Sen. Kaine calls Beach middle school, takes questions on vice presidency, Obama and compromise with Republicans
The eighth-graders waited for the call with their laptops open and index cards ready.
Their teacher looked at the clock. The school’s technology specialist tried dialing the special guest he had lined up for the students. No answer.
Then, at 12:45 p.m., a few minutes after he was scheduled to appear, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine appeared on the big screen in the Lynnhaven Middle School classroom. The senator had an excuse for being tardy.
“I was racing from a vote on the Senate floor,” he explained, smiling at the students.
Kaine spent the next half-hour discussing his job and answering questions that ranged from his committee assignments to his relationship with President BarackObama to his vote for 2016.
“How did you become a Democrat?” student Eric Michals asked.
“I became a Democrat as soon as I realized my parents were Republicans,” Kaine joked, drawing laughter from the adults in the room.
Bryan Dulmage, the school technology specialist, has also arranged Skype appearances this year at Lynnhaven Middle by U.S. Rep. Scott Rigell and state Senator Bill DeSteph, both Republicans from Virginia Beach.
Marion Broglie’s eighth-graders had spent the past few days researching to prepare for Kaine’s visit.
Student Trinity Martin asked the senator who had the biggest influence on his political career. Kaine said Linwood Holton, his his father-in-law and the former Republican governor of Virginia, inspired him to enter politics.
Other questions touched on how compromise between Democrats and Republicans works, foreign policy, gun control and the Syrian refugee crisis.
The last prepared student question came from Michael Hatcher:
“If you were selected as the vice presidential candidate, would you accept it?”
“Well that’s really getting right to it,” Kaine replied.
The senator said it was more important to focus on who the next president will be.
“If you’re not running for president, you don’t get a vote on who the vice president is,” Kaine said.
Kaine said over his political career he has worked with Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley and senators Bernie Sanders, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz.
“I will say this: I’m working very hard to support Secretary Clinton to be president,” Kaine said.
He said he believed it was time to see a woman in a position of power and believed she is the best candidate.
Kaine also talked about meeting Obama when he was a senator. He recalled the future president discussing where his parents were born one day — his dad from Kenya, his mom from Kansas.
“I asked him where his mother was from in Kansas,” Kaine said. “And he said, ‘El Dorado,’ and I said, ‘That’s where my mother is from.’ Our mothers and grandparents are from the same little farm town near Wichita. That established a friendship.”
At the end of the 30-minute session, Kaine told the students that middle schoolers are his favorite audience because they are enthusiastic and can ask intelligent questions.
