DENVER--How does it feel to be a near-veep?
"Surreal."
That's Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine speaking the afternoon to a private panel of NEWSWEEK reporters and editors here at the Warwick Hotel in downtown Denver. Although Kaine refused to get into the details of his discussions with the Obama campaign—it's rumored that he was Obama's top pick until the conflict between Russia and Georgia threatened to highlight Obama's foreign-policy inexperience—he did spend plenty of time talking about how he would've approached the VP gig, had it been offered.
Kaine's first rule of veepdom: don't get personal. "It's easy because the difference in policy are so stark that you don't have to get into personal stuff," he said. "I've been in politics for 15 years now. I'm not naive, and I do think you need to show the sharp disagreements and sharp contrasts in the direction you want to take the nation. But how are you going to go personal against a John McCain? He's a person with faults just like the rest of us..." At this, one editor interrupted to voice the understandable objection: But shouldn't Obama fight fire with fire? He can't let the Paris Hilton stuff go unanswered. Kaine nodded. "I can only speak from my experience in Virginia, but what I would always try to do is respond with force, and to let people know there's a cost to being negative," he said. "But then the last 30 seconds of my ad would always be about a positive." So do you think the "seven houses" onslaught against McCain—a burst of unprompted negative messaging, after all—is an uncalled for personal attack? "Not at all," Kaine said, somewhat contradictorily. "It's very relevant, especially when McCain is trying to paint Obama as an elitist. I mean, Senator Obama was on food stamps while he was growing up. McCain not being able to remember how many houses he has is a great reminder to Americans that if we're trying to find out who understand people trying to make tough decisions every day, that Obama has lived it. He understands it." Still, it seems unlikely Kaine would've burst out of the gate with the same ferocity as Joe Biden--who, according to Kaine, "combines head and heart in ways that will be very useful to Senator Obama." Like Obama, Kaine is a somewhat reluctant attack dog. He may have been too much of the same--too much head.
Kaine's second lesson for the VP: come to Virginia. "It's not a blue state, but it's no longer a red state," Kaine said. "Today, it's pretty much an evenly-matched state." When Kaine's father-in-law was elected Virginia governor in 1969, the commonwealth, according to Kaine, was "40 percent rural, 25 percent urban and 35 percent suburban." Today it's 20 percent rural, 15 percent urban and 65 percent suburban. Kaine won in 2005 by capturing fast-growing, formerly Republican counties like Louden and Prince William—places where his predecessor, Mark Warner, lost in 2000. The reason for the reversal? "The demographics just changed so much," Kaine says. As a result, Kaine realized that "we've got to make our case to these suburban voters"--and, according to him, if Obama and Biden can "hold the margins down or even win" in "most of these eight or nine counties," then they can swing the Old Dominion. What's more, there may even be some votes to be had in the rural southwestern part of the state, according to Kaine--especially with a plainspoken Joe like Biden on the ticket. "These rural voters are cynical," says Kaine. "They think that politicians just come around at election time but don't know much about them, and they won't come back. But a little effort can go long way. Reach out and these people open up to you. Biden can help Obama puncture that cynicism."
