Tim Kaine Quotes

#1. Authenticity is key.

Tim Kaine

#2. I reported everything I was given, even if I didn't keep - I did not keep the vast majority of it.

Tim Kaine

#3. I want to make sure that Hillary Clinton is the next president of the United States because we need Secretary Clinton's focus on making sure that we build an America where our values of inclusion and opportunity for everyone are the values that bring us together.

Tim Kaine

#4. Anne and I have now been married almost 32 years, and I am the luckiest husband in the world.

Tim Kaine

#5. Gay individuals should be able to adopt.

Tim Kaine

#6. I am a governor who left office with a smaller general fund budget than when we started.

Tim Kaine

#7. My faith teaches that life is sacred. That's why I personally oppose the death penalty. But I take my oath of office seriously, and I'll enforce the death penalty ... because it's the law.

Tim Kaine

#8. The American economy has always been the innovator in the world, and we're starting to see some tremendous increases in innovation, especially in the clean energy sector.

Tim Kaine

#9. But people ought to be proud to be Democrats right now. You know, we're a happy warrior party. And this Congress has every reason to be very, very proud of the heavy lifting that they have done.

Tim Kaine

#10. I went to a Jesuit boys high school, Rockhurst High School.

Tim Kaine

#11. If you ask people, 'What do you think, should we kick kids off their family insurance policy in that 21- to 26-year-old age range?' You go through those ... provisions that are already affecting the everyday lives of Americans, and people don't want to get rid of them.

Tim Kaine

#12. I think the reason that drones have become so controversial is because they're used in Pakistan; they're used in Yemen; they've been used in all kinds of places.

Tim Kaine

#13. My sense is, as governor I've gotten a lot of stuff done.

Tim Kaine

#14. If we are going to be serious about enforcing the law, we have to have a background record check system to make sure that people don't get weapons who shouldn't.

Tim Kaine

#15. I'm not going to give a courtesy gift to a person who's going to win, and I'm not going to give a sympathy gift to a person who's going to lose.

Tim Kaine

#16. If faith is your motivation, share that.

Tim Kaine

#17. You see Democrats who will demonize business. I don't do that. You see Republicans who demonize labor. I don't do that.

Tim Kaine

#18. I would say, people use labels all the time, but I'm kind of a traditional Catholic: Personally, I'm opposed to abortion, and personally, I'm opposed to the death penalty.

Tim Kaine

#19. My sense is that economic anxiety means electoral volatility.

Tim Kaine

#20. The best way to deal with the deficit is through economic growth.

Tim Kaine

#21. We had a motto in my school: 'Men for Others.' And it was there that my faith became something vital. My north star for orienting my life. And when I left high school, I knew that I wanted to battle for social justice.

Tim Kaine

#22. No couples in Virginia can adopt other than a married couple - that's the right policy.

Tim Kaine

#23. Whatever your religious tradition is, if it's important to you and you don't feel comfortable talking about it, you end up coming across as insincere.

Tim Kaine

#24. As soon as something really bad happens, I guarantee you Congress will act. I absolutely guarantee you Congress will act. But the question is, should we wait for that?

Tim Kaine

#25. As much as the constitutional argument matters to me, what really matters to me is this sort of moral question of can we order somebody to risk their lives about a military mission if we're not willing to debate, vote, and say that the military mission matters?

Tim Kaine

#26. You have got to connect your land use decisions with transportation decisions.

Tim Kaine

#27. Let me let you in on a secret. I do plan to be on the podium with President Clinton when she's inaugurated in January 2017 - but I'm going to be sitting with the senators.

Tim Kaine

#28. I say we are climbing out of a ditch and we are climbing up.

Tim Kaine

#29. The research clearly demonstrates high-quality early childhood opportunities help children succeed.

Tim Kaine

#30. Virginians want you to work across the aisle.

Tim Kaine

#31. When people are left out, we're naturally going to focus on that, if it's 47 million people who don't have health insurance, if it's 23,000 people who die every year because they lack access to health care for something that's easily treatable.

Tim Kaine

#32. I just want to serve people. I know it sounds like a simple cliche.

Tim Kaine

#33. When I talk to people outside the beltway, I don't think people are that divided.

