Clinton reportedly picked Kaine to mend 'deficit with white men'

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last updated 23 July 2016

In an article published Saturday, The New York Times reports that presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton picked Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate to attract more white men to her campaign:

Ultimately, Mrs. Clinton, who told PBS that she was "afflicted with the responsibility gene," avoided taking a chance with a less experienced vice-presidential candidate and declined to push the historic nature of her candidacy by adding another woman or a minority to the ticket.Instead, the campaign, which had become concerned about its deficit with white men, focused on Mr. Kaine and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and looked more closely at Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado. [The New York Times]

Kaine has been described as "boring" following his addition to the ticket, a trope those close to the candidate say is unfair. "I just hate it," Beau Cribbs, Kaine’s former body man, told BuzzFeed News. "I think boring is a code for white and male, frankly."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.