Despite losing to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has not been shy about offering advice in how to defeat Donald Trump.
The Washington Examiner writes that it is now her running mate’s turn. Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, offered Minnesota Governor Tim Walz a key piece of advice as he readies to take on J.D. Vance next week: “Defend the top of the ticket.”
“You can’t let your opponent take shots at your top of the ticket. You got to be the goaltender, and you got to block all the shots or maybe keep pressure on the other guy,” Kaine told the Washington Examiner.
Most criticism was laid at the feet of Clinton, who underestimated Trump’s ability to crack blue wall states such as Wisconsin.
But Kaine does see a danger in Walz spending too much time protecting his own image, singling out the late Sen. Joe Lieberman’s desire for civility in his 2000 debate against Dick Cheney, the Republican vice presidential nominee.
“Look, I was a friend of Joe’s, but his strategy was to make people like him, not to protect Gore,” Kaine said. “And so, Cheney took a lot of shots on goal against Gore during that debate, and Lieberman didn’t really protect him.”
The advice is, at its core, a reminder to play attack dog, from one “nice guy” to another. Vice President Kamala Harris chose Walz, in part, for his affable, Midwestern demeanor.
Kaine’s advice underscores the conventional wisdom that vice presidential debates are unlikely to help a campaign, but they can hurt it if the running mate fails to shield the top of the ticket.
Politico noted, “While it’ll be their first time taking the stage together, both Vance and Walz have already taken swings at their opponents.
Walz was first launched into internet virality — even before Harris picked him to be her running mate — for calling Trump and Vance, and Republicans in general, ‘weird’ during an interview on MSNBC in July. The insult took off and became a line of attack for Democrats, to which Trump responded ‘they’re the weird ones,’ and ‘I’m a lot of things, but weird I’m not.’
Vance, on the other hand, has gone after his counterpart’s military history, prompting a barrage of Republican attacks after he accused Walz of ‘stolen valor’ over the timing of his retirement from the military. Walz has defended his military record, saying it ‘speaks for itself.’”
The two midwesterners will meet on Tuesday, October 1, at CBS Studios in New York.