Tim Kaine

#34. It seemed to me to be entirely un-kosher, if that's a word, to try to put a debate about war right in front of the midterm to try to affect the midterm outcomes.

Tim Kaine

#35. I'm not going to be anybody's punching bag.

Tim Kaine

#36. You're not going to have a 1.000 batting average, but the way you get votes is, you just push and you push. I'm not afraid to do that.

Tim Kaine

#37. I was the legal counsel in the effort to amend the Virginia Constitution to give Virginians the right to hunt and fish constitutionally, and we are one of the few states in the country to protect that right.

Tim Kaine

#38. I would be open to a proposal that would have some minimum tax level for everyone.

Tim Kaine

#39. We spend at least $5 for remedial education right now for every dollar we put in early childhood education. All the studies on early childhood education show this is going to pay for itself.

Tim Kaine

#40. One of the things we wrestle with nationally is, 'If we want the economy to be strong, what should we do?' Why not learn some lessons from Virginia?

Tim Kaine

#41. The key is grow your talent, attract talent, and then you'll attract the institutions that want to be around talent - and that, to me, is what we need to do at the national level.

Tim Kaine

#42. I was the governor that drew a tough, tough straw. I was governor during the worst recession since the 1930s, and I had to cut $5 billion from the state budget.

Tim Kaine

#43. People will pay a price for putting political obstruction over progress in a time that is so critical and urgent.

Tim Kaine

#44. A drone isn't any different than a bomb; it's not any different than other weapons that are used, where there is always a capacity for people to be killed who you wished were not. It's just the weapons platform.

Tim Kaine

#45. I will say, nothing in my time in the Senate has more surprised me than senators and House members want to weigh in on everything under the sun, but they do not want to weigh in on a clearly defined constitutional duty to declare war. It just stuns me.

Tim Kaine

#46. Race to race, the Republicans are putting up candidates that are quite far out of the mainstream in terms of should we have passed the Civil Rights Act or does Social Security need to exist.

Tim Kaine

#47. The key was disclosure, and nobody has ever raised a concern that anybody who contributed, whether a campaign contributor or a gift giver, ever got anything for it.

Tim Kaine

#48. Midterm elections for first-term presidents are notoriously difficult.

Tim Kaine

#49. Over 17 years, I took on banks, landlords, real estate firms, local governments, anybody who treated anybody unfairly.

Tim Kaine

#50. What 'listo' means in Spanish is this: it means prepared, it means battle-tested, it means rock solid, up for anything, never backing down. And, friends, Hillary Clinton, she is listo!

Tim Kaine

#51. I think if you run away from who you are, that you're a Democrat and you're proud to be a Democrat, it's foolish. And the reason it's foolish is you've got a lot to be proud of.

Tim Kaine

#52. The current situation in Iraq is ultimately a crisis of governance, which has allowed extremist groups to take advantage of disillusioned segments of the Iraqi population.

Tim Kaine

#53. I think life is sacred, whether it's abortion or the death penalty.

Tim Kaine

#54. If you want a senator who'll partner with the president to do what's best for the nation, I'm your guy.

Tim Kaine

#55. You don't ask people to sacrifice their lives until the nation has debated and committed to the mission. It's immoral.

Tim Kaine

#56. We are all neighbors. And we must love neighbors as ourselves.

Tim Kaine

#57. There is clearly a Christian New Testament tradition that warns against praying loudly in the front of the temple where everyone can see you.

Tim Kaine

#58. Now Hillary Clinton and I are 'companeros de alma.' And we share this basic belief: it's simple. Do all the good you can and serve one another. Pretty simple.

Tim Kaine

#59. When you want to know something about the character of somebody in public life, look to see if they have a passion that began long before they were in office and that they have consistently held it throughout their career.

Tim Kaine

#60. I was a hard-times governor. I had to steer my state through the deepest recession since the 1930s. But hey, tough times don't last and tough people do. And can I tell you that Virginians are tough people? We are tough people.

Tim Kaine

#61. The framers understood that the president, as the head of our armed forces, must defend the nation from imminent threat. But when the mission shifts from defense to offense, congressional approval is essential.

Tim Kaine

#62. I work on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees to keep us safe at home and strong in the world.

Tim Kaine