As he hopscotches from state to state, Mr. Kaine comes across more as a genial traveling salesman for the Clinton-Kaine ticket than as a president in waiting. In his speeches, he tends to focus on making a case against Donald J. Trump while talking up Mrs. Clinton.
At times, he still expresses shock that he is even on the Democratic ticket, as if he had been plucked from anonymity to embark upon a great adventure.
“I felt like I was Pinocchio turning into a real boy,” he told a crowd in Virginia on Friday, recalling when Mrs. Clinton asked him to be her running mate. “I mean, like, ‘Wow, what? You want me? Are you kidding?’”
The biggest test of Mr. Kaine’s readiness will come on Oct. 4, when he faces Mr. Trump’s running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, in the vice-presidential debate.
“You don’t want a Sarah Palin situation where voters really have doubts about the second person on the ticket,” said Julian E. Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton. “It’s especially true if there are any kinds of concerns about age or health.”
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