Did Kaine actually help?

[NOVA Green]

I don't believe Kaine really helped the ticket in any meaningful fashion.... she would have carried Virginia regardless of this selection.

Sure was he a safe pick without any baggage? Absolutely.

I'm in absolute agreement with many of the posters that picking a progressive energetic and dynamic VP pick of whatever region or background might have helped bring in enough of the "Bernie base defector wing to cross the finish line in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

In Political Science theory in general the VP ticket doesn't necessarily matter that much these days in terms of winning the VPs particular state, maybe 1-2% at the most on the margins (Even that is debatable).

What selection of a VP candidate does in a broader sense is communicate a message to the base of the  Party, in order to create enthusiasm and turnout among those within the Party that their perspective and interests are being represented by the standard bearer of the Party.

In Clinton's defense, when she selected Kaine she was riding high in the polls, there was no real sense that the 2016 would be a close election in terms of EC or PV numbers, so naturally she went with a safe choice and someone that she could work with closely.

However, this choice in itself was partially fed by the hubris and sense of inevitability that dominated much of the Senior ranks of the Clinton campaign....

She could easily have selected one of many "safe" Progressive Democrats that would have been a more effective "Pitbull" to go after Trump on economic related issues, not only energizing the Sanders defectors but just as importantly been able to communicate more effectively with Obama '08/'12 voters that defected to Trump in '16.  And if we trawl through the county and precinct level returns, it's pretty clear that there were quite of few of these people out there in rural, small-town, and Smaller City (<250k Pop) America.

[NOVA Green]

Yes and also, I don't think a lot of people were voting for Sanders specifically, they were voting for a more progressive alternative to Hillary Clinton.  I personally think the whole free college tuition thing came off too much as pandering to the base to be helpful in a general election context.  She should have picked a progressive like him with a clean slate.  But I do feel for him because of all the dirty tricks that the DNC establishment mounted against him.

What dirty tricks? The DNC didn't do anything out of the ordinary except Donna Brazille handing Clinton a debate question.

Trump had to go through 100000 times what Bernie had to go through and had no problem winning the nomination.

Bernie was a crap candidate and is now getting overhyped because Hillary lost the election. Feingold lost to Johnson (there's Bernie vs. Trump right there in a swing state).

Ok---not sure exactly where you are coming from ahugecat.

It's pretty clear that much of the Democratic Party establishment was 100% behind Clinton. Simply take a look at the "super-delegate Gap".

Non Swing Voter and myself quite frequently don't see eye-to-eye on where the future of the Democratic Part Coalition lies.

On this instance, he is 100% correct, regardless of how you choose to point out the DNC quote in his statement.

Yes--- Clinton won the Democratic Candidacy fair and square, as a result of the wishes of Democratic Party Primary and Caucus voters.

Was she the best choice for the nominee of the Party in 2016 in an anti-establishment year?

Although, I certainly do not want to words nor post on behalf of a fellow Forum Member, NonSwingVoter is speaking a fundamental truth regarding the Democratic Party Establishment, and obviously the leaked stuff and hacks regarding the DNC certainly appears to support the position that there was a bunch of "dirty tricks" out there designed to subvert and shut down the potential of Sanders as the Democratic Party Presidential nominee...

Ok--- so to be fair let's flip the tables. What I understand from your argument regarding Mr Trump, is that he faced similar obstacles from within his own Party, and despite all of that adversity, was able to become the Republican Candidate for President of the United States (Not to mention winning the General Election).

There were many attempts to sabotage and undermine Trump, from within the Republican Party establishment. I do believe that this is an objectively fair and accurate statement. If we are going to roll through the exercise of comparing the Bernie/Clinton and Trump/Cruz/Kasich/Rubio primaries is that you appear to be ignoring the fundamentally different primary/caucus rules between the two major political parties.

Trump was able to decisively win the Republican nomination because there were no Super-Delegates....

Clinton was able to become inevitable precisely because there were super-delegates.

So anyways---- apologies for helping to derail the thread further from the original question.

Back to the OT:

Clinton absolutely should have picked an "insurgent" populist/progressive candidate from a wide variety of choices that than go with the safe establishment pick assuming she would win the s**t in a landslide.

[NOVA Green]

He was good for the strategy she had. The problem was it was the wrong strategy.

Exactly.

Also - wasn't the general consensus in this forum that VP's barely move any votes?

I think this is absolutely true that the VP candidate themselves doesn't generally impact election outcomes, although it can potentially flip a state sometimes....

There is one obvious exception----1960- Kennedy picking LBJ was the difference between a win and a loss.

If we look at where the VP impact might have changed outcomes in particular states:

1968: Humphrey picking Muskie might well have won him Maine in '68, Nixon picking Agnew might have made Maryland closer than it otherwise would have been (IDK--- the Wallace vote probably played a larger factor there).

1980: Reagan picking George HW Bush probably made the difference with him snagging Mass & Maine

1988: George HW picking Quayle might have had enough of rural bleed-over into Illinois to make the difference

However---- where I think the selection of a VP candidate does make a difference is in much less obvious ways. This is one of the most watched decisions that the party nominee makes, at a critical time in the campaign season.

McCain's selection of Palin helped reinforce a narrative that he had a tendency to shoot from the hip and was prone to "going on tilt" hence casting concerns on his judgement under pressure, and occasionally making irrational decisions.

Granted, this certainly was not the deciding factor in the 2008 election, where American's were suffering from seven years of war wariness, combined with a catastrophic economic collapse wouldn't have likely made much of a difference. McCain suspending his campaign to fly back to DC in what was widely seen as an erratic move reinforced the image of the candidate.

So, generally Presidents select their VP based upon balancing out the regional coalitions, reaching out to elements of the party in contested primaries in order to create party unity and the like.

Trump's selection of Pence was a traditional classical selection.... someone with immaculate pedigree in the eyes of the Christian Conservative wing of the Party, who also happened to be from the Midwest. He chose not to go with more of a Kasich or Rubio style Republican, that in the primaries performed extremely well in high-income precincts/counties.

Clinton chose to go with a Governor from Virginia, even though she had been hammered during the primaries by both Sanders and Trump as representing standard "Washington insider politics".

So here, Trump was actually quite successful at holding the evangelical base of the Party, plus chipping off a significant number of Obama 1x/2x voters in rural and small-town areas.

Clinton's VP choice was not widely received positively by the Bernie wing of the Party, let alone many independent and even some Republican voters. The optics of the Kaine selection and then later the DNC hacked emails, reinforced an image/stereotype of Clinton as a Washington "insider".

Yes--- VP choices rarely can be directly correlated to Presidential Election outcomes.

However, the choices that a candidate does not make somehow with historical perspective, can potentially have played a bigger role in the outcomes than the decisions that they did make.