‘Kansas City kid’ might have been running for president. Instead, he’s written a book

In a not-so-far-fetched alternate reality, Tim Kaine is nearing the completion of his second term as the nation’s vice president.

With the backing of President Hillary Clinton, he is closing in on the Democratic nomination for president in the November 2024 election. There has been no Jan. 6 insurrection. No impeachments, no trials of a former president. The MAGA movement has all but shriveled up and blown away.

The actual reality is that Donald Trump and Mike Pence won in 2016, even though Clinton and Kaine drew 3 million more votes. Kaine, who grew up in the Kansas City area and attended Rockhurst High School and the University of Missouri, returned to work as a U.S. senator from Virginia.

“I wished it had been otherwise,” he said. “But I’ve not thought a lot about how it would have been otherwise.”

Maybe not a lot, but at least a little.

“I have at some point thought, ‘Yeah, man, if we had won,’” he said. “And then I would have thought if we would have won, things would be better in the country and my quality of life would be worse.”

Among other things, he would have had to discontinue his regular trips here to visit his parents and other family members. Kaine also wouldn’t have had time to write the book he will come to town this week to promote.

“Walk, Ride, Paddle: A Life Outside” is a memoir of his 30-month quest to create and complete a Virginia nature triathlon consisting of hiking 559 miles of the Appalachian Trail, biking 321 miles along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains and canoeing the entire 348 miles of the James River.

The book went on sale April 9, and Kaine will appear for it May 25 at the Kansas City Public Library Central Library.

“I just thought to celebrate my 60th birthday and 25th year in public life, I want to create something like this for Virginia,” he said. “Have an epic thing that people can do over the course of their life.”

Kaine completed the challenge on weekends and in Senate recess weeks, taking advantage of his time in nature to commune with his constituency.

“What senators do when not in session (is) travel around the state talking to people,” he said. “Yes, usually in a car and with a tie on, but that’s what you do during your recess week. You travel around the state talking to people. I thought, well, I’m going to do my Senate recess people-powered rather than in a car.”

He describes the book as a “love letter to Virginia.”

Kaine, 66, moved to the Old Dominion State 40 years ago after he married Virginian Anne Holton, whom he had met at Harvard Law School. He has lived there since, raising three children as he served as mayor of Richmond, lieutenant governor of Virginia, governor of Virginia and finally U.S. senator.

Still, he calls himself a “Kansas City kid” and remains a fervent fan of the Chiefs and Royals, a passion he has passed on to his children. Likewise for his love affair with nature, which blossomed while he was in the Boy Scouts and attending Indian Creek Junior High in Overland Park.

Politics have been a more divisive issue in the Kaine clan. His parents still live in Overland Park, about a mile from Kaine’s childhood home.

“They were quintessential Kansas Republicans of the era of Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum, part of the Republican Party that doesn’t seem to exist much anymore,” Kaine said. “They have moved more into independent status, and then my mom more into Democratic.

“When I got elected governor of Virginia as a Democrat, I think that helped my mother move from Republican to independent. But it was Kathleen Sebelius getting elected as a Democrat in Kansas that moved her from independent more to Democratic. So I sometimes give Kathleen a ribbing, ‘Even I couldn’t get my mom to be a Democrat, but when you got elected my mom finally decided to become a Democrat.’”

On the flip side of the Democrat-Republican hometown schism is Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who also graduated from Rockhurst High School, albeit some two decades after Kaine.

Kaine was quick to point out that Rockhurst is one of two high schools to have two current U.S. senators, the other being James Madison High School in Brooklyn with Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders. (James Madison also produced Ruth Bader Ginsburg.)

“Josh and I are on opposite sides on many things, not everything,” Kaine said.

The two senators’ politics rarely mesh, but, like Kaine, Hawley maintains his primary residence in Virginia and is running for reelection this year. They work together when visitors from Kansas City — especially Rockhurst — come to the Capitol.

Hawley merits one mention in Kaine’s book, which includes behind-the-Senate-scenes details of the Jan. 6 attack, as well as other political and societal developments during his 30-month adventure.

“When I started in May of 2019, I didn’t know by the time I finished in October of 2021 I’d be a juror in two impeachment trials, dealing with COVID, the attack on the Capitol,” he said. “All this stuff happened in that 30-month window. So it’s more than just a nature journey, it’s a reflection of life in the country during that time.”

He discovered that love of nature is a tie that binds — regardless of political affiliation.

“Democrat, Republican, independent and people who could care less about politics do care about the outdoors,” Kaine said. “We may be polarized on politics, but we’re not polarized on everything.”

Another revelation was that despite being in his 60s, he was eager for more outdoor exploits.

“Before starting, I thought, these three epics in Viriginia, I better do these before I can’t do them again,” he said. “But when I finished all three I realized, hey, I have many more of these left in me.”

In fact, Kaine decided to tackle a major challenge every year. In 2022, he and his oldest son, Matt, biked from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C. In 2023, it was a nine-day hike in the Alps with a neighbor from Richmond.

Kaine won’t hit the trails or waterways for a major adventure this year because of his reelection campaign, but he has ideas for the future — including perhaps biking the Katy Trail across Missouri.

All of which sounds like more fun than being president.

“In a way, we’ve turned presidential politics into a branch of the entertainment industry,” Kaine said. “And I’m not very suited for that.

“I’ve never run for president because I’ve never woken up and thought, ‘I want to be president.’”

Still, a run for the top spot might have been in the cards if the Clinton-Kaine ticket had drawn a few thousand more votes in the right states and tipped the Electoral College.

“If I had been elected in 2016 as vice president, I probably, just knowing the way I think about things, I would have thought, ‘Well, whether I want it or not for myself, I’m not in this position by accident,’” he said. “’So even if it’s not something that I want to do, maybe there’s a bit of a sign that I should do it.’”

Kaine in KC

Tim Kaine will appear with author Candice Millard for “Walk, Ride, Paddle: A Life Outside,” 2 p.m. May 25, Kansas City Public Library Central Library (free). kclibrary.org.