Virginia Senator Tim Kaine is at the top of virtually everyone's speculative list of possible running mates for Democratic, presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Kaine's profile is an impressive one. He's been a mayor, governor, senator and chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Add this to his foreign policy chops and Virginia's status as one of the largest and most crucial swing states in the 2016 election and you have seemingly little to criticize the idea of Kaine as VP.
However, Kaine has a shortcoming that many Democrats may find awkward to acknowledge openly. There's nothing historical or particularly exciting about the prospect of his candidacy for Vice President.
At 58-years-old, Kaine isn't particularly youthful, nor does he come from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. He is an older, white-male member of the Democratic establishment.
The Democratic Party is in the midst of an election cycle which is shaping up to be a final determination that it is in fact the party of minorities and women in the US.
Is it feasible that in the midst of an attempt to elect the first woman president, immediately after the first Black president the Democratic Party will have the number two spot on their ticket occupied by a conventional, white-male politician?
The answer. Of course it is. After all, 73-year-old former Senator Joe Biden can be described exactly the same way.
However, this is 2016, not 2008. The political climate surrounding Clinton's choice is completely different than that of her Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.
In Donald Trump, Clinton faces a Republican candidate who is historically unpopular with minorities and women. The United States now faces raging battles over issues which greatly effect minorities in immigration and police brutality. The Democratic Party and the United States as a whole seem to call for a more daring choice than the selection of the vanilla, albeit eminently qualified Tim Kaine.
So why consider anything other than qualification in a potential vice president? Isn't that the most important factor after all?
Logically speaking, probably. Politically speaking, in 2016, probably not.
Simply put, Kaine is the ultimate conventional pick in the most unconventional presidential election in generations.
He's a safe, defensive choice, not an exciting one and it's unclear if Clinton should be playing a preventative defense at this point. As it stands, the election is fairly close with both Trump and Clinton being historically unpopular with voters.
Clinton has no shortage of options if she decides on a more exciting nominee that would compliment the historical nature of her candidacy.
African American Senator Cory Booker, female Senator Elizabeth Warren in addition to Latino-American, Obama administration cabinet secretaries Tom Perez and Julian Castro are said to be contenders for a position on Clinton's ticket.
None of these picks have as much state and federal level governing experience as Kaine, but all of them are generally thought of as more progressive and exciting, due in part to the historic possibilities of their potential placement on a national ticket.
In the end, Clinton's selection will reveal just how much she is willing to confront the unconventional nature of the 2016 campaign and the changing demographics of her party's base and the country as a whole.
The topic of race and gender being factors in politics is an awkward one for many, but it is too undeniable to ignore at this point. Surely, these factors will play a role in Kaine's fate as a Clinton VP contender.