Good News: California Gets A New Senator

Yeah, Biden picked Kamala Harris as his running mate. It was probably the smart political move-- certainly better than Susan Rice, who he really wanted. Everyone seems to like the idea. Obama, who probably had a lot of influence on this choice, said "Joe Biden nailed this decision." David Axelrod coined a new word: "Kamalat." I can't imagine there is one Democratic Party careerist who isn't saying something positive, effusive, supportive. I'm not a Democratic Party careerist so let me just say I never voted for her when she ran for anything here in California and I'll be happy to keep that record going in November. Oh, yeah, she's absolutely better than Biden. I wonder if she'll try to talk him into keeping her pal Mnuchin in place after they win. In any case... I'm way more interested in who Gavin Newsom picks to replace her in the Senate, where she actually does have a stellar voting record, significantly to the left of where Newsom stands on most things.

The most reasonable-- relatively speaking-- right out of the box public comment I saw from any official group came from PDA executive director Alan Minsky:

As we saw during her own presidential campaign, Kamala Harris is a political weather vane. First she was for Medicare for All, then she wasn't. She failed for years to hold police accountable for gross misconduct in California, then touted her commitment to police accountability in the wake of George Floyd's murder. While her penchant for taking positions broadly palatable to the corporate donor class raises concerns about her dedication to progressive principles, her habit of aligning her stance with the prevailing political winds gives us some hope. We will fight every day to hold Vice President Harris to the higher ideals she often espouses, and make sure those winds blow decisively in the direction of a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and a level playing field for working families everywhere.  

Someone knocked on my door the other day. I wasn't expecting anyone. A door knock is strange these days. It was a young lady, appropriately masked, holding a clip board. She asked me to sign a petition for a recall of our bungling corporate Democratic governor. I was happy to. A friend of mine, from the upper echelon of the Democratic Party, called me 2 minutes after Biden announced that he had chosen Kamala as his running mate. My friend told me she hopes Newsom appoints himself to the Senate seat-- "At least we'd get him out of the state."

I don't think this Senate seat is going to a white male, not even one named Newsom. Cross front-runner Adam Schiff off the list, as well as desperate hopefuls Eric Swalwell and John Garamendi. I doubt Newsom will sell it to Tom Steyer. And, I know the whole genealogy thing, but-- like it or not-- Eric Garcetti is viewed as a white man.

My guess is that Newsom's going to pick a proven, well-qualified person with a minority background. There was an on-line rumble for Katie Porter but a freshman congresswoman (also white) is probably not what Newsom has in mind. I also think he's looking for someone from Southern California, which leaves out two other social media heroes-- Barbara Lee and Ro Khanna.

That leaves six people I think he's going to look at-- well, five, because he's not really going to look at Kevin De Leon because he hates him and, Kevin is probably going to run for mayor of L.A. anyway. My list is of all southern Californians, all accomplished members of minority communities and all probably popular choices. Congressmembers Karen Bass and Ted Lieu have a ton of relevant experience-- she was Speaker of the Assembly and he wrote and passed the best legislation out of Sacramento in decades. She's an African-American and he's an Asian-American. He's also a veteran, not a bad thing in the state with the most vets; and he's wildly popular for his outspoken criticism of Trump. If I was making the choice, I can't see how I would pick anyone but Ted. But I'm not; Newsom is and I imagine he's most likely going to chose a Latino.

So... Hilda Solis is very progressive, a former congresswoman who Obama picked to be his Secretary of Labor. She's currently an L.A. County Supervisor. I'd love to see her get the job and I think she'd be a great senator Californians would love.

Xavier Becerra is also a former member of Congress, currently serving as Attorney General, having taken that position when Harris left it to become a senator. He was once thought of as potentially "the next Speaker of the House" and he's been good at the jobs he's had and would also be a relatively popular choice.

I hear, though, that Newsom likes Alex Padilla, the Secretary of State, more. Presumably, a lot will be riding on how smooth the November elections in California go since that's Padilla's biggest job. (The new voting machines in L.A. sure suck bad and thanks to Brad Friedman I now don't know for certain if that's Padilla's fault or not.)

Ready For An Emorej Presidential Campaign Speculative Mind-Read?

-by Emorej

Following are two or three mind-reading attempts:


A.      Lincoln Project people, by targeting Senate races, are doing one or both of the following:

  1.       Showing off their skills to audition for top roles in the post-Trump Democratic-branded unified centrist establishment party, and/or

  2.       Implementing their half of some existing deal with Biden’s top backers (of which the biggest potential win-win deal would be Biden putting Condi onto a bi-partisan anti-Trump ticket).

  B.       It would be rational for Biden’s top strategists to think along the following lines:

1.       If Condi were selected, the best lead-up to  it would be to first actively float Susan Rice alongside Kamala as the two finalists, so that critics, of Susan’s lack of prior public face/voice exposure, would have exhausted much of this line of criticism, thereby neutralizing criticism of Condi’s lack of prior campaigning experience (which, anyway, is a two-edged sword, because “not a politician” always has appeal).

2.       Selecting Condi would neatly fit into and cap off the DNC’s ongoing series of actions and messages demonstrating maximum welcome for former Republicans and maximum disrespect for Bernie supporters’ policy concerns, and would be consistent with a strategy of:


• planning for four (at least) years of using many more sticks than carrots to deal with the economic-cum-political consequences of the 90%’s economic and healthcare distress;

• provoking pre-election protesters in Portland, etc. to expand in numbers, vigor and breadth of anti-establishment message, and
• provoking Trump to initiate martial law against them.

  3.       Martial law, declared by Trump, would: 


• enable the Pentagon to tell Trump “we can’t risk an October-surprise shooting war with Iran, N.Korea or especially China while we’re deploying domestically”;

• enable the Pentagon, under cover of rhetoric & reality that “it was Trump who already deployed our troops domestically against Lefties & Minorities,” to then broaden those troops’ mission to prevent Trump supporting militias and armed lone wolves from violently resisting the John Roberts-finalized Electoral College vote against a second Trump term; and
* enable the next President to take credit for (even gradual/partial) relaxation of martial law-- which would distract from the little-or-no relaxation of the high-tech Panopticon originally justified by the Pandemic.  

C.      Until now, Biden has benefited by letting Trump remain the center of attention and letting the Veep short-liist get old and boring, but now:

1. Biden can't delay Veep choice much longer, and

2. The Ghislaine Maxwell news (notably the mention of Bill Clinton) is attracting attention to some of the grossest aspects of pre-Trump establishment corruption, so

3. Great time for Biden to make news, of which the best kind for him would be 'exceeding expectations for decisiveness with, and surprising everybody after long keeping tight lipped about, ultimate act of bi-partisanship, which also amounts to an escape from predictability in general, and more specifically from the short-list that everybody thought he had been boxed into committing to,

4. Of course the Condi selection works best if followed (about 72 hours later) by an endorsement from G.W. Bush, and then a day or so later by Mitt Romney, etc.

