Kaine Breaks Language Barrier through Rhetoric
During a presidential campaign, it is typical for a nominee to select a running mate that best compliments their political stances and improves their chance of securing the presidency after the election process occurs. As there are no split decisions in presidential elections, presidential and vice presidential candidates are on a ticket side-by-side. But how does each presidential candidate decide who to select to run alongside them during such a strenuous process? I decided to see what a few of the deciding factors were in the case of Tim Kaine and Mike Pence and to research further to see if those factors have made a difference or have actually been represented in some way as vice presidential candidates use their rhetoric to communicate with those that are best determined to be targeted by each vice presidential candidate. 
Among several reasons, one of the main factors that helped Clinton determine to select Kaine was that he was supposed to help the Democratic ticket appeal to Latino voters because he speaks fluent Spanish. For the Republican ticket, Pence was chosen in hopes that he could serve as an emissary to Midwestern and conservative voters (Fivethirtyeight.com). In this case, I decided to discuss Kaine`s Spanish speaking ability and the rhetorical use of appealing to his audiences by doing so.
Given the fact that Kaine delivered a speech entirely in Spanish at a church in Miami, it seems that he is being used by the Clinton campaign to further target Latinos, especially in a crucial state such as Florida. By implementing this strategy to speak to this particular audience and use rhetoric to appeal to them, he overcame and surely knocked any existing language barrier that this particular group of voters may have had as well as probably appealed to several other emotions as this was definitely an attempt to use rhetoric to better connect to that audience. In fact, Kaine actually made history when he spoke his entire speech in Spanish. Kaine has also spoken several other times in Spanish throughout the campaign, definitely a tool of rhetoric being employed to his and his running mates advantage in the case of winning votes from Latinos.
Sources:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-clinton-and-trump-are-using-their-running-mates-on-the-campaign-trail/
http://www.npr.org/2016/10/17/498259554/watch-vp-candidate-tim-kaine-delivers-full-speech-in-spanish
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/tim-kaine-delivers-entire-speech-in-spanish-at-miami-church-229866
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/vp-debate04/
____________________________________________________________
Erin Shattles
I think that it was a great technique for Hillary Clinton to use Kaine’s spanish to appeal to the Latino voters. It has obviously worked well because Trump and Pence do not have many Latinos/black/hispanic voters at all. Clinton and Kaine do very well with seeking the audience they wish to target and then speaking to their needs. They have done this since day one and Kaine presenting a whole speak in spanish is just another great way to get a broader voter base.