Bill Gates for VP? Hacked emails reveal Clinton’s unorthodox considerations

Democratic presidential nominee vetted some 'outside of the box' contenders before settling on Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate, according to emails leaked Monday.

|
Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Supporters of Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine wave signs to passing motorists ahead of tonight's debate at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, October 4.

Hillary Clinton's campaign circulated an initial list of nearly 40 elected officials, military leaders, and corporate executives to be considered for vice president last spring. The list was included among hacked emails from Mrs. Clinton's campaign chairman disclosed Tuesday by WikiLeaks.

The list emailed from John Podesta to Hillary Clinton last March included several Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tim Kaine of Virginia, who was eventually picked by Clinton.

Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Clinton's opponent in the hotly contested Democratic primary, also made the list — at the very bottom.

Podesta organized the list into "rough food groups" including blacks, women, and Hispanics such as Obama administration Cabinet members Julian Castro of Housing and Urban Development and Labor Secretary Tom Perez.

African-Americans who made the list included Sen. Cory Booker, (D) of New Jersey, former Attorney General Eric Holder, and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Besides Senator Warren, women on the list of possibilities included Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) of New York, Amy Klobuchar (D) of Minnesota, Claire McCaskill (D) of Missorui, and Tammy Baldwin, (D) Wisconsin, who is openly gay.

Another group of possibilities that appeared to represent "outside-the-box" options included former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Tim Cook of Apple, philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates, Howard Schultz of Starbucks and retired Marine Corps Gen. John Allen.

Clinton's eventual pick of Senator Kaine was seen by some pundits as the safe choice, a vote for experience over charisma, as The Christian Science Monitor's Francine Kiefer reported in July:

Kaine is not vrooming with charisma, as is Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, whom Clinton took for a spin before a wildly enthusiastic crowd last month. But neither will he upstage Clinton – which is a risk with Senator Warren – though he does play a mean harmonica and sometimes whips it out at campaign stops.

Nor does he come from a crucial rust-belt swing state, like the trade-deal critic Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who might help beat back Donald Trump’s appeal to the angry working class. But Virginia, too, is a key swing state, and unlike Ohio, it has a Democratic governor who would appoint a Democrat to replace Kaine – though a special election would eventually have to follow.

Neither could Kaine nail the Hispanic vote quite like Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, who is also reportedly under consideration. But the senator does speak Spanish fluently, going back to his time at Harvard Law School when he broke off for a year to teach at a Jesuit mission in Honduras. He may even help move a few more white males into Clinton’s column.

Most important, Kaine’s experience in elected office far exceeds that of Mr. Perez – or pretty much anyone else under consideration. He can check just about every box in government: from council member and mayor in Richmond, Va., to lieutenant governor, then governor, and now US senator. Before he was elected to the Senate in 2012, he served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee under President Obama.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Bill Gates for VP? Hacked emails reveal Clinton’s unorthodox considerations
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/1018/Bill-Gates-for-VP-Hacked-emails-reveal-Clinton-s-unorthodox-considerations
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe