But Mr. Pence struggled to press the attack: In separate news conferences, House and Senate Republican leaders declined to join Mr. Pence, the Indiana governor and vice-presidential nominee, in rebuking Mrs. Clinton over her remark.
.. Mr. Lee pressed the governor on his reluctance to denounce Mr. Duke and the so-called alt-right movement more explicitly, stressing “that Republicans must identify David Duke’s racism as deplorable,” according to Conn Carroll, a spokesman for Mr. Lee.
.. Mr. McCain said Mr. Trump’s embrace of the autocratic ruler was unacceptable, according to a Republican official present who also insisted on anonymity.
Mr. Pence insisted that he and Mr. Trump were trying to belittle President Obama rather than to laud Mr. Putin.
.. Mr. Pence said Mr. Trump behaved differently in private, and even had a spiritual side.
.. Congressional Republicans said they were pleased that the presidential race was tightening and that Mr. Trump appeared more viable, partly because their own prospects depend on his being competitive enough that Republicans still bother to vote.
.. Republicans on Capitol Hill have their own agenda and intend to run their campaigns apart from Mr. Trump — not as a unified ticket.
.. “The country would probably be more pleased with the vice-presidential candidates than the two candidates at the top,” Mr. Curbelo said with a grin.
5 takeaways on Tim Kaine
Pence projects the oh-gosh steadiness of a high school principal who picks up a stray candy wrapper while he is asking about your kids; Kaine is the guy who spent a year in Honduras teaching school to poor kids and another six coaching lawyers on ethics at the University of Richmond Law School. As mayor of Virginia’s capital, and later in the statehouse, he earned a clean-hands reputation — and you will not find any one of his Senate colleagues on either side of the aisle evince a single nasty thing about him.]
.. People close to Clinton were telling me as early as February that there really wasn’t anyone else on their short list. The main reason Clinton chose Kaine is so simple as to be unbelievable: She thinks he could serve as president if she can’t, and didn’t think anyone else she talked to fit that criterion. “She’s been in the White House, and knows the kind of person who can really do the job. … He gives off president vibes. And that’s all that mattered to Hillary,”
.. Pence’s pick was, in part, intended to minimize the damage Ted Cruz’s public rejection of Trump would inflict on the nominee’s standing among conservative freedom-and-values voters. Kaine, the scion of the Scots-Irish, is as well positioned to appeal to the party’s African-American and Hispanic base as any white politician.
.. Kaine is from purple-blue Virginia, which borders purple-red North Carolina, and his announcement will take place in who-the-hell-knows-what-they-are-Florida. If Clinton wins these three states, Trump goes back to selling steaks.
Hillary’s anti-Trump
His independence has also been called into question by some, including for his relationship with defense giant Northrop Grumman, where he chairs an international advisory board.
.. But throughout his career, Stavridis built a reputation as a leading strategic thinker — not unlike his Army counterpart, General David Petraeus.
.. In many ways, Stavridis, who remains one of the most prolific writers to come out of the military and is frequently published in foreign policy magazines and blogs, is the anti-Trump.
.. In an interview last October, he directly refuted Trump’s assertion that 9/11 — when Stavridis himself narrowly avoided the attack on the Pentagon — was a failure of immigration policy since the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals.
“9/11 was not a failure of immigration policy, 9/11 was a failure of intelligence & imagination,” Stavridis told Fox News Radio. “We couldn’t imagine our way to what happened. We didn’t have the appropriate means of collecting intelligence. I don’t think immigration would have solved that.”
Insiders: Hillary should pick Tim Kaine for VP
One New Hampshire Democrat — who, like all respondents, completed the survey anonymously — said Kaine “reinforces [Clinton’s] theme of competence running against an unprepared reckless opponent.”
.. And the Pence/Kaine exchange on Medicaid expansion and Obamacare will be priceless.”
.. Like Trump, she needs someone low key,” added an Iowa Democrat. “In her case, however, it’s because she just isn’t very exciting or a good campaigner and wouldn’t want a VP choice to steal the spotlight. Kaine fills that bill.
.. Iowa is the closest of the toss-ups right now, and choosing a beloved native son would be a significant blow to Trump’s efforts here.”
.. “Pence is as restrained, conventional, and palatable as his haircut,” added an Ohio Republican, who called the Indiana governor a “good counterweight to Trump’s undisciplined, unpredictable, and odd political coiffure.”
.. “Truthfully, this gets Pence out of a losing situation, so the [Republican Governors Association] is the biggest beneficiary,” the insider said.