Tim Kaine, a wasted opportunity

By picking Tim Kaine for Vice-President, Hillary Clinton made an unforced error that will cost her millions of votes and very possibly the election - nay, very likely the election. Clinton might as well have picked a right-wing hack like Paul Vallas or Zell Miller.

Kaine is the man who the New York Times said would "do battle with the progressive wing of the party." But this is an understatement. A vote for Clinton/Kaine is a vote for unconstitutional "right-to-work" laws: In 2006, Kaine declared, "The Secretary of the Commonwealth has no - I repeat, no - role in the enforcement of Virginia's right-to-work law, a law I strongly support."

Even after BP's oil spill, Kaine was a signatory to a Tea Party-penned letter that urged expansion of offshore oil drilling in the Atlantic. This despite the fact that he represents Virginia, a state on the Atlantic coast. And he attacked other Democrats in 2011 for daring to propose higher taxes on the rich.

Kaine was even incompetent as head of the Democratic National Committee, for he ditched Howard Dean's 50-state strategy that fueled the party's smashing comeback of the late 2000s. Plus, several news sites reported last month that Kaine accepted $160,000 in gifts while serving as governor or lieutenant governor. Why was Kaine picked for Vice-President even after this scandal broke?

Oh, and there's gonna be more where this came from to expose Kaine's right-wing extremism. Just you watch.

If Hillary Clinton manages to win the election after all this - and make no mistake, her poll numbers will nosedive because of this - I hope she lives a damn long time. For Tim Kaine to be a heartbeat away from the presidency is much too close. Nobody has credibly explained any logic in selecting Kaine as a running mate.

And this is why I'm voting for Jill Stein.