It's Kaine

There were lots of very big hints this week that Hillary Clinton was going to pick Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) as her running mate, and now she's made it official. It's a very Clintonesque pick—extremely safe—and was announced in a very Clintonesque way, with minimal fanfare.

We have already discussed the pros and cons of Kaine several times, but just in case, here's a quick rundown:

Pros:

• Will appeal to white men, to moderates, to independents, to Southerners and to Midwestern Catholics
• Comes from an important swing state
• Extensive legislative and executive experience as Virginia governor, Richmond mayor, DNC Chair, and U.S. Senator
• Clinton knows him and can work well with him
• Self-effacing, low-key, likable personality
• Speaks fluent Spanish, former civil rights lawyer; will help some with nonwhite voters
• Won't put Democratic control of the Senate at risk, since Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) would pick his replacement (likely himself)

Cons:

• As a pro-life Catholic, is out of step with much of the Democratic base
• Isn't Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA); progressives won't be pleased
• Is very much an insider in a year when insiders aren't very popular
• Kind of boring, not a great public speaker
• Speaking Spanish and being a civil rights lawyer probably won't help much with nonwhite voters

The choice of Kaine makes clear that, strategically, Clinton and her team feel that moderates and/or Republicans unhappy with Donald Trump are where she needs to be focused, as opposed to her left flank. She's probably right about that; most of the supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) appear to have fallen in line, and a fair portion of the remainder never will.

Kaine will be officially announced at a campaign event in Florida on Saturday; presumably he will be called upon to show off his Spanish-language skills for a few minutes. Then he will have about four days to prepare his address to the DNC. And after eight years of a black commander-in-chief, by next Thursday we will officially be left with a presidential race that is as white as Speaker Paul Ryan's (R-WI) interns. (Z)

Maybe Trump's Speech Was Brilliant

Donald Trump's angry speech Thursday was panned by observers on both sides of the aisle. "How is all the fear and hate he spewed going to play with Latinos in Las Vegas, with Libertarians in Longmont, or with ladies in Loudoun County?" they said. But maybe, just maybe, he is smarter than all of his critics. Maybe he doesn't care about any of the swing states. Just maybe, his whole campaign will be about winning the Upper Midwest, where he thinks Democrats are living on borrowed time. The idea behind this approach is that while the minority population is growing in Nevada, Colorado, and Virginia, the Rust Belt states—especially Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio—are still dominated by white working-class men who can order their wives to vote as they do and not get too much blowback. If he can win these states, he will knock 64 electoral votes off the Democrats "blue wall" of 242 and reduce Hillary Clinton's base to only 178 electoral votes. Then she will have to struggle to win nearly all the swing states, and he might be able to pick up a few of them and eke out a victory.

It won't be easy, though. In 2012, Obama won Pennsylvania by 310,000 votes (5.4%), Wisconsin by 213,000 votes (6.9%), Michigan by 449,000 votes (9.5%), and Ohio by 166,000 votes (3.0%). That means Trump is going to have to get over 1 million more angry men (and their wives) to vote for him than voted for Romney. While there aren't good statistics on this, chances are that a majority of the angry white men in those states who voted, voted for Romney (or to put it less charitably, voted against the black guy). So Trump is going to need to get something like 1 million new, marginal, voters to turn out. To pull this off, he is going to need a substantial ground operation, which he will have to build completely from scratch, starting now, since at present he has no ground operation at all and Hillary Clinton has offices all over those states. With tens of millions of dollars and a highly focused professional campaign staff, it might be doable, but three tweets a day aren't going to keep the Democrats at bay. (V)

Trump Would Reject Cruz's Endorsement

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was booed on Wednesday at the Republican National Convention when he refused to endorse Donald Trump. Yesterday, Donald "Sour Grapes" Trump announced that if Cruz should suddenly change his mind and bestow his endorsement, it would be rejected. Earlier this year, Trump caused a stir when he took several hours to say he didn't actually want the endorsement of former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke. More conventional politicians would instantly have rejected Duke's endorsement and would have encouraged Cruz—who has a substantial following among Republican voters—to make up with him in the name of party unity in order to defeat Hillary Clinton, who both of them despise. But Trump is not a conventional politician. (V)

Republican Insiders: Trump Nailed It

Politico's panel of Republican operatives, activists, and strategists in 11 battleground states think that Donald Trump did a masterful job with his acceptance speech. Fifty-six percent said that his pitch that the country is in dire straits and that only he can reverse the decline made them feel more confident about his candidacy. One Colorado Republican said: "I felt Trump gave a very good speech and struck on issues and policies that people wanted to hear about." An Iowa Republican said: "Trump gave a simple message and expanded the Republican Party: law and order, economic populism, and defeat the rigged system." Fifty-one percent felt that Trump's speech, rather than Cruz's snub, was the defining moment of the convention. A Wisconsin Republican had this to say about Cruz's speech: "It was beyond selfish."

