Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine said a “major reason” why former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election is because of the “misogyny and double standard applied to the first woman nominee.”
Kaine was chosen as Clinton’s running mate for the 2016 election. The Virginia senator appeared on Friday afternoon’s “Bill Hemmer Reports” to discuss presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s choice of California Sen. Kamala Harris for the vice presidential slot. During the discussion, Kaine reflected back on his own experience running with the first female major party presidential nominee.
“The worst thing about the campaign was being on a ticket and seeing the misogyny and double standard applied to the first woman nominee. The ‘lock her up’ chants or doubles standards that are applied, and I see some of that now starting up with Kamala Harris too with the president raising a question over whether she’s a U.S. citizen because her parents were immigrants,” Kaine told anchor Bill Hemmer.
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Citing statistics for women in Congress and comparing them to other countries, the Virginia senator contended that while the U.S. is “good at an awful lot of things about women,” the country has “a bad track record of electing women to higher office.”
“Come back to that comment about Hillary Clinton,” Hemmer said between some technical difficulties. “Are you saying that’s why she lost?”
“That is a major reason, yeah, I’m absolutely sure of it,” Kaine insisted. “I don’t think you would see people chanting ‘lock her up’ had she been a man.”
Kaine referred to “outrageous slurs” and “double standards” directed at Clinton.
“You don’t think it may be that Hillary Clinton was not the candidate that America wanted at that time?” Hemmer pressed. (RELATED: ‘White Men’s Electability Advantage Is A Myth,’ Study Finds)
“I didn’t say that there was only one reason for the outcome, but I do know this,” he responded. “There were very definitely misogyny and double standards directed towards Hillary, and that’s what it’s going to take to have the first woman vice president or president is to kind of get over the hurdle that many other nations have been over but we haven’t yet.”