That We All May Be One

While faithful followers of this little blog will know that I would have preferred Julian Castro, the brilliant and young Hispanic Cabinet Secretary, as Hillary Clinton’s running mate, I am nonetheless more than content with Tim Kaine. Clinton and Kaine are personally compatible and he certainly meets the primary qualification of being able to serve as president should that become necessary.

Tim Kaine has other experiences that are important for me: He has solid, Midwestern (Minnesota) roots but has served as both governor of the swing state of Virginia and a senator from that great state who happens to sit on the Foreign Relations Committee. Even more importantly, for me, he is

“the son of a welder who owned a small metalworking shop…(is)…a Roman Catholic…(who)…attended a Jesuit school and took a break from law school at Harvard to spend time as a Catholic missionary in Honduras, an experience that his family has said shaped him and helped him become fluent in Spanish. Early in his career, Mr. Kaine worked on fair housing and civil rights issues as a lawyer.” (New York Times, Saturday July 23)

I am a great fan of the Jesuits and believe it has to be a good thing that he was shaped by their blend of deep faith and educational excellence. He shares with me a personal, Catholic view of abortion but, like me, nonetheless is pro choice and believes only a woman can rightfully make such a momentous decision. He has a 100% voting record for Planned Parenthood. His fluency in Spanish will be invaluable and I believe his is the only United States Senator to have given an entire speech on the floor in Spanish.

I like the fact that he has been a governor and so has actually had to “govern” and make the kind of tough decisions that only come to one on whose desk the buck actually stops. Yet, he is also a well respected senator who knows how legislation gets done on the national level as well. He is certainly not flashy, but by all reports is liked by nearly everyone and can nonetheless be plenty tough when the situation calls for it.

Tim Kaine will be a worthy opposition VP nominee to Mike Pence and their debates should be interesting. Maybe more interesting than the Clinton/Trump ones which will undoubtedly be dragged into the mud by Donald Trump who seems to know no other way to disagree with someone. Kaine and Pence will actually debate the issues and my guess is that more light than heat will be generated by their conversation. I look forward to it.

I hope next week’s Democratic National Convention will be a celebration of unity and the launching pad for perhaps the most consequential  presidential election in my lifetime. Both candidates for the highest office in our land have opted for solid, if less than exciting, vice presidential picks. That’s OK with me. There will be enough fireworks as Hillary and the Donald battle it out.

It will be nice to have a couple of pretty solid back-ups in the bullpen.

This entry was posted on July 23, 2016 at 12:14 pm and is filed under Blogroll, Church Life, Ecumenical, Emergent Church, Interfaith, Justice and Peace, Politics, Politics, Religion, The Episcopal Church, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.