and straight through about mid-november for basically a whole month, herman kaine was either in the lead for the republican presidential nomination or he was trading the lead with mitt romney. by november 18th, herman kaine was so firmly ensconsed as the front-runner for the republican nomination that he requested and got protection from the united states secret service. >> herman kaine has become the first republican primary candidate to receive secret service protection. it is early in the process for a primary candidate to get a secret service detail. it's usually in response to an increase in verified threats and in florida today, kaine talked about his new heavily armed traveling companions. >> we had private security for a while before we asked for secret service protection but we wanted to move to that next level because of my ranking in the polls and the additional scrutiny that i have been