AN UPDATE: Posted here.

"What's Not To Like?" Lindsey Graham And I Agree On Something-- But Not The Crazy Way He Interprets It

Yesterday Lindsey Graham told an NBC News reporter, Frank Thorp, that "Biden has had a lot of personal tragedy, so I will never say a bad word about Joe Biden as a person, I just don’t think he’s the right guy to be president. He’s, in my view, a figurehead of the most radical movement in American history that’s coming from AOC and that crowd. And so my differences with Joe Biden are political, and they’re real, they’re wide and they’re deep, but he’s a fine man."

OK, I agree that Biden isn't "the right guy to be president." But compared to Trump? Ole Lindsey-- at least publicly-- and I would part company there. But the part that Graham got right-- partially right-- was this:

He’s, in my view, a figurehead of the most radical movement in American history that’s coming from AOC and that crowd.

The part that was right was this:

He’s, in my view, a figurehead

The rest of it was absurd. Biden is a figurehead for the Democratic half of the status quo establishment, from Obama right on down. "AOC and that crowd?" Not even close. In fact, Biden is closer to establishment conservative Republicans, like Lindsey Graham, than he is to "AOC and that crowd."

Maybe I'm wrong? Well, maybe. We'll know I'm wrong if he picks Elizabeth Warren as a running mate, in my mind a virtual impossibility. She's a progressive; he's a conservative. She wants to do big bold structural reforms. He wants "President of the United States" on his tomb stone. He's-- and what I mean is the group he fronts for-- will probably pick a conservative candidate more like himself. He trapped himself into picking a woman so he's on somewhat uncomfortable ground, but Susan Rice would work just fine for him. The worst possible candidate-- actually putrid-- that he's considering is Wall Street troll Gina Raimondo, governor of Rhode Island but I don't think even Biden, Inc is that stupid. Tammy Duckworth would work fine for him and maybe Kamala Harris.

I bet Lindsey Graham would much rather see Biden win than Trump. And I bet he'll vote for him too. Meanwhile, his state is spiking like mad and the pandemic is totally out of control there. Today little South Carolina was in the top 10 of states with the most new cases-- 1,856, which brought their total to 62,245-- 12,089 per million South Carolinians... which is considerably worse than California (8,910), Texas (10,183) and North Carolina (8,702). 

Oh, Mike Pence Is Much Much Worse Than Tim Kaine-- No Comparison! So?

It's an extraordinarily low bar but Kaine is better than Penzzzzzzzzz

Someone on Twitter was trying to promote the idea that putting Tim Kaine first in the line to presidential succession was not just less terrible than putting Mike Pence there but actually a good thing... and used as evidence a link showing that Pete Peterson's Fix the Debt operation-- whose ultimate goal is the destruction of Social Security and Medicare-- named Kaine a Fiscal Hero, along with other such well-respected and beloved political figures of the American center-right as John Boehner (R-OH), Jim Himes (New Dem-CT), Rob Portman (R-OH), Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ), Steny Hoyer (D-K Street), Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN), Dan Coats (R-IN), and Michael Bennet (D-CO). I had just cast the deciding vote on a committee discussing whether or not to endorse Bennet for re-election to his Colorado Senate seat-- another lesser-of-two-evils choice being forced on the voters. (Happy to report that, Bennet, easily the lesser evil, isn't being endorsed.)

Peterson's operation defines Fiscal heroes as having "distinguished themselves by taking fiscally responsible votes, pushing their party leaders to make debt a priority, leading bipartisan efforts to work through policy options to fix the debt, using their town hall meetings to engage and educate constituents, delivering floor speeches to raise awareness about the issue, advocating to keep tough choices on the table, and introducing legislation to improve the nation's fiscal position. These elected officials have recognized that we will need to take a comprehensive approach to address the core drivers of the debt, such as entitlement reform and tax reform, to put it on a downward path in the long-term and allow the economy to thrive. Given that there is much more to be done to confront the nation's debt challenges, it is important that the work of those who focus on these issues is recognized."

Here, for example is wealthy, spoiled young Patrick Murphy, right after he was elected to Congress pretending to be a Democrat-- who didn't make the grade then but will soon, no doubt, going on TV and when asked what he would cut, twice volunteering Social Security and Medicare:



You know, one of the things that's wrong with settling for lesser-of-two evils candidates all the time-- we discussed it at greater length yesterday-- is that it means we have the wrong people making countless behind the scenes decisions daily. Tim Kaine is a shitty VP choice, not nearly as terrible as Pence, obviously, but certainly one I would ever want to see ascending to the presidency. His reasonable defenders-- not the ones bragging about how he's great for Wall Street and knows how to cut Social Security and Medicare-- point out that Planned Parenthood and NARAL have endorsed him (although he's "personally" anti-Choice), the Sierra Club supports him because he opposed the Keystone XL Pipeline, the AFL-CIO has given him a 98% lifetime rating, and that he stood up to the tobacco lobby and the gun manufacturers lobby while he was governor of Virginia. In fact, Kaine has a "F" from the NRA. That's all good... and I want to share something former Congressman Brad Miller of North Carolina sent me today, which he already published at HuffPo. Remember, someone appoints all these decision-making bureaucrats:

These are words that I have never written-- or thought-- before and expect never to again: House Republicans are right.

On July 11, House Republicans issued a report on an investigation into the Department of Justice’s 2012 settlement with HSBC, the British megabank, for laundering $900 million for the Columbian and Mexican drug cartels and for regimes under international sanctions for nuclear proliferation, genocide and support for terrorism. The DOJ touted the $2 billion civil penalty as a “record,” but the penalty amounted to five weeks of profits for the bank taken from shareholder funds. There were no criminal charges.

Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, and Eric Holder, the Attorney General, both argued that the DOJ could not bring criminal charges because convictions might jeopardize the bank and the stability of the world’s financial system. But then Holder said his statement had been “misconstrued.”

Holder said “there are a number of factors that we have to take into consideration....Innocent people can be impacted by a prosecution....But let me be very, very, very clear. Banks are not too big to jail.” The DOJ would bring criminal charges where there was enough evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The congressional report concluded there was ample evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The decision not to pursue criminal charges was entirely because HSBC was “too big to jail.”

