to the voters.

Winning is what matters, governing comes later....

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Globe says it's a smart pick, but they are already having second thoughts.

"Booker in the running for VP on Clinton’s ticket" by John Wagner The Washington Post News Service  July 22, 2016

Senator Cory Booker’s presence in the final group keeps a member of a minority group in the mix following a search that includes Hispanics and one woman, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Isn't there a taint of scandal to him?

The Democrat familiar with the process emphatically denied that Booker remains in contention simply because he is black. Booker has impressed Clinton for his work as mayor of Newark and as a bold thinker and risk taker.

He's the Chris Darden of VP finalists.

The Hispanic finalists, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and Housing Secretary Julián Castro, have not been told they are out of the running, but after conversations with Clinton they came away with the impression that they were unlikely to be picked, Democrats said.

Castro broke the law so he is definitely out.

Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, could announce her running mate sometime on Friday. Early in the day, she is scheduled to appear in Orlando, the site of last month’s mass shooting at a gay nightclub, making it unlikely that an announcement would come before that event.

Kaine is a former governor and former Democratic National Committee chairman. Vilsack served two terms as governor of Iowa before joining the Obama cabinet.

Senator Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia is attending two events in the Washington suburbs of Northern Virginia on Thursday and has no events scheduled Friday. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is on a two-day swing through Missouri to discuss the opioid epidemic. He is expected to return to Washington on Friday at about 5 p.m.

*****

Sanders to address his delegates ahead of Democratic National Convention

Before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia officially gets underway on Monday, runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination Bernie Sanders plans to address a gathering of many of the more than 1,900 delegates representing him.

Whether Sanders’ delegates will be as committed to party unity as he is remains an open question. An independent group billing itself as the Bernie Delegates Network has raised the specter of a protest on the convention floor if Clinton picks Senator Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia or ‘‘a similar VP choice’’ as her running mate. 

I may watch some of theirs!

‘‘If she chooses some like herself . . . there’s going to be blowback,’’ said Jeff Cohen, an organizer for the network, which both he and Briggs said is not working under the direction of Sanders.

Cohen said said many Sanders’ delegates would prefer a more progressive choice, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

‘‘It’s my view that if Clinton chose Warren, it would be a much less contentious convention,’’ Cohen said.

Well, she was on the list, but....

Many Sanders delegates also have problems with the potential pick of Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary and former Iowa governor, Cohen said, because they consider him too close to ‘‘corporate agribusiness.’’

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But at least ‘‘he’s not Ted Cruz.’’  

Liz must have blown the audition:

"Was this Elizabeth Warren’s audition for VP?; Hillary Clinton praises Elizabeth Warren in first joint appearance" by Annie Linskey Globe Staff  June 27, 2016

CINCINNATI — It was a photo-ready moment designed to produce images of the Democratic party uniting. The two women raised their clasped hands in the air, a symbolic joining of the liberal and centrist wings of the party.

Elizabeth Warren is signaling to her legions of liberal supporters that the time has come to put party differences aside and enthusiastically back the standard-bearer.

“I don’t know how she can justify it, supporting the queen of Wall Street,” said Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts senator, in a conference call with reporters that was organized by the Republican National Committee. “I found her audition to be very uncomfortable.”

What would have been cool would have been Clinton naming Warren and Trump naming Brown as VP nominees, and then watching them go at it like scorpions in a bottle.

Warren’s speech started heavy on her own autobiography — she weaved in references to her hardscrabble upbringing in Oklahoma, her three older brothers who have worked blue-collar jobs, and her rise from a graduate of a commuter college to high office.

She mention her Native American heritage?

“I’m the daughter of a maintenance man who made it all the way to the United States Senate,” Warren said. “And Hillary Clinton is the granddaughter of a factory worker who is going to make it all the way to the White House.”

Clinton stood on the stage for Warren’s entire speech — an often awkward portion of these political events. But during the nearly 18-minute introduction Warren conveyed genuine enthusiasm for Clinton.

Hillary Clinton, in a nod to the liberal wing of the party that she just defeated, recounted Warren’s accomplishments.

Republicans were ready to attack the pair.

America Rising sent out a 2012 Boston Globe story that detailed some of Warren’s past legal work on behalf of large corporations, including her attempts to help LTV Steel fight a congressional requirement that it pay millions of dollars into a fund for its retired coal miners’ health care.

But those in the audience of 2,600 were energized after the event, with groups of friends eager to discuss the chemistry between the pair.

“You could tell they were really listening to each other,” said Amy Schardein, who came to the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal....

