In VP pick, Clinton chooses a ‘happy warrior’ | McClatchy Washington Bureau

He took a year off to work as a Roman Catholic missionary in Honduras, where he ran a program teaching carpentry and welding, and he learned to speak Spanish. While campaigning with Clinton last week at a rally in Annandale, Virginia, Kaine declared: “Estamos listos para Hillary!” or “We are ready for Hillary!”

In 1994, he won a seat on the Richmond City Council, and he was elected mayor by majority-black members of the council four years later. He later served as lieutenant governor and then governor – convincing voters that his personal opposition to the death penalty and abortion would not mean he would not support the laws. He left office in 2010 after his term ended – Virginia allows only one term – with a healthy approval rating.

In Richmond, the capital, poor relations with Republican legislators largely prevented Kaine from succeeding in much of his ambitious agenda to tackle some of the state’s most difficult problems, including pumping more money into education and improving the notoriously clogged roads. He generally told lawmakers about the reasoning behind his proposals in hopes they would back him, but he did not usually negotiate or socialize with them. Sometimes he failed to inform them at all.

“Higher taxes? Check. Lower integrity? Check. @TimKaine is Clinton, Inc. material!” the Republican Party of Virginia tweeted late Friday.

Still, he left office with some unexpected achievements: passing a ban on smoking in many bars and restaurants, setting aside millions to clean up the Chesapeake Bay and preserving 400,000 acres of open space. He helped Democrats win unprecedented victories, including turning Virginia blue in a presidential election for the first time in more than four decades.

He is still remembered for his leadership after the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech, which led to statewide mental health revisions and won him praise from members of both parties.

Virginia’s Republican legislative leaders – the same ones who fought when he was governor — took swipes at Clinton in their statements Friday, but had nothing but praise for Kaine.

“Senator Tim Kaine is an honorable public servant,” House Speaker Bill Howell said. “Even though we disagree on policy and principle, I respect him. His character makes it all the more surprising that he would sign up to defend Hillary Clinton for the next three and a half months.”

“Senator Kaine is a dedicated and honorable public servant who has served our commonwealth for more than two decades,” said Senate Majority Leader Tommy Nornment.

In 2012, he defeated Republican George Allen for the Senate, where he’s made a name for himself arguing that there’s no legal authority for the current U.S. mission in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State. He was the first senator to deliver a speech in Spanish from the floor of the Senate, when pushing for a rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws.

With a year left in Kaine’s term, Obama tapped him to be the national Democratic Party chairman, a role that didn’t seem to fit a man who is less attack dog and more sunny optimist. But he took on the role as a “happy warrior,” delivering the attack lines needed as party chair — and vice president – with a smile.

He was hammered for his frequent political travel out of the state, and initially resisted releasing his travel records until the media forced him to do so through public records laws.

Kaine is married to Anne Holton, a former juvenile judge who stepped down when she moved into Virginia’s historic governor’s mansion for a second time, this time with her husband. Her father, Linwood Holton Jr., served as a Republican governor of Virginia when she was a child in the 1970s and helped integrate Richmond public schools by sending his children to all-black schools. Linwood Holton is a familiar face at Kaine’s events. Anne Holton now serves as education secretary to Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close friend to the Clintons.