Executive branch cooperation in congressional investigations is seldom cheerful, but the DOJ flatly refused to produce any subpoenaed documents. The Department of Treasury grudgingly produced some documents redacted at DOJ’s request. The stated reason was that the withheld information pertained to “prosecutorial decisions.”

The courts have never precisely defined “executive privilege,” the protection of the confidentiality of some discussions about some decisions between some executive branch officials to encourage uninhibited debate. But this much is clear: there is no blanket protection for “prosecutorial deliberations.”

There is no government power more susceptible to dangerous abuse or more in need of constant independent scrutiny than the power to bring, or not to bring, criminal charges.

An aggressive Senate investigation exposed the Teapot Dome scandal almost a century ago. The Secretary of the Interior went to prison for taking bribes for no-bid petroleum leases on federal lands. The Senate also examined the Justice Department’s failure to investigate and prosecute the people involved.

The Supreme Court upheld the Senate’s authority to hold a subpoenaed witness in contempt for refusing to testify on the Justice Department’s conduct. The Court said the question whether the Justice Department’s “functions were being properly discharged or being neglected or misdirected...concerned a subject on which legislation could be had and would be materially aided by the information which the investigation was calculated to elicit.”

A decade ago the Bush Administration fired federal prosecutors who had brought prosecutions that hurt Republicans or failed to bring flimsy prosecutions that would hurt Democrats. Administration officials refused to comply with House subpoenas and the House went to court. The court rejected the Administration’s argument that the decision to fire prosecutors was entirely up to the President and none of Congress’s business. Congress had a “unique ability to address improper partisan influence in the prosecutorial process,” the court said, and “[n]o other institution will fill the vacuum if Congress is unable to investigate and respond to this evil.”

There is no evidence that DOJ’s decision to settle with HSBC was criminally corrupt or the product of improper partisan influence. Wall Street critics hotly dispute that criminal prosecution of HSBC executives would have threatened the financial system, but DOJ’s decision to settle was likely based on that concern, as Breuer and Holder first said. The obvious injustice is deeply offensive to most Americans.

Savvy Washington insiders avoid public debate with Wall Street critics, so some political functionary told Holder that he was off message.

House Republicans’ concern for the injustice of the settlement is patently insincere. House Republicans’ only motive is to embarrass the Obama Administration, not to side with Wall Street critics.

Certainly the investigation could inform legislation. Most obviously, any institution that seeks the special treatment that HSBC received should immediately be broken into small-enough-to-jail pieces. That is legislation House Republicans will never enact.

But political embarrassment punishes misconduct, including the misconduct of staying on a message that deviates from the unvarnished truth. Americans are entitled to know how the power they confer by their ballots is used. And Americans are entitled to know if some powerful financial institutions receive special treatment in the criminal justice system.

A great American political scientist, Woodrow Wilson, wrote in 1885 that the “proper duty of a representative body [is] to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees...The informing function of Congress is to be preferred even to its legislative function.”

If congressional oversight causes political functionaries to hesitate to tell presidential appointees to stay on messages that are varnished versions of the truth out of fear of embarrassment, then that would be a wholesome result.

Can you keep this tucked away in the back of your mind? Some day we will will prevail on Miller to jump back into electoral politics-- so far we've come up short-- and at that time, we'll need to fight really hard for him. There aren't many Democrats willing to advance this kind of embarrassing narrative about the kind of corruption that has no place in democratic governance. Meanwhile, though, please consider helping get Alan Grayson into the U.S. Senate instead of either of the 2 Wall Street lackeys, Patrick Murphy and Marco Rubio, opposing him.

Will Hillary's Choice Of Kaine As Running Mate Push Progressive Voters Towards Jill Stein?

Do you agree with Trump about anything? Even when he gets something right-- TPP for example-- his objections are not credible and invariably for all the wrong reasons. Well, he's wrong about Hillary too-- no matter what he says... and he's said everything! In terms of the election, all anyone really has to know is that however bad she is-- even after filtering out all the GOP/Hate Talk Radio slander and nonsense-- she is in all ways and on any day the far, far lesser evil than he is on his best day. There are some pros and some cons about a Hillary Clinton presidency. The only case to be made for a Trump presidency is apocalyptic... if that's your cup of tea.

She just selected Tim Kaine as her running mate-- this seems like too big a decision for any one person, especially when we're talking about people like Trump, but her too-- which has been a foregone conclusion all week. There was never a moment I thought it would be someone any better than she is. In my mind it would always be someone catering to the worst aspects of the wing of the Democratic Party that has more in common with Eisenhower Republicans than with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Democrats-- the Clinton wing. I was surprised yesterday when Markos wrote at Daily Kos, of late very much a mouthpiece for that wing of the party, that Hillary would lose ground with the base by picking a corporate centrist. He singled out Vilsack and Kaine; I' would have included Cory Booker and Julian Castro. Markos wrote than neither Kaine, who he deems particularly crappy, nor Vilsack is "palatable." Palatable to who? To the base? The base is as low-info as the Republican base... two-digit IQ morons who have saddled us with two miserable candidates the country seems to hate. The base can be persuaded. Or does he mean the activists and progressives who once, quite some time ago, alas, animated his then-revolutionary website? They want impossible dreams like Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown or Bernie. That's never been in the cards, Hillary has less in common with them than she does with Susan Collins or Rob Portman.

999

The perfect compromise between a candidate springing from her own Republican-lite instincts and those of the progressive wing of the party, would have been Labor Secretary Tom Perez. He's not Elizabeth Warren and he's not Bernie but you don't have to twist the meaning of the word "Democrat" to get that he is one. Tim Kaine should never be president for a wide array of reasons, starting with his fealty to Wall Street, to fracking and to the kinds of trade agreements just about everyone in America short of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell (and Tim Kaine) now understands have been catastrophic. He has all of Clinton's policy flaws-- and more-- and none of her hard to discount saving graces. Kaine may well negate all the positive feelings Democrats who watched Trump's Hate Fest this week have allowed themselves to harbor about her. Markos seemed to be optimistic that Hillary was still going to "make the right call." I hoped he was right and that I was wrong. It's happened before. But not this time.

Jodi Jacobson at Rewire seemed as concerned and disturbed about the prospect of the Clinton's giving the slot to Kaine as we are. "The selection of Kaine," she wrote, "would be the first signal that Clinton intends to seek progressive votes but ignore progressive values and goals, likely at her peril, and ours."

