After the dust settles from the marvelous speech Vice-Presidential nominee Tim Kaine gave in his introduction as Hillary Clinton’s running mate, I think we’ll find out the biggest reason why he was chosen: money.
The day of the selection, Sen. Kaine was in Rhode Island fund-raising at a yacht club. That’s right, a yacht club. There was an interesting article that rung a bell that led to be believe what was a major reason of why he was chosen as the number 2. It’s not the only reason, mind you, but I think it is a pretty big one.
There is an interesting article that I perused about a month ago concerning where Wall Street stood on this election. It was summarized in one paragraph:
"If Clinton picked Warren, her whole base on Wall Street would leave her," one top Democratic donor who has helped raise millions for Clinton told me. "They would literally just say, 'We have no qualms with you moving left, we understand all the things you've had to do because of Bernie Sanders, but if you are going there with Warren, we just can't trust you, you've killed it.'"
“Wall Street cash or Elizabeth Warren: Hillary's choice" Ben White, cnbc.com June 23, 2016
I know that he speaks fluent Spanish and that probably factored into the calculus, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about this article. If she doesn't have that money, can she really risk the possibility of trying the get only small dollar donations if she picks Warren. She would have to get Bernie Sander’s type numbers for the next four months if she were to do that. Considering how many Bernie supporters trashed Warren after she endorsed Hillary, she was probably thinking that it wasn’t going to be enough. To be honest, she might be right.
If Elizabeth Warren ended up being the pick (or perhaps someone like Sherrod Brown) they would give their money to Donald or do what Carl Icahn is doing instead of spending on Hillary and wait for the inevitable crash. She would lose and they would just wait to make their cash when the misery hits us.
However, Wall Street is not that crazy about Trump. As Mark Cuban put it, if Trump wins…
"I can say with 100% certainty that there is a really good chance we could see a huge, huge correction,"
from money.cnn.com/...
In that same interview, he stated that Carl Icahn, Trump’s friend and advisor is taking a “short” position.
Short selling (or "selling short") is a technique used by people who try to profit from the falling price of a stock
In other words, if the market has a correction like the one described above he makes money. I wonder if Donald is doing the same thing (or perhaps his kids).
The strategy became clear when Trump officially accepted the nomination Friday night. Trump’s acceptance speech finally put Tim Kaine over the top. With all of the isolationist talk from that wrenchingly odious, narcissistic, pandering, fear-mongering, divisive speech that threw Hispanics and African-Americans under the bus everywhere it could, she knew that there was no way he was going to get the money he needed to really bury her in advertising...unless she picked Warren. She knew that picking Kaine would give her that edge, perhaps by a long margin.
And Trump will need it and soon. It’s already getting bad, money-wise, for him. His super pacs, which he refused to use until he realized that he didn’t have the money to complete the campaign without actually using more of his own, are falling terribly short of their own fundraising goals.
A third group, Make America Number One, run by the head of the conservative group Citizens United, David Bosse, has raised on $97 in the past month and spent less than $200,000. It has substantially more cash on hand, however because of carryover from a super PAC that previously backed Sen. Ted Cruz's candidacy.
Receipts: $97 Disbursements: $182,810 Cash on Hand: $1,144,922“Pro-Trump Super PACs have Dismal Fundraising Reports” by Leigh Ann Caldwell nbcnews.com, July 22, 2016
That is not a typo. Their receipts last month were only $97. Donald Trump’s own campaign fortunes are not demonstrably better.
It’s so ironic. The Republicans rejoiced over the Citizens United ruling, releasing the spigot on corporate donations to campaigns. Now, it’s coming back to bite them in the ass. The irony is even more palpable knowing that the entire case was based on the right to publicly show a movie called “Hillary: The Movie” trashing the current Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 2008. Now, she and her super pacs could collect a bucket of largess that will make Barack Obama’s haul in 2008 look paltry by comparison and put it to use everywhere, even down the ballot. This fight is now not just against Trump. She is looking to bury the entire Republican Party with what she is going to get from corporations, mostly because they are scared to death that Donald Trump will get elected.
This is not to say that Hillary is not going to do a lot of what she says. To me, the gathering of money is preparation for payback of over 20 years of bovine scatology the right has flung at her. Remember, she championed a much more liberal version of universal health care than Obamacare back in 1992. She is a person who truly believes that our children deserve more and better in the years ahead. That’s liberal orthodoxy step 1. What better revenge for her than to make it work?
Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it?
This was a Machiavellian play. One that I am not overjoyed about, but in this case the ends might justify the means. We need to keep Trump out of the White House at all costs. I agree with what his ghost-writer for his magnum opus “The Art of the Deal” said, that we will all end up dead if he makes it there.
And it won’t take long.