There is no candidate we could put forward that they wouldn't twist into an unrecognizable caricature.
But the fact is that he followed Virginia's reporting laws to the letter and most of the gifts were related to work travel. For example, he reported receiving money from Senator Obama's campaign for his travel to campaign events as a "personal gift" because Virginia law had murky reporting rules.
I wish Virginia had different laws, too, but his situation is nothing like the Republican Governor's -- who was convicted of corruption for taking money, gifts, and loans from a company. But that conviction was then overturned by the Supreme Court in an 8 to 0 ruling.
The Republicans are mainly using this to try to turn Democrats against Kaine. We shouldn't fall for it.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/kaines-acceptance-of-gifts-in-state-office-could-offer-republicans-an-opening/2016/07/22/8508b2cc-4f7f-11e6-a7d8-13d06b37f256_story.html
But Republicans have signaled in recent days that they will use Kaine’s acceptance of that and other freebies as a line of attack against the newly selected vice presidential candidate, looking to stoke concern among Democrats that Kaine is not the progressive candidate they had hoped for.
“He followed the rules, but it’s a question of whether the Democrat Party can stomach that coziness with donors,” said former attorney general Jerry Kilgore, the Republican who Kaine defeated in 2005. “Their base, at this point, is anti-corporate America, anti-what these gifts stand for: access and influence.”
Such gifts drew little attention in Virginia until Kaine’s successor, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, was convicted of federal corruption charges in 2014, accused of accepting gifts and sweetheart loans from a dietary supplement executive in exchange for promoting the businessman’s company.
There are stark differences between Kaine’s gifts and McDonnell’s. For one, Kaine’s gifts were properly disclosed; McDonnell failed to disclose some of what he received.
For another, Kaine has never faced accusations of promising state action in exchange for any of his gifts.
“During his eight years as lieutenant governor and governor, Senator Kaine went beyond the requirements of Virginia law, promptly disclosing any and all gifts received, including those beneath the reporting threshold,” said Kaine spokeswoman Amy Dudley. “All disclosure information — the vast majority of which was for work-related travel expenses rather than gifts — has been publicly available for years and never once raised any concerns of impropriety.”
SNIP
The majority of those gifts came in the form of air travel, including from the 2008 campaign of President Obama, which paid to fly Kaine across the country as a campaign surrogate. Under murky Virginia law, the proper way to disclose such political travel has been unclear; other politicians have disclosed it as a campaign contribution to their political action committee, rather than a personal gift, as did Kaine.
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