Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine rallied with supporters in predominantly Latino Maryvale on Thursday, lashing out against Donald Trump and some of Arizona’s most influential Republicans.
It was a standard campaign speech filled with familiar talking points. But as the only bilingual person on a 2016 presidential ticket, Kaine spoke entirely in Spanish.
The Virginia senator told the crowd there will be a place for everyone in United States, if Hillary Clinton becomes president, and reiterated her promise to send Congress immigration reform within her first 100 days in office.
“That includes a path a to citizenship,” Kaine said.
Someone in the crowd yelled that her opponent, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, is a clown, and Kaine repeated it in agreement.
He also blasted former Arizona governor Jan Brewer for questioning whether Latinos will vote. And in keeping with a precedent set by his running mate, twice mispronounced the last name of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. When someone shouted Arpaio should go to jail;
“In his (own) jail,” Kaine responded.
Kaine praised Arizona for leading the country in early voting by Latinos, and ended the roughly 30-minute speech by giving the address of the closest poll for casting early ballots.
The Washington Post has reported that the Virginia senator's ability to speak Spanish is one reason why he edged out two cabinet-level Latinos to become Hillary Clinton’s running mate. He developed the language skill as a Catholic missionary in Honduras.
But a Univision Noticias poll showed that being bilingual is not necessarily key to winning the Latino vote. Roughly 70 percent of Latinos interviewed for the poll said they would not be influenced by whether a candidate can speak fluent Spanish.