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"VP talk over Elizabeth Warren gives Wall Street the jitters" by Victoria McGrane Globe Staff  June 27, 2016

WASHINGTON — News that Hillary Clinton is seriously considering liberal firebrand Elizabeth Warren to join her on the Democratic presidential ticket has a lot of people excited.

Not so much the occupants of skyscrapers on Wall Street and beyond.

“If you go down a list of people, it’s the lone name that gets an audible reaction from groups — not a positive one,” said Brian Gardner, a Washington analyst with the investment bank Keefe Bruyette & Woods Inc. who has spoken to numerous clients in recent weeks about Clinton’s potential vice presidential picks.

Warren’s name is synonymous with anxiety in much of corporate America, and where she lands at the end of the 2016 race has turned into a high-stakes parlor game for the business world.

The Clinton campaign is actively vetting Warren — along with several other Democrats — for the number two position on the ticket, a person familiar with the process told the Globe.

For many business leaders, the prospect makes their collective blood pressure spike. “She’s alienated pretty much everyone in the business community in her time in the Senate,” said one financial services executive.

Others see a silver lining: Some executives of large banks privately suggest that Warren would be less damaging to the financial sector as VP than if she remained in the Senate, especially given her perch on the powerful Senate Banking Committee.

And then there are those who are betting against Warren as vice president. “I don’t think anybody thinks it’s going to happen,” at least among industry people who really know what’s going on, said another executive.

“Senator Warren is savvy enough to know that she is far more powerful in her current role as a US senator than she would be as Hillary Clinton’s vice president, from a practical policy perspective,” said Isaac Boltansky, an analyst with Compass Point Research & Trading.

Regardless, Wall Street and other business sectors are on a jittery Warren Watch.

One reason for the nail-biting: Financial industry executives and analysts believe a new president and a fresh Congress in 2017 could provide an opportunity to secure some long-sought changes to the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Moderate Democrats, who generally support the law, believe some adjustments should be made, and could ally with its Republican critics to get them passed.

Warren is seen as a major obstacle to such deals — contributing to the frenzied speculation about her future and what it means for the industry. There’s also the very real possibility that Democrats will win control of the Senate, which is another moving piece in the Warren puzzle.

??????

See: "This year, Republicans face a daunting Senate map that has them defending 24 seats, including highly vulnerable incumbents around the country."

I suspect they will rig a Democrat Senate if they can't stop Trump.

Big business’s biggest lobbying force, the powerful US Chamber of Commerce, has been engaged in open warfare with Warren for some time. While the group doesn’t engage in presidential races, its CEO reiterated the group’s views on Warren last week as speculation about Clinton’s vice presidential options swirled.

“Senator Warren and her friends aren’t looking out for” American consumers, the chamber’s chief executive, Thomas Donohue, said in a speech last week. “They are looking to gather more power for themselves so that they can run the entire economy from Washington. What their proposals would do is help trap us in this anemic economy, strangle small businesses and Main Street, and destroy our ability to finance America’s economic growth.”

Warren hit back with a Facebook post.

PFFFT!

Many political prognosticators, including those in the financial world, give Warren low odds of joining Clinton on the ticket because they believe it doesn’t makes a whole lot of sense for either woman.

For Warren, she’d be giving up a Senate seat she’s turned into a uniquely powerful national bully pulpit to tether herself to someone else’s agenda.

For Clinton, alienating financial and business players with a Warren pick could make it harder to strike legislative deals on key priorities such as infrastructure spending, an overhaul of the tax code, and even Clinton’s package of financial sector fixes.

But Warren could give the Clinton campaign a jolt of excitement, particularly among the young progressives who adored her rival Bernie Sanders. None of the other oft-mentioned VP candidates can claim the same national star power. That includes Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, a Spanish-speaking, former swing-state governor who is lately rumored to be at the top of Clinton’s running-mate list.

A Warren pick could also help shore up Clinton on the subject of her Wall Street ties. During the primary, Sanders cast her as a tool of Wall Street and other special interests, pummeling her for giving lucrative speeches to Goldman Sachs and taking fat campaign checks from the financial sector. The presumptive GOP presidential nominee, Donald Trump, is now seeking to capitalize on those same issues.

Some financial executives don’t want to criticize Warren because they fear the comments could increase pressure on Clinton to more fully embrace their bete noir.

“The more they scream, the more they’re making the case to put her on the ticket,” said Bart Naylor, a financial services advocate with Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog group.

Clinton, meanwhile, is seeking to exploit business’s fear of Trump and the economic consequences of his trade and immigration stances.

Critics of Wall Street, meanwhile, are pondering what a Clinton-Warren ticket would mean for their priorities....

NOT A THING.

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More finger pointing from her?

"Why Elizabeth Warren seems to be off Clinton’s short list" by Victoria McGrane Globe Staff  July 13, 2016

I think I just read why.

WASHINGTON — The fluky, volatile winds of the presidential election have shifted against a rationale for selecting Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren as the Democratic nominee for vice president, helping explain why she seems to have sunk on Hillary Clinton’s short list.

New polls out Wednesday showing the former secretary of state struggling against Donald Trump in key battleground states highlight problems that Clinton would not solve by selecting Warren as her running mate. 

Or anyone for that matter.

A Quinnipiac University Swing State poll out Wednesday morning showed Trump ahead of Clinton in Florida and Ohio and tied with the New York Democrat in Pennsylvania. The survey found that voters’ perception of Clinton as having “higher moral standards” than Trump suffered since the previous poll, which was taken before the FBI’s harsh rebuke of her handling of classified information as secretary of state.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist poll showed the candidates in a dead heat in Iowa and Ohio, with Clinton 9 points ahead of Trump in Pennsylvania.

While Warren, a political rock star on the left, would shore up support for Clinton among progressive voters who backed rival Bernie Sanders, she doesn’t do much to help Clinton overcome challenges highlighted in these polls, analysts say.

“With Bernie Sanders endorsing, the activist left is partially mollified,” said Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf, referring to the Vermont senator’s formal endorsement of Clinton on Tuesday. 

Are they?

Warren doesn’t bring Clinton any advantages geographically — Massachusetts is as likely to go for Trump as “the moon colliding with Jupiter tomorrow,” he said.

Who thought Reagan would win it in 1980?

Nor does Warren reinforce the image of Clinton as someone who can make difficult decisions under stress, which Clinton needs in the wake of the scandal surrounding her use of a private e-mail server while at the State Department, said Sheinkopf.

“We know the battlegrounds are going to be close til the end. That’s why we need to keep working so hard. Trump is a serious danger, folks,” tweeted Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon.

The tightening race could prod Clinton into picking a running mate who hails from one of these crucial swing states — someone like Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, a former governor with whom Clinton will campaign on Thursday.

Just over a week ago, Warren appeared with Clinton at a Ohio rally and earned raves from Democratic activists. But Warren’s star dimmed this week with news that the Clinton campaign had offered her a speaking slot on the first day of the upcoming Democratic convention. It’s not the place in the program typically reserved for the No. 2 person on the ticket.

Further weighing down Warren’s chances was news earlier that same day that Clinton was vetting retired four-star Navy admiral James Stavridis, who is currently the dean of Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

I saw that report, it just gives the reporter something to write about.

There are risks for Clinton if she does pass over Warren, starting with disappointed progressive voters, many of whom are already bitter that Sanders did not prevail. One of the strongest arguments in favor of Warren is her ability to motivate many of the same liberal voters.

Related:

"As Sanders has faded,“there’s a good chunk of the Sanders people who could go with Trump." 

Too bad the fight has been called off.

“I think Elizabeth Warren would do the best job of reassuring the people who voted for Sanders,” former Massachusetts representative Barney Frank said of Clinton’s potential vice presidential choices during an appearance last week on comedian Chelsea Handler’s Netflix show.

And then there is the problem of Warren herself. The first-term senator is a powerful anti-Trump weapon against Trump on the stump and on his preferred turf of social media. It’s a role the Clinton campaign surely wants to see the Massachusetts liberal continue to play through November.

If Clinton does reject Warren, one way Clinton could maintain their newly warm relationship would be to assure the Massachusetts liberal that she will have input on Clinton’s economic policy team.

Warren has for years hammered away at the Obama administration for having too many economic policy makers from Wall Street in key positions.

She took that fight nuclear when she launched a very public opposition effort against Antonio Weiss, an investment banker President Obama’s nominated in late 2014 to a top Treasury post. Weiss ended up withdrawing his name from consideration and became a counselor to the Treasury secretary instead, a position that did not need Senate approval.

He's made $11.2 billion so far, and has been chided by Warren.

“Warren has already made clear that she wants people in economic policy positions that have some detachment from the industries that they would regulate,” said former North Carolina representative Brad Miller. “She has already led those fights with respect to appointments, sometimes publicly sometimes behind the scenes, and she’s certainly not going to stop doing that. She has said on every occasion . . . that personnel is policy.”

Among progressives, there’s been plenty of ambivalence surrounding the prospect of Warren abandoning her powerful Senate perch for a place in a Clinton administration. So it won’t be all tears if Clinton goes another way.

Clinton could assuage the left by choosing Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who receives high marks from those on the left familiar with his record, or Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, a liberal who has been active in pushing against Wall Street. Both are among the names rumored to be on Clinton’s short list for vice president.

