Sen. Tim Kaine, who on Friday became Hillary Clinton's vice presidential pick may not be the pick many American liberals would make, and Republican nominee Donald Trump was quick Saturday to try driving a wedge on Twitter between the two sides of the Democratic Party.
Kaine, a moderate Democratic senator from Virginia, has not only backed restrictions on abortion,
reports The Hill, but supports fast-track approval for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and is part of a push for deregulating the nation's largest banks, all three items Sanders supporters oppose.
Just hours after Clinton announced that she'd picked Kaine, Trump took to Twitter to poke at her selection of Tim Kaine as her running mate and perhaps stoke a fire among Bernie Sanders' supporters by tweeting that the pick meant "Bernie fought for nothing:"
Sanders only just this month announced he was backing Clinton's campaign but there remains deep divisions between the Democratic Party's liberal side, represented by Sanders, and its moderate side, represented by both Clinton and Kaine.
Both Clinton and Trump are pushing to attract Sanders' supporters to their sides after the Vermont senator dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination. Sanders has encouraged his backers to shift their allegiance to Clinton, but many of them feel she is too conservative on many issues and has too many ties with Wall Street.
Sanders backers had been pushing Clinton to pick a running mate who leans further left than she does, such as Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Clinton was also being pushed by some to pick a minority candidate, such as New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker or California Rep Xavier Becerra in hopes of attracting voters Trump had alienated, reports The Hill.
But Kaine, who has served on both the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committee, could help Clinton fight back against Trump's claims of being the "law and order" candidate.
Also, Kaine's years of experience in Washington and foreign policy experience could lend a national presence to the Clinton ticket that Trump, as a political newcomer, lacks.
Trump also picked an experienced politician, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, as his running mate. Pence served for several years in the U.S. House of Representatives before becoming a governor.
Sen. Angus King, an Independent Maine lawmaker who caucuses with Democrats, said the freshman senator is hardly a household name, and Clinton’s decision was likely also influenced by Trump’s own options for running mate.
The business mogul passed over prominent national figures like former Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to tap Indiana Gov. Mike Pence — a traditional but low-key conservative who’s not nearly as combative as others Trump had considered.
Trump has been saying for months that the Democratic primary race was
"rigged" against Sanders, and on Saturday pointed to news that leaked Democratic National Committee emails suggested the party had been working to damage the Vermont Independent senator's bid for the White House.
Trump also claimed, on Twitter that Clinton "hates" Warren, who Sanders' supporters back as a more left-leaning lawmaker:
However, as Trump also used the tweet to once again refer to Warren as "Pocahontas" and to deride her record in the Senate, that tweet could backfire among Sanders supporters and Warren's followers, many of whom already have responded with scorn to Trump's tweet.
Warren has not yet commented on the morning twitterstorm, but earlier this week ridiculed Trump's Republican National Convention speech, telling late night talk show host Stephen Colbert that the speech made Trump sound like "some two-bit dictator of some country that you couldn't find on a map," reports
Yahoo News.
Meanwhile, reports The Hill, Trump's camp did not take long after Clinton's announcement to turn its sights onto Kaine. "While serving in government, Kaine has taken teds of thousands of dollars in freebies — more than $160,000 in fact — on free vacations, free clothes, and free tickets," Trump campaign aide Jason Miller said. "If you think Crooked Hillary and Corrupt Kaine are going to change anything in Washington, it’s just the opposite."
According to The Washington Post, Kaine has disclosed receiving some $201,000 in gifts he accepted while he was Virginia's lieutenant governor and then governor, according to
The Washington Post.
Many of the gifts were legal under state law. However, Kaine's successor Bob McDonnell was eventually convicted of federal corruption charges of receiving gifts, but the Supreme Court has overturned that conviction. Trump on Friday night questioned why Kaine did not end up getting in trouble over the gifts:
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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