Standing up for progressive principles is not so hard, if you actually believe in them. Senator Elizabeth Warren is a progressive who actually gets shit done, like the creation against all odds in 2011 of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, perhaps the single most important progressive achievement of the past 20 years. Among other things, the CFPB  shields consumers from the excesses of mortgage lenders, student loan servicers, and credit card companies that have caused so much economic chaos in the past decade. So unless you are more interested in protecting the status quo than addressing the root causes of the many problems we now face, a progressive politician would want a strong progressive running mate.

By choosing Tim Kaine as her vice president, Clinton will signal that she values progressives in name and vote only.

As Zach Carter wrote in the Huffington Post, Kaine is setting himself up as a figure willing to do battle with the progressive wing of the party. Kaine is in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement largely negotiated in secret and by corporate lobbyists. Both Sen. Bernie Sanders, whose voters Clinton needs to win over, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren oppose the TPP because, in Warren’s words, it “would tilt the playing field even more in favor of a big multinational corporations and against working families.”

The progressive agenda includes strong emphasis on effective systems of governance and oversight of banks and financial institutions-- the actors responsible, as a result of deregulation, for the major financial crises of the past 16 years, costing the United States trillions of dollars and gutting the financial security of many middle-class and low-income people.

...[A]s governor of Virginia, Kaine supported restrictions on abortion, such as Virginia’s parental consent law and a so-called informed consent law, which in 2008 he claimed gave “women information about a whole series of things, the health consequences, et cetera, and information about adoption.” In truth, the information such laws mandate giving out is often “irrelevant or misleading,” according to the the Guttmacher Institute. In other words, like many others who let ideology rather than public health guide their policy decisions, Kaine put in place policies that are not supported by the evidence and make it more difficult for women to gain access to abortion, steps he has not denounced. This is unacceptable. The very last thing we need is another person in the White House who further stigmatizes abortion, though it must be said Clinton herself seems chronically unable to speak about abortion without euphemism.

While there are many other reasons a Kaine pick would signal a less-than-secure and values-driven Clinton presidency, the fact also stands that he is a white male insider at a time when the rising electorate is decidedly not white and quite clearly looking for strong leadership and meaningful change. Kaine is not the change we seek.

Of course for those perfectly comfortable with going along with the lesser of two evils scenario that the two Beltway political parties insist defines democracy now... well Tim Kaine  is, arguably, far better than that walking freak show from Indiana (no, not Evan Bayh, the one... with the white hair... Mike Pence). As horrified as I was by the Cleveland Hate Fest and Trump's rantings and ravings-- and the overwhelming evil he and his horrid family-- sorry Chris Matthews-- represent, I will never vote based on who the lesser of two evils is. And if my resolve was weakening while I watched the GOP's deranged convention speakers and their hate-filled, ugly white audience, it just took a little focus back on Hillary-- and her announcement of Kaine half an hour ago-- to re-strengthen that resolve once again.

The Cruel Humiliation Of Chris Christie-- Next Stop, Secretary Of Transportation?

The unseemly spectacle of the Trumpish running mate selection-- culminating in Trump playing the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want" a dozen times in a row for startled reporters before bringing out the hapless Mike Pence-- should serve as a prelude to what a Trump administration would be like. In all things and at all times, Trump's narcissism will hover over every decision. His understandable desire to pick his old crony Christie was thwarted because of a family dispute, Christie having sent Ivanka's crooked father-in-law, Charles Kushner, to prison on a series of campaign fraud felonies. Almost a full year ago, we saw that

Trump, who constantly brags about how rich he is and claims he's financing his own campaign, says he's turning down "millions of dollars." Crooked New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner is an old friend of Trump's, and Trump's daughter Ivanka is married to Kushner's wormy son Jared, publisher of the NY Observer. Kushner was convicted of making illegal campaign contributions and of tax evasion and witness tampering, and served a year of a two-year sentence in prison. [Last August] he had a "non-fundraiser" for Trump at his palatial $6.7 million beachfront mansion in Long Branch on the Jersey Shore. He gave Trump $100,000. The invitation for the non-fundraiser read: "Seryl and Charles Kushner invite you to their home to meet DONALD TRUMP," with Trump’s name in red letters beneath a pair of American flags, just above "Make America Great Again!" Trump insists it was a just garden party.

Kushner, who has primarily given to Democratic crooks like Chuck Schumer, Joe Lieberman, Jon Corzine and Robert Mendoza, blames Chris Christie-- who was the prosecutor who sent him to prison-- for his legal woes. Maybe the only string attached to the $100,000 he gave to Trump's super-PAC was the satisfaction of seeing Christie get buried. But I doubt it; after all, Kushner is well-known for having once retaliated against his own sister by hiring a prostitute for her husband, taping it and sending her the tape. Trump was happy to get the $100,000, but has never allowed himself to be photographed with his pal Kushner.

One GOP sad sack, Mike Murphy, a failed campaign operative who's lost dozens of races for every candidate he's ever worked for, most recent the Jebster, tweeted Saturday morning "I have a vision of Chris Christie hopping around on one foot trying to shake his other foot out of a now smoking, broken TV screen..." And while the Newtster was on Face The Nation yesterday, making a play for a cabinet position in the imaginary universe where Trump becomes president, Christie was dealing with massive Schadenfreude coming at him from every direction, not the least from Trump's rotten little slimy son-in-law. The NY Times was less catty than Jared... but still devastating: Chris Christie Lost Out on the Job He Wanted. And His Bad Year Got Worse. Zate Zernike started her gruesome story by pointing out that on Thursday morning, one of Christie's closest confidants "pleaded guilty to a felony charge of abusing power at the agency that Mr. Christie tapped him to lead. By that afternoon, federal prosecutors had charged a former cabinet official in connection with the same case, which spun out of the George Washington Bridge lane-closing scandal that has dogged Mr. Christie for nearly three years."

And Christie's day on got worse as a storm knocked down tree and a power line in front of his house, starting a fire, and cutting off his electricity. And then, of course Christie failed to "get the job he had been publicly pining for, and on which he had pinned his hopes of political resuscitation" despite an early and ill-advised endorsement of the much loathed Trump "that dragged Mr. Christie’s poll numbers to record lows at home and alienated him from moderate Republicans he once called friends."

“He was such a lap dog and tried for it so hard, he ended up not just losing badly in the presidential stakes-- I think he just looks much weaker than he was before by his rabid pursuit of Trump,” said Ed Rollins, a longtime Republican strategist who is now advising a “super PAC” supporting Mr. Trump. “It was not a glorious couple of years here, or for the citizens of the state.”

When Mr. Trump confirmed on Friday morning that he was picking Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana as his running mate, the initial reports were that they would make their first appearance together in Bedminster, N.J., where Mr. Trump has a golf course and plans to be buried. It would be “the site of Trump’s mausoleum and the burial ground of Christie’s political aspirations,” in the words of Julie Roginsky, a Democratic strategist close to two former Christie administration officials charged in the lane-closing case, Bill Baroni and David Wildstein.

