THE CLINTON/KAINE TICKET AND THE RUST BELT

Will the selection of Tim Kaine as Hillary Clinton’s Vice President nominee lose her the “rust belt” states she needs to win the election?

Read this excerpt from a commendably candid article by the New York Times’ Amy Chozik and Alan Rappeport, then decide for yourself:”

Appearing comfortable in his new role as Mrs. Clinton’s top cheerleader and weapon against Mr. Trump, Mr. Kaine bounded up to the microphone, then slipped easily between English and Spanish as he animated the mostly Latino audience by mixing political talk with homey reflections on his life.

But as Mr. Kaine sought to flex his language skills to appeal to Hispanic voters, he and Mrs. Clinton were also trying to mollify a growing backlash from the left against his record of support for global trade deals, which many voters in Rust Belt states blame for the loss of American manufacturing jobs.

Mr. Kaine was one of 13 Senate Democrats to vote in support of giving President Obama “fast track” authority on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the 12-nation pact that has become a lightning rod this election year. In a clear sign of concern that the issue could be damaging, aides to both Democrats signaled on Saturday that Mr. Kaine would soon publicly adopt Mrs. Clinton’s current position on the deal and say that he no longer supported it in its current form.

After praising the Trans-Pacific Partnership as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton said during the Democratic primary race against Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont that the pact did not meet her “high bar” on protecting American workers.

Let’s think about this:

-Hillary Clinton supported TPP and other such trade deals – deals that her opponent, Donald Trump, has characterized as horrible, because they give away for too much to our “partners” and destroy American jobs.

-Tim Kaine?  Ditto.

-But now, running for President, suddenly Ms. Clinton is against the exact same deals she supported, and Kaine, who voted to support them, is going to announce he is against them too.

You’re a worker – maybe a laid off worker – in one of the the “rust belt” states:

-Do you believe a word of this from either of them?

-Will you also take into account the comment by Hillary Clinton that she was going to put coal workers on the unemployment lines – which she tried to walk back but could not?  Will that tell you anything about Ms. Clinton’s real intentions when it comes to trade deals?

-Are you more likely to vote for the guy who emphatically, even angrily, speaks against those deals?

The so-called “rust belt states include Ohio and Pennsylvania.  But also states like Indiana and Michigan and Illinois.  Can Donald Trump use this as leverage to be competitive in these states?

What if he wins three or four of them?  Who is President next January then?

Is this a problem for the Clinton/Kaine ticket?  That’s like asking if an ice storm is a problem for driving down a curvy hill.