But there wasn't 100% agreement. A New Hampshire Republican said: "We have handed our Party over to a narcissistic, feckless, classless RINO strongman wannabe who is the only candidate that actually gives the horrid Hillary Clinton a chance to win." Another New Hampshire Republican said it was the best speech Trump has ever given, but not good enough. (V)

Pollster Frank Luntz Predicts Trump Will Pass Clinton in the Polls Next Week

Republican pollster and campaign consultant Frank Luntz tweeted yesterday: "Mark my words, this speech will put Trump even or ahead of Hillary in polls by Monday, when the Democratic convention begins." Luntz's remarks might be based in part on a CNN/ORC instant poll in which 56% of the voters who watched Trump's speech said they were more likely to vote for him and only 10% said they were less likely to vote for him as a result of the speech. Of course, one reason the poll was the way it was is that most of the people who watched the speech were Republicans and judging from how the delegates and insiders reacted, Republicans thought it was a great speech.

However, despite the almost-certain bias of the poll, Luntz is probably right. Conventions always give their candidates a bounce in the polls. The big question is how much and also for how long. Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball has crunched the data since 1988, examining candidates' polls both before and after their conventions. The median bounce Democrats have had was +5.0%. For Republicans, the median bounce was +4.5%. Before the convention, Trump was polling at about 41%. If he were to go up as much as the average Republican, we should see him at 45.5% next week. However, since next week will be Hillary Week, the bounce may be less and it may dissipate quickly. Only after 2 or 3 weeks will we know if either candidate got a lasting bounce. (V)

How Will Clinton Respond to the Republican Convention?

Now that Hillary Clinton knows Trump's strategy—basically, doubling down on all the things he said during the primaries and not erasing the Etch-A-Sketch, she has to decide how to respond. Nate Silver thinks she has two options. The first option, called "1964," is to paint Trump as simply unfit for office. She could hit at his temperament, lack of knowledge, and so many other things. This is what Lyndon Johnson did to Barry Goldwater in 1964: describe him as a danger to the country and the world. It resulted in Goldwater being crushed. The other option, called "2012," is to emulate Barack Obama's 2012 campaign. She could start with the fact that there are more Democrats than Republicans in the country and her goal would be to motivate them to turn out. She would campaign by praising Obama to the sky and say Obama made the country much better than he found it. She would be running for his third term, in effect. This strategy would be focused on pointing out that Trump's vision of "Midnight in America" is simply wrong. Crime is way down, unemployment is way down, and even murders of police officers are way down. (V)

Looking Back at 2012 Campaign Promises

A number of very appealing promises were made to voters during the 2012 campaign. Among them:

• Unemployment (then above 8%) will be brought below 6%
• Millions of new jobs will be created
• The price of gas will be brought down, to less than $2.50 a gallon
• The stock market will boom

All of these things have happened, of course. Unemployment is now below 5%, 9 million jobs have been created, the nationwide average price of a gallon of gas is $2.20, and the Dow has risen more than 40%, from 13,000 to over 18,500. So, President Obama delivered on his promises, then? Nope. Because these weren't his, they were those of the people who wanted to throw him overboard in 2012, particularly Mitt Romney.

Depending on the approach that Hillary Clinton takes (see above), this could make for a very powerful campaign commercial. She could play a clip of a Republican promising something, then show how Obama delivered that thing. A few of those pairings, followed by Clinton coming on screen and saying, "Hillary Clinton, someone who will work for all Americans," could be powerful. (Z)

Trump Begins Choosing His Cabinet

There is a saying about counting your chickens before they hatch, but that doesn't seem to apply to Donald Trump. He is so sure of winning, even though almost all national and state polls show him behind Hillary Clinton, that he is already planning his cabinet. His orientation here, not surprisingly, is to look to the business world for top leaders rather than only to politicians. Some of the names that have been floated include:

• Treasury: Former Goldman Sachs executive Steve Mnuchin
• Attorney General: Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) or Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
• Homeland Security: Rudy Giuliani
• Health and Human Services: Ben Carson
• Energy: Fracking multimillionaire Harold Hamm
• Defense: Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn
• Commerce: Sen. David Perdue (R-GA)
• Senior planner for the entire government: Newt Gingrich
• White House Counsel: Donald McGahn, a partner at Jones Day

Of course, this list is very tentative and could change tomorrow. But one thing is clear: Trump cares about loyalty more than anything else. (V)

Musicians to Trump: Stop Using Our Songs

Republicans may be predominant in the banking industry, or insurance, or the law. But the arts are dominated by Democrats (such notable artistes as Scott Baio and Antonio Sabato, Jr. notwithstanding). That can make it hard for Republican candidates to find popular music to accompany their campaign events, as Donald Trump is finding out.

On Monday, for example, Trump first appeared on stage at the Republican Convention backed by Queen's "We Are the Champions." The surviving members of the band were not happy about that, and told Trump to cut it out. On Thursday, he came on stage to The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun," which was written by George Harrison. Harrison's estate also told Trump to cut it out. Previously, the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, R.E.M. and Aerosmith issued similar warnings to the campaign.

Donald Trump is not the first Republican to face this problem—in fact, Rolling Stone has a list of roughly 30 dustups between musicians and Republicans in recent memory (and a handful between musicians and Democrats). In any case, Trump is going to have to decide if he wants to (a) keep switching songs, or (b) defy the cease and desist warnings and risk being sued, or (c) learn to love country music. (Z)

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---The Votemaster and Zenger