The Trump campaign later said the appearance would be in Manhattan.

But even without an announcement in his backyard, Mr. Christie has suffered embarrassment at the hands of Mr. Trump.

He set off internet ridicule on Super Tuesday when he stood behind Mr. Trump, mute and obedient. As they appeared together, Mr. Trump mocked the governor for eating too many Oreos, and for all but moving out of New Jersey as he campaigned for president in New Hampshire.

Mr. Trump appeared to relish poking fun at his effusive booster: “I hated to do it but I had to make my point,” he said, after accusing Mr. Christie of abandoning his state.

Mr. Christie’s staff had to fight back against reports from within the Trump campaign, quoted in the New Yorker, that the governor had fetched food from McDonald’s for Mr. Trump. (On Friday, the New Yorker humor columnist Andy Borowitz further mocked him with a spoof headlined: “Furious Christie Refuses to Pick Up Trump’s Dry Cleaning.”)

In the end, Mr. Trump seemed to all but ignore any loyalty from Mr. Christie, picking Mr. Pence, who had endorsed a former rival to Mr. Trump, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.

“It’s death by humiliation,” Ms. Roginsky, who is also a Fox News contributor, said. “Slow, twisting and played out in public, like a reality show elimination.”

On Friday, Mr. Christie’s office declined to offer a statement on Mr. Pence. The governor appears to be left with the prospect of campaigning even harder for Mr. Trump in hopes of getting a post in the administration, should Mr. Trump win.

But that would have to happen against the wishes of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is said to be no fan of Mr. Christie, who, as the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey, sent Mr. Kushner’s father to prison. And the governor would face a tough confirmation fight should he be nominated for a post such as attorney general.

Mr. Christie will have to endure more heartburn between now and Election Day.

The trial in the bridge case is scheduled to begin in September, and defense lawyers have promised to savage him and show that he knew about the lane closings, despite his protestations and “tell it like it is” slogans. The charges announced on Thursday-- that Mr. Christie’s associates negotiated bribes with United Airlines--— will continue to play out with the sentencing in the case of David Samson, former chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, in October.

“I was going to say he could be secretary of transportation, but that probably wouldn’t be a very good thing for him,” Mr. Rollins said of Mr. Christie. “Though he has some experience there, controlling bridges and planes and that sort of thing.”

His approval in New Jersey is a dismal 26% but Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute said that "if Trump wins, Trump will find something for him. He’ll take anything, as is kind of obvious." Let's make sure that never happens... never. A Democratic Senate is unlikely to confirm Christie for anything... except a long and well-deserved prison term.

Strong, Decisive Leadership? Not From Stand Up Comic Donald Trump

After a day and a half, Trumpy-the-Clown even took down that ridiculous logo twitter-world was laughing at. I wonder how much he paid for that. Or did 10 year old precocious Barron Trump draw it? Trump was right to worry about the campaign's boneheaded choice of Mike Pence as his running mate. Pence is a divisive ideologue who offers virtually nothing to the ticket except an opportunity to shore up Trump's standing with perennially unhappy hard right movement conservatives. One poll showed that Pence isn't even known at all to 86% of Americans. There was a serious question if he was about to lose the governor's mansion in an Indiana rematch. But what this sordid episode of running mate selection really demonstrates has little to do with Pence himself. Trump may have learned at the last minute that Pence has a history as a disloyal, backstabbing rat, but for someone trying to sell himself to the American public as a consummate manager who "picks the best people" to run his affairs, the vetting process was a shambles and, if anything, Trump's waffling and indecision proves how can be manipulated by wily advisors who he doesn't trust. It didn't help Saturday morning when he came out to introduce Pence to the press and just bragged about himself for half an hour, something that was preceded by his campaign playing the Rolling Stones' classic "You Can't Always Get What You Want" over and over and over, in case anyone wasn't sure how the Trumpster really feels about Pence.

NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reported on Friday that Trump was trying to get out of the Pence selection--which had been leaked to press by Pence's campaign so as to box Trump in-- as late as Thursday midnight. "Sources, she wrote, "told NBC News Friday that Donald Trump was stressed over the circumstances surrounding his choice for running mate even after news of the pick leaked. While in California, separated from family and most aides, Trump worked the phones late into the evening Thursday soliciting advice and sharing his concerns. Sources familiar with the calls said Trump conveyed that he felt 'backed into a corner.'"

Trump is described as torn because he felt former House speaker Newt Gingrich would be "too volatile" to manage. Trump told others that he had favored New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, but could not choose him because of his own family loyalty. Christie, as U.S. Attorney, prosecuted [long-time crooked Trump crony] Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's son-in-law and close advisor Jared Kushner. Multiple sources said Kushner strongly opposed Christie as the running mate. Working with Christie behind the scenes on the transition team and strategy is one thing, but Kushner could not accept Christie as the running mate.

Despite a close, long-term friendship with the governor, sources said Trump told others he could not "betray" his family and cause stress for his daughter Ivanka. That made Pence, as described by a source, "the only choice." While Trump likes and respects the Indiana governor, associates of Trump say he also expressed concern that Pence was not a match temperamentally with his brand and style of campaign. However, that is exactly what others in Trump's circle say makes Pence so attractive.

Pence's solid experience, mild mannered demeanor and message discipline provide a balance that may reassure uneasy Republicans and donors. News of the Pence pick leaked as Trump officials were in Cleveland trying to quell resistance and did stop attempts to undercut Trump at the RNC Rules Committee. First day reactions to Pence suggest many conservatives are pleased to see him on the GOP ticket. Trump's gut may have been Christie at first, for his loyalty and political skill. But Trump chose family and professional political advice.

Trump enthusiast Ann Coulter sowed doubts in a very public way. "Withholding comment until it’s official, but if claims about Pence as VP are correct, boy was I right about this being Trump’s first mistake," she tweeted, withholding nothing and publicly urging Trump to change his mind. She spent Bastille day slamming Pence on Facebook, where she insisted he had sold out homophobic purity to leftist-wing activists, and on Twitter:

The Shameful Pence Episode The Beltway Media Isn't Talking About

There's a dark, ugly chapter in Mike Pence's life that the Beltway media has helped him coverup. I bet Trump doesn't even know about it. Movement conservatives and Hoosiers know who he is but 86% of American voters pretty much never heard of Mike Pence, or at least haven't heard enough about him to have formed an opinion. Starting in 1994 he was a small town Indiana hate talk radio host who referred to himself as "Rush Limbaugh on decaf," which is how he gained visibility and how in 2000, he won a congressional seat after two previous tries. By 2006, the ambitious ideologue was running for Minority Leader. John Boehner beat him 168-27, although two years later his colleagues elected him Republican Conference Chairman, the token Tea Party nut in the House leadership.

