I’ll let everyone have their say on Tim Kaine from a personal preference point of view. Everyone has people they’d like to see as vice-president or possibly president some day, and it’s understandable to be disappointed if none of those people were just elevated. And, from an ideological point of view, it’s perfectly sane to feel let down if the candidate doesn’t line up with your views on some important issues.
What I’m less tolerant about is the idea that this choice doesn’t make strategic sense because it doesn’t please you or fit your theory of how to win presidential elections. It may not take the party in a direction you wanted to see it go. That does not necessarily mean that it wasn’t a very solid strategic decision.
I’m humble enough to realize that the strategy here is excruciatingly complicated, and this decision had to be made in the most uncertain environment we’ve seen since at least 1968.
I can make a case that this is a base election where the most important thing is to rally the enthusiasm of your core voters, and I can make a case that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to grab huge chunks of the middle and create a Goldwater/McGovern landslide, and the best way to do that is to make it as comfortable as possible for people to crossover from the center-right.
What I can’t say with much confidence is which theory is true, although, contrary to what most progressives think, the latter move is the bolder one with more risk and a higher payoff.
Secondly, progressive outcomes come more surely from large majorities (e.g., the Blue Dog dominated 2009-2010 years) than they do from a smaller more ideologically pure party (e.g., every year since 2010).
Clinton will get more progressive stuff done if she owns the House, and guess what kind of districts she needs to win to pull that off.
What I’m saying is that things are more complicated than rating the ideology of a running mate on some measuring stick. Anyone who is assuring you that this is a loss for progressives is both too confident in their own analysis and too simplistic in how they view the relationship between power and positive change.
So, a little humility is called for, in my opinion.
