Democrats with 2020 ambitions finagle the committee assignments that boosted Clinton and Kaine [View all]

[DonViejo]

(emphasis exists in the original article)

By James Hohmann December 16 at 8:09 AM

THE BIG IDEA: Hillary Clinton joined the Senate Armed Services Committee after the Sept. 11 attacks, a central element of the strategy to re-brand herself as a tough-as-nails American version of Margaret Thatcher after eight years as first lady. She often mentioned her work on this committee in 2008 and still brought it up in 2016, after four years as secretary of state. The relationships she forged while on the panel, touring bases around the world, prompted a lot of retired brass and advocates for veterans to support her who might not have otherwise.

Tim Kaine was the first statewide elected official outside of Illinois to endorse Barack Obama when he launched his long-shot 2008 campaign, and his loyalty got the then-Virginia governor on the short-list for vice president. But Obama, himself a first-term senator, passed Kaine over for Joe Biden because he lacked foreign policy experience. This is why, after he got elected to the Senate in 2012, the freshman sought out spots on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. By 2016, no one questioned his bona fides.

Clinton considered both Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren as potential running mates this summer, but a big knock on both was their lack of foreign policy experience. This calculus seems quaint now, but Clinton World feared that going with either of them might undercut one of their candidate’s best contrasts against Donald Trump. Recall that on the eve of one of Clinton’s sit-downs with Warren, basically a job interview to be vice president, Clinton ally and former DNC chair Ed Rendell told a Philadelphia radio station: “I think Elizabeth Warren is a wonderful, bright, passionate person, but with no experience in foreign affairs and not in any way, shape or form ready to be commander-in-chief.”

Booker and Warren very clearly want to seek the presidency for themselves in 2020. Neither wants to be anyone else’s second fiddle. And both recognize the need for some kind of experience in this arena. This week they took big steps to shore up their shared liability: Warren joined Armed Services, and Booker gave up his seat on the Homeland Security Committee to jump over to Foreign Relations.

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