In the House he was best known for his desire to go to war against Iran and for his bizarre life-long obsession with homophobia and his anti-Choice fanaticism. He led the fight to turn then-routine appropriation bills into vehicles for his extremist and divisive positions. Almost 7 years ago to the day he led an effort in the House to turn the debate over appropriations for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education into a fundamentalist jihad against Planned Parenthood. He was always crowing how he got 19 Democrats, almost exclusively Blue Dogs, to cross the aisle and join the Republican War Against Women. Subsequently 16 of those 19 Democrats were defeated or forced to retire, the only ones left being garbage fake Dems Dan Lipinski (IL) and Collin Peterson (MN) in the House and right-wing nut Joe Donnelly in the Senate.

But the most sordid episode in Pence's ugly political career was when he ratted out Boehner-- his leader and rival-- for sleeping with Beltway lobbyist Lisbeth Lyons, a kind of revenge for Boehner forcing Pence ally Mark Souter (R-IN) to resign after he was exposed for having illicit sex with a staffer. At the time, to have Mike Pence surreptitiously leak the news to the media about Boehner running around with a female lobbyist wasn't remarkable because of the sex and hypocrisy, it was remarkable because of the motivation inside the GOP caucus to keep Boehner from ever becoming Speaker. At the time Pence was freaking out about being caught ratting out Boehner-- and move that ultimately failed to dislodge Boehner, making Pence's position (and ambition) untenable and causing him to abruptly change his career path as he careened from one idea to another togged him out of the House. The week before the 2010 election, I wrote that "Last night Mike Pence, who wants to run for president, had his flack call me-- and late at night-- to demand I retract my assertion that it was Pence who leaked the story about Boehner and the lady lobbyist. The flack said it isn't true. I asked him how he knows. He said he was '100% certain.' I said that that was impossible and that my informant was 100% certain it was true and that it was a firsthand account. He demanded to know who my informant was. I asked him to put Pence on the phone. He refused and said he would send me a written statement; he didn't." Boehner became Speaker and Pence's House career was over.

Mr. Trumpy-the-Clown might want to watch his back-- and check in with his running mate vetting team pronto. The fact that Pence is a known rat and has always been a fierce advocate for the exact trade bills Trump has built a campaign around opposing is kind of curious... but for all his whining about how hard it is to build bathrooms in skyscrapers, Trump has never been a details man.

Hillary’s Pivot to the South: Meet James Stavridis

Has Hillary Earned The Right To Put This Guy In Line To Be President? Just Say No!

-by Dorothy Reik

As the words of yesterday's endorsement of Hillary by Bernie were spoken, the NY Times was reporting the vetting of Admiral (ret.) James Stavrides as her Vice President. While the Times seemed to think the investigation into his use of a military plane to ferry his wife to a vineyard wine tasting might cause him problems, my thoughts turned to war. Stavrides has headed up both the Southern Command and NATO. Which way to turn.

Stavrides is a big proponent of "smart power"-- that doesn’t mean peace-- it means a hidden war which combines brute force with a modicum of soft persuasion. When he was asked for an example, Stavrides gave one: Plan Colombia! He explained to US News: "Colombia 10 to 15 years ago was a lot like Afghanistan is today, but through the application of smart power, today we have productive negotiations ongoing between the main Colombia rebel faction, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the government of Colombia.”

In Colombia the picture was not so rosy. Telesur reports on this "smart" power solution:

Almost as many people have been displaced in Colombia as in Syria. Some of that violence has been caused by the implementation of the United States' Plan Colombia "aid" package, which has funded an unfettered militarization of Colombia since 2000.

Plan Colombia is a counternarcotics and counterinsurgency military aid package launched by then U.S. President Bill Clinton. Its legacy is massacres, mass graves, and death squads.

On the 15th anniversary of the plan, Feb. 4, 2016, the current U.S. president, Barack Obama, is announcing a revamped version of it, meeting with Colombian President Santos for talks.

The United States' contribution of military personnel and billions of dollars to fight Colombia's drug trade and contribute to security to counter the internal conflict with rebel guerrillas has coincided with an increase in violence and an unfettered militarization-- conspicuous as some three-quarters of Plan Colombia’s aid money has gone toward funding the military and local police.

Plan Colombia's legacy will now be entrenched in the violence, deaths and forced disappearances that already existed in high numbers because of the ongoing civil war between the Colombian army, paramilitary troops and guerrilla fighters.

Neither Bill nor Hillary worried much about the women:

Six women were raped every hour in Colombia during the first nine years of Plan Colombia. That figure was taken from a joint survey done by women’s rights organizations, which include Oxfam and other Colombian based groups. The study also revealed that some 489,678 women were victims of some type of sexual violence, while 7,752 had been forced into prostitution between 2000-2009-- what were integral years for the controversial deal.

Plan Colombia is a counternarcotics and counterinsurgency military aid package launched in 2000 by then U.S. President Bill Clinton. Over the last 15 years, it contributed military personnel and billions of dollars to help Colombia fight the drug trade and left-wing guerrillas which the government had been fighting with for decades.

However, according to human rights groups in the country, the deal has been a disaster.

“What we see is that drug trafficking was strengthened and there was a lot of repression, a lot of contamination of the environment, and the level of violation of human rights of Colombians increased,” Nidia Quintero, general-secretary of the campesino rights group Fensuagro, told teleSUR.

As about three-fourths of Plan Colombia’s aid money has gone toward funding the military and local police, the result has been mainly unfettered militarization of the country. This is true particularly in the first seven years of the plan, from 2000 to 2007, when U.S. assistance would routinely exceed US$600 million per year, with over 80 percent of it going to the security forces, according to numbers by the Washington Office of Latin America.

This, added to the violence, deaths and forced disappearances that already existed in high numbers because of the ongoing civil war between the Colombian army, paramilitary troops and guerrilla fighters.

And according to Quintero, those who continue to bear the brunt of the burden is women.

Sexual violence against women in the country has not just been an unfortunate consequence of war, but rather a direct military strategy, according to human rights lawyer Milena Montoya.

“Raping a woman is a spoil of war,” Montoya, who is also the secretary of the executive board for the human rights advocacy group Lazos de Dignidad (Ties of Unity), told teleSUR. “To violate a woman creates terror in other women. So, this has been one of those practices that military groups, the Colombian army as well as the U.S. army, have implemented in order to keep the population submissive and living in terror.”

