My vice presidential prediction is: Trump is about to make his first mistake. I knew this would happen as soon as he hired campaign consultants, rather than relying on his gut. If these campaign consultants were any good, their first piece of advice to Trump would be, “Fire us immediately!”
Trump’s advisers are undoubtedly telling him he’s got the “outsider” image covered. He needs someone with experience in Washington — as if presidents don’t have staffs — an elected Republican official with solid standing in the GOP, preferably a sitting senator or governor, who will give the ticket gravitas and heft.
This is completely wrong. Trump isn’t a standard-issue GOP, trying to balance the ticket to get his party into power. He’s starting a new party! He’s just blown up the old GOP. Instead of a party for, by and of globalist plutocrats, the new Trumpian party is a party of Americans for America.
How is Trump going to find a decent running mate from among the Republicans who have gotten ahead under the old model of sucking up to donors and lobbyists?
Almost any sitting Republican senator or governor would be total counter-programming to Trump’s message. One searches the country in vain to find a half-dozen elected Republicans who have not supported amnesty, job-killing trade deals, Wall Street bailouts — or all of the above. Trump’s message is: I’m leaving the deadwood behind.
We always secretly suspected Republicans were selling out the country for their own interests, but now Trump has flushed them all out. At least the GOP isn’t being subtle. Their position is: No, we will never allow anyone to be president who wants to do something about the border.
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The moment Trump chooses his vice presidential candidate, every person in the media will be handed a personalized crowbar to pry daylight between Trump his nominee.
What do you say about Mr. Trump’s comment 19 years ago in an appearance on Howard Stern? Can we really trust our nuclear codes to a man who likes attractive women?
If Trump picks a typical Republican, the odds are better than even that his nominee will end up withdrawing in order to win the good opinion of The New York Times.
Once a week until the election, there will be some fresh media hysteria about a Trump pop-off, and his nominee will come under enormous pressure to repudiate Trump — destroying Trump’s candidacy and winning himself a lifetime of media adulation. The nominee will have visions of well-compensated board positions, Time magazine’s Man of the Year, meetings with actresses, his own show on Fox News — maybe NBC! — and not one, but two covers on Vanity Fair.
How much pushing would it take for any of the GOP donor shills to sell out Trump for the media’s admiration? A month ago, Newt became a media darling for denouncing Trump’s attacks on a judge who belongs to a Hispanic supremacist organization. You could probably get Rubio for a decent bass boat.
If Trump chooses a vice president who supports cheap labor for the donor class, how long before both parties decide to impeach President Trump?
Gingrich lobbied for the instant legalization of illegals because his benefactor, superglue heiress Helen Krieble, needed cheap labor for her horse farm. Trump impeached.
Pence’s big immigration initiative was mass legalization for cheap foreign workers if they went home first, with any employer request bringing them right back. Trump impeached.
Sen. Bob Corker was one of only 14 Republicans to vote for Rubio’s nation-destroying amnesty bill — and went the extra mile to pass it. Trump impeached.
Chris Christie’s temporary Senate nominee was one of the other 14, after Sen. Chuck Schumer convinced Christie to support amnesty in a single phone call. Trump impeached.
Trump doesn’t need a vice president from the party he’s just buried.
Everyone thinks Trump’s model should be Reagan, who chose his main primary rival as his vice presidential nominee. It’s true that the important thing is for Trump to win. Reagan couldn’t have saved the country if he had lost, and nor can Trump.
But, apart from signing off on amnesty, choosing a Bush for his vice president was Reagan’s biggest mistake, foisting this pestilence on the country for no reason. Reagan won in a landslide. Did he really need to worry about carrying Greenwich, Connecticut?
It took 26 years for voters to correct Reagan’s vice presidential mistake, finally rejecting the Bush brand beginning with the 2006 midterm elections. This year, they are trying to correct Reagan’s amnesty mistake. Why pick a vice president who won’t let the voters do that?
If any of the establishment Republicans brought one thing to the table, it would be a different story. If they brought a roll of nickels — great, Trump should be bowing and scraping to them. Hey, look! Chris Christie has 5,000 unused campaign balloons in his garage — bring him in!
But these guys bring nothing. They’ll only be a drain on Trump’s campaign.
The model shouldn’t be Reagan, but Lincoln, whose candidacy also introduced a new party — one that arose from the exact same battle roiling the party today. The rich wanted cheap labor — slavery — and both parties, the Democrats and the Whigs, were happy to give it to them.
Lincoln’s new Republican Party stood for the soul of the nation against the self-interest of the rich and powerful, just as Trump’s does today.
Lincoln didn’t choose some eminent Whig politician to give his ticket gravitas. He chose Hannibal Hamlin. No one other than a “Jeopardy!” contestant even remembers Hamlin’s name today. He didn’t exactly set the world on fire.
Hamlin was a former Democrat, didn’t meet Lincoln until after the election, served only one term as Lincoln’s vice president, was not liked by first lady Mary Todd and didn’t work closely with the president.
He made no sense as Lincoln’s vice president on any level, except the only one that mattered: Hamlin was ferociously opposed to slavery — the new party’s signature issue. He strongly supported Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, arguing that slaves should be armed. As soon as slavery was ended, Lincoln dropped Hamlin as his vice president.
The official GOP’s opposition to Trump is the modern slavery party’s version of the Civil War, fought by plutocrats with money and media.
For his vice president, Trump needs anyone — from business, academia, the military or the political world — who is Hannibal Hamlin on immigration, a warrior to defend our country from the rich’s predatory demands for cheap foreign labor. His running mate also needs to be smart and courageous and not in love with his own press notices.
Among the possibilities Trump ought to be considering are people like Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory and Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo (the latter two are up for re-election this year, but perhaps they can run for both offices simultaneously).
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama is one of approximately one elected officials I completely trust to protect Americans from the cheap labor-demanding rich — which is why Trump needs to keep him in the Senate.
The same consultants who would have told Trump to never, ever mention immigration are telling him now that he needs a Christie, a Newt, a Corker, a Rubio — or a woman. (Because that’s how Margaret Thatcher emerged. No one had ever heard her name until the British Conservative Party decided it needed a woman on the ticket!) (That’s sarcasm.)
If the consultants prevail with Trump, our only hope is that the conventional wisdom about vice presidents being irrelevant is correct — at least for the six months of a Trump presidency before impeachment.
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