Tim Kaine’s makeover

By J.S. | RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

TWO months into his candidacy for vice president and with less than two months remaining until election day, Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton's running mate, remains unknown to nearly one in five voters. A poll this month by CNN/ORC International showed that 19% of voters had never heard of him. But perhaps this should not come as a surprise in 2016.

The major party nominees for president—Mrs Clinton and Donald Trump—are dominating media coverage of the campaigns and absorbing voters' attention to an unusual degree in this election. Indeed, Mr Kaine and his opponent, Mike Pence, the governor of Indiana, seem bit players in the drama, drawing the spotlight only during their nominations in the summer. Their next chance at centre stage—and their only face-off—will come at the vice-presidential debate on October 4th. That will take place at Longwood University, a small taxpayer-supported school in Virginia, the state that elected Mr Kaine governor in 2005 and sent him to the Senate in 2012.

Mr Kaine has not been entirely overlooked, however. In particular, he has attracted closer scrutiny as he has changed his views to accommodate those of Mrs Clinton. This includes such volatile issues as offshore drilling for oil and gas and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the giant trade deal sought by Barack Obama, who considered Mr Kaine for the vice presidency in 2008 before picking Joe Biden because of his experience in military matters and diplomacy.

Take offshore drilling: Mr Kaine—like Mrs. Clinton—is against it. That wasn’t always the case. Standing for governor 11 years ago, Mr. Kaine supported exploration along Virginia's Atlantic coast for gas but not oil. When he arrived in the Senate, he joined his fellow Virginia Democrat, Mark Warner, in sponsoring legislation that not only allowed drilling but ensured that the states would get a share of revenue from it. He now cites the Navy's worries that drilling would imperil military operations in the coastal waters of his home state and others. Mr Kaine revealed his reversal during an appearance in New Hampshire in mid-August, when voters typically are focused on their summer holidays.

On the Pacific trade agreement, Mr Kaine's evolution has been a little more nuanced. Representing a state with a strong tradition of global trade, he spoke somewhat favourably of the proposal and joined 12 other Senate Democrats in supporting fast-track consideration sought by Mr Obama. That was before he was chosen by Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Kaine now opposes TPP. His stance is widely viewed as a sop to Mrs Clinton and her opponent for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders. Mrs Clinton favoured TPP when she was Mr Obama's secretary of state but changed her mind, complaining that it did not include safeguards against currency manipulation and patent protections for drug makers. Mr Kaine's migration on TPP is based on similarly arcane details: it provides redress for manufacturers over allegedly troublesome trade practices but not for the labourers who produce the goods.

Such reversals were calculated to endear Clinton-Kaine to Democratic doubters, many of whom stand to the left of the ticket and whom Mr Sanders in recent days has implored to stick with the party, rather than wasting their votes on third-party candidates, or worse, Mr Trump.

The new Kaine retains the loyalty of old friends, meanwhile. The vice-presidential candidate has little difficulty with a voter bloc with which he has done well since breaking into politics in Richmond in 1994: African-Americans, who supplied the slender majority—fewer than 100 votes—that lifted him to his first office, city council.

In early August, Mr Kaine, who attends a majority-black Roman Catholic church and jokes that he might have become a Jesuit priest were it not for the celibacy requirement, addressed an organisation of African-American ministers in New Orleans. He frequently invokes scripture, triggering the call and response one typically hears during worship in a black church. But instead, Mr Kaine made the case that social inequality can be eliminated through liberal polices, such as raising the minimum wage, stricter gun control and universal pre-school.

It is the traditional role of a vice-presidential running mate—that of attack dog—to which Mr Kaine has most easily adjusted. He accompanies his bites at Mr Trump's record with an easy smile that testifies to his capacity—refined during his struggles as governor with a mulish Republican legislature—to be simultaneously calculating and cheerful.

American voters got their first glimpse of this at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, where Mr Kaine not only mocked Mr Trump's checkered history in business and inconsistency on such issues as the Iraq war, but did so while imitating—badly—the Republican's blustery, sing-songy New York patois. It greatly impressed John Oliver, the British satirist who lampoons candidates on American cable television. To Mr Oliver, Mr Kaine is a welcome alternative to staged and scripted politics: a "tall glass of Lactaid," a substitute for people intolerant of dairy products.

During Mrs. Clinton's bout of pneumonia, initially concealed from the press and public, Mr. Kaine—ever the happy warrior—chided Mr Trump for failing to be more forthcoming about his medical history. Mr Kaine also berated the Republican for continuing to question whether Mr Obama was born in America and for inciting violence against Mrs Clinton.

This is all part of Mr Kaine’s political makeover, but he wears it comfortably, much like the new hair style that has tamed his wiry, grey tresses and the British-style, spread-collar shirts that make him look, well, vice-presidential.