“Over the past five decades, around 220,000 people have been killed and millions more displaced by the internal conflict.”

And Telesur goes two steps further than Amnesty International in their condemnation of Plan Colombia:

First, the human rights group does not mention that Plan Colombia was initiated in the midst of peace talks between the Colombian government and FARC guerillas, and actually played a key role in derailing these talks, and with them the prospects for peace-- prospects which have only been revived recently.

Second, Amnesty International does not mention that the paramilitaries which continue to collaborate with the U.S.-backed military in Colombia were actually a creation of the U.S. Thus, these paramilitaries were the brainchild of the Kennedy Administration back in 1962  -  that is, two years before the FARC guerillas were even constituted.

As Noam Chomsky has mentioned a number of times, Kennedy commenced the U.S.’s counterinsurgency program, of which paramilitaries were a key component, in order to combat the scourge of Liberation Theology unleashed by Vatican II. And indeed, as Chomsky has also noted, the U.S. School of the Americas has bragged about how it helped “destroy liberation theology,” which emphasizes the “preferential treatment of the poor.”

Colombia has been ground zero for this plan which has targeted, among others, Catholic clergy for assassination. Accordingly, as documented by the Episcopal Conference of Colombia, over 80 Catholic clergy have been murdered in Colombia since 1984-- including 79 priests and 2 bishops-- for the crime of advocating on behalf of the poor.

But Stavrides tells US News that Plan Colombia is a success: "Take Colombia, for example. I don't think anyone would look at Colombia today and say that it is failing. This positive outcome is an example of the effective application of smart power-- it is succeeding."

How many more "successes" can Latin American take? Well Stavrides thinks we should "help" Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua. Notice the relationships he is seeking are military-to-military: "Further, during my tour at U.S. Southern Command, we worked hard to have productive military-to-military relationships with them, and I think it is unfortunate that there appear to be deliberate efforts to try to antagonize the U.S.-- and that's what I take away from the Snowden episode. It is unfortunate, but I think the U.S. will continue to try to foster good relations with those states. However, it does not serve those nations well to offer asylum to a fugitive from U.S. justice."

I wonder what he and Hillary have in mind? Can you spell “coup”? It’s spelled H-O-N-D-U-R-A-S.

Stavrides also pointed to the Balkans as a "smart power" success story-- but that is for another time.

Trumpy The Clown-- The Most Hated Candidate Since Polling Was Invented... So Who Wants To Be His Running Mate?

Drudge's poll yesterday asked the right-wing crackpots who still read that website who they preferred as a running mate for Herr Trumpf. But the Drudge polling department only listed 6 possibilities and not even an "other" or a "none of the above." And not Tom Brady (who says he's not coming to the convention) nor Trump's favorite (forcibly retired) general, Phil Breedlove nor even the guy who gave Trump his not very witty and somewhat shopworn Pocahontas retort to Elizabeth Warren's compelling critique of him, Scott Brown. So the Newtster came out on top and the only remotely sane person, Bob Corker, came out at the bottom of the heap. No girls... not even poor Kirstie Allie who announced an endorsement of Trump only to see her weight loss scam business-- or at least her store in Los Feliz across from the Vermont post office-- shut down pretty quickly after he made the public admission that he's a bigot-loving imbecile.

• Newt Gingrich- 153,640 votes (41.19%)
• Joni Ernst- 115,603 votes (30.99%)
• Jefferson Beauregard Sessions- 52,134 votes (13.98%)
• Mike Pence- 25,498 votes (6.84%)
• Christie- 20,435 votes (5.48%)
• Bob Corker- 5,727 votes (1.52%)

Gallup had a more interesting poll over the weekend, showing how surly the American public is towards the two terrible candidates the idiot primary voters came up with. Trump's unfavorability with the American people is as high as unfavorables have been since measuring them began. Hillary's are pretty bad too... except in relation to Trump's. But they're both "among the worst-rated presidential candidates of the last seven decades"-- Trump with a 42% unfavorable score and Clinton with a 33% score. Until now, Goldwater scored the worst-- with a 26% unfavorable.

In the category "highly unfavorable," here are the dozen records among the really disliked candidates just before the general elections (plus Hillary and Trumpy the Clown now)-- from bad to worse:

• G.H.W. Bush- 18%
• Reagan ('84)- 18%
• McCain- 20%

• McGovern- 20%
• Kerry- 22%
• Romney- 22%
• Obama ('12)- 22%
• G.W. Bush ('04)- 23%
• Obama ('08)- 24%
• Goldwater- 26%
• Hillary- 33%
• Trump- 42%

Big surprises: Nixon's high unfavorable rating was just 11%. Not surprising:

In addition to his record-setting highly unfavorable rating, Trump's overall image on the scalometer tilts more negatively than Goldwater's did at his lowest point in 1964. Trump's combined ratings are 42% favorable and 59% unfavorable whereas Goldwater's broke about even at 43% favorable and 47% unfavorable.

Clinton's overall image on the scalometer-- 51% favorable vs. 50% unfavorable-- is also better than Trump's and slightly more positive than Goldwater's in October 1964.

Bottom Line

Trump's image in 2016 is worse than Goldwater's was in 1964, giving Trump-- at least for the moment-- the distinction of having the highest negative scores on Gallup's scalometer of any presidential candidate rated since 1956. But that is only half the equation.

Well... At Least Kaine Isn't As Bad As Lieberman Or A Republican

Could Obama have found 2 worse DNC chairs?

The first thing Rahm Emanuel wanted to do once Obama made him chief of staff was to fire Howard Dean as heard of the DNC. Kicking out Dean and his 50-state strategy was the beginning of Emanuel's catastrophic stint as "Obama's prime minister," a stint that led directly to the loss of 63 seats in the House-- replacing Pelosi with Boehner as Speaker-- and 6 seats in the Senate. Rahm wanted a harmless order-taker to replace the opinionated Dean as DNC Chair. The perfect candidate was the mediocre termed out governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, who has since gone on to be an unoffensive mediocre U.S. senator. A perfect example of the Peter Principle in action, Kaine is now a front-runner for the Clinton VP slot. He's just a cardboard demographic who stands for nothing and brings nothing to the ticket to encourage anyone who harbors any shred of hope that Clinton plans to respond to the populist sentiments rolling the whole western world. He's certainly not an Elizabeth Warren-- or even a Sherrod Brown. But he's available and he'd be replaced in the Senate by a Democratic governor.