Picking Kaine, who is seen as a pro-business centrist, would likely be greeted with some consternation on the left, activists say.

It will also matter how Clinton campaigns in the months ahead and whether she continues to highlight the progressive issues that Sanders, and Warren, stand for, such as expanding Social Security and establishing a public option health insurance plan, said Neil Sroka, communications director of Democracy for America, a progressive group that helped run an effort to draft Warren to run for president last year.

“If you’re not going to choose Senator Warren, are you going to be continuing to campaign on these big bold issues?” he asked.

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"Hillary Clinton’s list for a running mate shrinks" by The Washington Post   July 20, 2016

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Senator Timothy Kaine of Virginia have emerged as the leading candidates among a longer list of finalists Hillary Clinton is considering to be her vice presidential running mate, according to interviews with multiple Democrats with knowledge of her deliberations.

Although her list is not limited to those two, Clinton has spoken highly of both in recent days to friends and advisers as she closes in on an announcement that could come as soon as Friday.

President Barack Obama is among those who have advised Clinton on the decision, offering thoughts on the two contenders who serve in his Cabinet, Vilsack and Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, several Democrats said. These individuals did not say what advice the president gave.

These and other Democrats cautioned that Clinton has not made a final choice and is keeping mum about her deliberations. Several other people remain in the running, they said. Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon declined to comment.

Clinton is expected to campaign alongside her running mate on Friday or Saturday in Florida, three Democrats familiar with aspects of the plan said. The campaign has announced only that she will make stops in several Florida cities over those two days, in the run-up to her party’s national convention. The convention, where Clinton will formally claim the nomination as the first woman to head a major-party ticket, begins Monday in Philadelphia.

The vice presidential search has been conducted among a very small group of Clinton intimates in deep secrecy, even as some aspects were on full and intentional display. Clinton did not conceal her consideration of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a liberal firebrand who in turn has not disguised the appeal the job holds for her. Still, Democrats close to both women, including some of Warren’s own advisers, have said Warren was an unlikely choice from the start."

Just going to crash and burn the ticket, and I know some people upset it is Kaine. 

So what was all the print, just doodling distractions?

All a diverse show (as opposed to, you know), doncha know?

Clinton wins endorsement of the AFL-CIO

That only helps Trump.

She has "also has pledged that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who remains widely popular among the blue-collar voters drawn to Trump, would “come out of retirement and be in charge” of creating jobs in places that have been particularly hard hit. 

NOOOOOO!  

After he had so much to do with them leaving?

But if Clinton’s “Breaking Down Barriers Tour” in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia this week provided a road map for her strategy in the weeks ahead, the antagonistic reception she received also highlighted her own vulnerabilities and tendency to divide and incite people — weaknesses Trump plans to exploit. Trump has proved adept in connecting with white working-class men."

Obama destroyed the Democratic Party, did you know that?

"Current and former business leaders endorse Clinton, call Trump unqualified" by Anne Gearan Washington Post  June 23, 2016

A group of current and former American business leaders released a collective endorsement of Hillary Clinton on Thursday, as the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate seeks to undermine the appeal that opponent Donald Trump’s business background holds for some voters.

The list includes some longtime Clinton supporters, such as investor Warren Buffett and Mark Pincus, cofounder of online game maker Zynga.

The endorsements announced by Clinton’s campaign follow two days of campaign events intended to discredit Trump as unscrupulous and greedy in business, while presenting Clinton’s economic framework in contrast.

SeeUS income gap widened last year as top 1 percent gained most

It's been like that during Obama's whole term.

Trump’s appeal as an outsider with success in business and no government experience is both one of his strongest drawing cards and a potential vulnerability, Clinton strategists say. An early goal of the general election is to get voters to question Trump’s motives and skills in business as well as his commitment to helping others.

Trump is employing a similar strategy in reverse, attacking Clinton on Wednesday as unqualified and unprincipled. He sought to use her tenure as secretary of state against her, accusing her of using the post to benefit herself.

‘‘Trump would destroy much of what is great about America. Hillary Clinton is the strong leader we need, and it’s important that Trump lose by a landslide to reject what he stands for,’’ Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix, said in a statement issued by the campaign.

Priorities USA Action, the major super PAC supporting likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, is targeting millennials with digital ads, website, and a call for people to share acts of kindness. The site, which seeks to harness the social media networks of millennials, also encourages young people to register to vote and will offer branded merchandise."

Is that what she was doing when she advocated regime change in Libya and Syria?

Why party unity is overrated in this election

Now that Trump has it and Dems don't, which is the fault of the irascible child who flips the board and stomps the checkers to dust after realizing he can’t win.