One way to pick a vice president

There is a good article by David Marcus over at the Federalist called, "Hillary Chose Tim Kaine To Keep Bill Happy". There are multiple reasons to select a running mate, but keeping your husband happy is a new one.

In all seriousness, I have to give Hillary some credit for learning from her husband's mistake:

Clinton might have chosen Kaine because his selection is less about next November and more about next January. In 1993, when Bill Clinton took office he gave Hillary responsibility, among other things, for reforming health care. No first lady before or since has ever played as important a role in White House politics. This was the cause of no little tension with then-Vice President Al Gore. 

In her book “For Love and Politics –Bill and Hillary Clinton: The White House Years,” Sally Bedell Smith paints a complicated picture of this unstable triumvirate:

Gore was the one most affected by Bill’s reliance on his wife. It was a given in the White House, as Chief of Staff Mack McLarty said, that everyone would ‘just have to get used to’ the fact that Hillary, along with Bill and Gore, had to ‘sign off on big decisions.’ But having what Clinton domestic-policy adviser Bruce Reed called ‘three forces to be reckoned with’ added yet another layer of perplexity and rivalry to the West Wing, where advisers and Cabinet officers knew they could lobby either the First Lady or the vice president to reverse decisions by the president. David Gergen, counselor to the president in 1993 and 1994, called the ‘three-headed system’ a ‘rolling disaster.’

I don't agree with Hillary's politics or ethics, but I will admit she is smart.