He may be the happiest political attack dog in recent history, and political analysts say Sen. Tim Kaine’s laid-back demeanor enables him to lob incendiary charges at Republican Donald Trump in a way Hillary Clinton simply cannot.
The Virginia senator and Democratic vice-presidential nominee in recent weeks has settled into a unique role on the campaign trail. He delivers stump speeches with the style of a friendly neighbor, but increasingly has mixed sharp attacks into his addresses and broached topics Mrs. Clinton, the party’s presidential pick, largely has avoided.
Over just the past 10 days, Mr. Kaine has accused Mr. Trump of embracing “Ku Klux Klan values,” openly questioned whether the billionaire is in good enough health to serve as president, and on Sunday he compared the Republican’s call for Russians to hack Mrs. Clinton’s email account to Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal of the 1970s.
“A president was impeached and had to resign over an attack on the [Democratic National Committee] during the presidential election in 1972. This is serious business,” Mr. Kaine told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, adding that Mr. Trump’s comments — which the Republican later said were meant as sarcasm — are “an attack that is being encouraged by Donald Trump on the DNC by Russia, similar to what led to the resignation of a president 30 years ago.”
Mr. Kaine’s tough words, however, come with a smile. The vice-presidential nominee even has found internet fame with a series of memes equating him with the well-intentioned, if somewhat goofy, neighborhood soccer dad.
Specialists say his reputation stands in stark to contrast to that of Mrs. Clinton, who often is seen not only as dishonest and untrustworthy, according to a multitude of polls, but also can frequently come across as cold and politically calculating.
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“Kaine has a pleasant manner and it softens his attacks — and makes them more effective. I’ve watched him do the same thing in Virginia during his runs for governor and senator,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “This is an especially useful skill for the Clinton campaign, because when she’s on the attack, Clinton comes across as mean and harsh. Maybe some gender stereotyping is involved, but it’s the way many voters interpret her tone.”
Indeed, while Mrs. Clinton has launched her own tough attacks on Mr. Trump, they’ve seldom been as blunt and controversial as those offered by Mr. Kaine.
For example, Mrs. Clinton has avoided calling into question the 70-year-old Mr. Trump’s health. The businessman appears to be in fine health, though questions arose last month after his doctor admitted he wrote a letter confirming Mr. Trump’s fitness for office in just five minutes as the Republican’s limousine waited outside.
That led Mr. Kaine to bring Mr. Trump’s health into the political debate during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania last week.
“We want to know they’re in good enough health to perform their duties. When candidates are on the up and up they have no problem disclosing information on all these points,” Mr. Kaine said at the Aug. 30 event in Erie. “We’ve never had a candidate quite like Donald Trump. He has no comparable public record, so we know less about him than we know about other candidates in modern history. And that makes these questions about his finances, about his taxes, about his foreign connections, about his health, even more urgent than usual.”
Days earlier, Mr. Kaine essentially said Mr. Trump is running on a white nationalist platform, accusing him of espousing “Ku Klux Klan values.” The remarks drew condemnation from Mr. Trump, the Republican National Committee and other critics, but the controversy was short-lived and Mr. Kaine has faced virtually no prolonged backlash.
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One reason for that is the calm, every-man method in which Mr. Kaine delivers his potent political jabs, according to Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond School of Law who worked alongside Mr. Kaine when the senator also taught at the school.
“It comes with a smile,” Mr. Tobias said. “His way of addressing those kinds of issues is straightforward and direct and effective. But I think a lot of it has to do with personality. He’s a likable person, and that makes the more rhetorical or more attack-dog-like things seem to go down better with people. The delivery is more palatable to people and it seems more sincere because he’s so slow to anger.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
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