Although... now it looks like a little scandal may derail him. Politico reported yesterday that he "took advantage of the state’s lax gift laws to receive an $18,000 Caribbean vacation, $5,500 in clothes and a trip to watch George Mason University play in the NCAA basketball Final Four during his years as lieutenant governor and governor... Kaine reported more than $160,000 in gifts from 2001 to 2009, mostly for travel to and from political events and conferences."

He didn't break any laws-- and no one has accused him of accepting these obvious bribes for an particular quid pro quos-- at least not yet-- but "Virginia’s standards are widely perceived as too permissive, especially in the wake of the McDonnell case. And even the appearance of lower standards could become an issue in the national spotlight."

“The danger here is that there’s already a narrative on Hillary Clinton: It’s crooked cronyism, and any pick or any other action that drives that narrative is going to be bad for her,” said Matt Moon, a former Republican National Committee deputy research director, communications director for the 2014 reelection campaign of Governor Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and now executive vice president of opposition research consulting firm Delve. “If you’re on the Clinton campaign side, you want to look at potential vulnerabilities in how a VP pick would drive an opposition narrative.”

Kaine has acknowledged the defects with his state’s policies, especially compared with the federal restrictions he now faces as senator. “With no limit on the amount of such gifts and with the exceptions for friends and family so broad, Virginia’s system is all but guaranteed to create problems,” he wrote in a 2013 Washington Post op-ed. “The benefits of the federal rule are obvious. I regret that I didn’t propose adopting it when I was governor.”

Shortly after winning the governorship in 2005, Kaine and his family vacationed on the exclusive West Indies island of Mustique in a house belonging to Charlottesville-area investor James B. Murray Jr. Murray made a fortune investing in cellphones together with Kaine’s Senate predecessor, Mark Warner. Murray invited Kaine to spend a week at his house to relax after the campaign.

...Kaine also accepted $5,500 worth of clothes in 2003 and 2005 from Stuart C. Siegel, a close friend and campaign booster who was then chairman of a Virginia-based discount menswear company. The disclosure also lists a baccarat crystal vase, valued at $0. Siegel didn’t answer a request for comment through a foundation of which he’s a board member.

Most of the gifts came in the form of travel to conferences or campaign events. President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign gave Kaine $45,000 for airfare and lodging. Kaine’s own leadership committee, Moving Virginia Forward, footed $20,000 of travel expenses. The Democratic Party of Virginia paid almost $11,000.

Richmond-based power company Dominion gave Kaine $2,000 for travel to meetings of the Democratic Governors Association and Southern Governors Association and to watch George Mason University play in the NCAA Final Four in 2006. Kaine rode on Dominion’s jet because he missed the commercial flight he booked to attend a state legislator’s funeral. A regulated utility, Dominion lobbies the state on energy policy.

Teva Pharmaceuticals gave him $12,000 for the August 2006 Democratic Governors Association meeting in Aspen. The Israeli drug company lobbied the state government and later bought a facility in Forest, Virginia. BET co-founder Sheila C. Johnson treated him to $4,250 for two dinners, travel to a charity benefit and a trip to Denver. ADR Software CEO E. Scott Kasprowicz, a conservationist and an environmental advocate, paid $3,000 for travel to political and charity galas.

Politico had already noted earlier this week that Bernie supporters didn't like the idea of Kaine even before the scandal. Bill Scher reported that the safe, boring Kaine might be perfect for Hillary but is seen by the progressive wing of the party as "an establishment Wall Street Democrat [who] will do nothing but confirm to progressives she's learned nothing from this primary."

As many as 22 million potential voters in November are thought to be Sanders-leaning Democrats, and they’re looking for evidence that Clinton is paying some heed to the surprisingly strong insurgency of the socialist from Vermont. Bernie’s success was a clear anti-establishment uprising, strong enough that his supporters expect their agenda will now help shape the future of the party. But choosing Kaine may send them the opposite message: This is her party now, and you aren’t the ones calling the shots.

“Tim Kaine would be a perfect addition to the ticket,” said People for Bernie co-founder Charles Lenchner when asked by Politico Magazine how he would interpret such a pick “in that he would add no progressive backbone that might inconvenience Team Hillary when it's time to govern.”

...Kaine also appears partial to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, loathed by Sanders and his backers. He voted for the “fast track” bill protecting trade agreements from Senate filibusters, a necessary step for TPP ratification (though he said at the time that his vote was “not a blind endorsement of any pending trade negotiation.") And he welcomed the release of the TPP text by pushing back on a main criticism from the left about the process: “Contrary to claims that this is a ‘secret deal,’ the text is being made available—significantly earlier than required ... ” (Last week’s rejection of an anti-TPP plank in the initial Democratic platform by the drafting committee is roiling the left and may make the trade issue a major flash point at the convention.)

Kaine’s maneuvering is typical of a politician in the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Which is exactly the problem: Sanders supporters don’t want a politician in the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

“Picking Kaine, a centrist, DLC [the now-defunct Democratic Leadership Council] Democrat, who happens to have some scary positions on abortion and the deficit, would just confirm that Clinton is the triangulating, centrist, DLC Democrat who many Sanders supporters have claimed her to be,” scoffed Bernie-backer Katie Halper, host of her eponymous radio show on New York’s WBAI, to Politico Magazine, “It would send a message that she's not even pretending to pander to us, which is both refreshingly honest and alarming.”

The Republican National Committee is fully aware that Kaine could potentially widen the rift between populists and the Democratic establishment, dropping an unusual oppo dump this week which captured every right-leaning position Kaine has ever taken-- including support for offshore oil drilling off the Virginia coast-- and declaring, “Tapping The Virginia Senator Would Be A Slap in The Face To Bernie Backers.” (This may have been the first time in history the RNC publicly expressed concern for the feelings of democratic socialists.)

It’s clear that a Kaine pick would be beyond disappointing for Bernie loyalists, especially after a season of electrifying rallies and primary wins that demonstrated the genuine populist energy in the party’s young base. But would Kaine really damage Clinton’s bottom line in the main thing she cares about, the popular vote total in November?

Even in Sanders circles, opinions diverge. Shaun King, the New York Daily News' senior Justice writer and Black Lives Matter activist, a Bernie booster, warned that Kaine could be a huge bust: “Her choice of VP, if not someone truly progressive, will seal the deal for many of us to vote elsewhere.” But Halper argues Clinton need not worry: “Neither I, nor any single Sanders supporter I know, is on the fence about who they want to win the general. And nobody is saying, ‘If Clinton names Elizabeth Warren, she has my vote. If she names Kaine, I'm voting for Trump’ … The role of vice president is largely symbolic.”