The speculation over Donald Trump’s veep pick is heating up, and his potential choices’ respective pole positions have changed a lot since the last time I wrote about this. Now, I’ve been pretty clear that there were three main criteria for picking a running mate. One, the appointment cannot hurt the GOP, like by putting a seat at risk. Two, the nominee must be competent to be president. Three, the pick must bring something to the table as far as winning the election. And I guess I now have to add a fourth qualification. The nominee can’t have shot any puppies.
Now, I wouldn’t think that I would have to tell anybody that shooting puppies is a bad idea if you want to be elected by the American people. Americans like puppies. They don’t like people who shoot puppies. So, the thought process of anybody who wants to be liked by the American people admitting to shooting puppies escapes me.
Yet, Kristi Noem capped Cricket the dog and then wrote about it in her book. Besides being bizarre and cruel, this was politically insane. It’s totally disqualifying, and apparently Donald Trump agrees because rumor has it that she’s off his shortlist. Somewhere across the rainbow bridge, Cricket is wagging her tail as she watches Noem’s political future dragged to the gravel pit and given the Joe Pesci in “Goodfellas” treatment.
Now, Noem was terrible anyway. Her country-girl affectation was tiresome, and as soon as the Chamber of Commerce cried, she immediately betrayed young women and refused to stop men pretending to be women from stealing their sports. But you can come back from betraying the base – not for folks like you and me, but for other, softer Republicans. There are lots of pols who have flirted with establishment RINOism and come back. Hi, Marco Rubio. But you just can’t come back from shooting puppies.
I understand that rural people and farmers look at animals a little differently than BMW-driving lawyers from the big city. I get that. I also get that you can’t shoot puppies and be a successful vice presidential candidate. Hear me out. A lot of people do not dig shooting puppies. Call them ignorant, call them uptight, whatever. They just can’t get past you shooting puppies.
You’re not going to talk this huge percentage of Americans into thinking shooting puppies is okay. When it came out that Noem shot a puppy, Twitter exploded with all these horrible arguments about how it was really no biggie that she shot a puppy. Cricket was a bad dog. Cricket was untrainable. Cricket killed chickens, but so did Colonel Sanders and no one thinks he should have been led to the gravel pit.
Look, these rationalizations for shooting a puppy are never going to fly among the suburban people – or for a lot of country and farm people too, since many of them also strongly oppose shooting puppies. The anti-shooting puppies demographic is huge, and Trump needs it to vote for his ticket.
You are not going to talk them out of their opposition to shooting puppies, especially with lame arguments like that it wasn’t really a puppy because it was 14 months old. I argue things to people on juries for a living. Let me explain what kind of argument that is. That’s a terrible argument. Here’s my rule of thumb. I never want to have to defend somebody for shooting puppies.
He cannot pick Noem. There is no way that we Republicans want to spend the next six months when we should be talking about how Biden is turning this country into a communist hellhole of economic despair, fat commie campus mutants, and foreign policy humiliation, trying to articulate a defense of shooting puppies so that Kristi can live her dream of getting the hell out of South Dakota.
Again, you can’t be the vice president and have shot puppies. Like the term “fetch,” if you pardon the expression, it’s just not going to happen.
Now that we have established that Trump will not pick the woman who probably cried at the beginning of “Old Yeller” and who wondered why John Wick was so darn upset, the question remains as to who it will be. Well, Donald Trump met with Ron DeSantis recently, and apparently it was a love fest. They’ve buried the hatchet, and not in each other’s skull. That’s good for the party regardless, but could it indicate that Trump is considering selecting the Florida governor for a unity ticket? Big D will certainly not harm the ticket, and he can certainly do the job of President. DeSantis also brings a track record of competence that reassures the swing voters. He also brings a lot of the reluctant DeSantis people back. Now, there are a few DeSantis folks who are effectively Never Trump, and you’re not going to get them until they look at the chaos on our campuses and everywhere else and decide to put aside their fits of pique and get with the program. But every vote counts.
Is it good for DeSantis’s career to be on the ticket? He is certainly going to run in 2028, so does it make sense to tie himself to Donald Trump, who looks like he’s got a pretty good chance of winning in November? I don’t know. But I do have to praise Ron DeSantis’s troll game. As soon as the revelation that Noem shot a puppy came out, he and all his people’s Twitter timelines were filled with pictures of them cavorting with canines. So, it’s clear that Ron DeSantis meets the fourth basic VP characteristic. He hasn’t shot any puppies.
Glenn Youngkin of Virginia is apparently near the top of Trump’s list. He won’t harm the ticket because his seat will go to Winsome Sears. He is certainly competent. He makes the Democrats spend money in Virginia, donors dig him, and he reassures the kind of wussy conservatives who find Trump’s aggressive heterosexuality and Twitter game off-putting. And he’s never shot any puppies.
Another governor rising in the polls is Doug Burgum of that other Dakota, the one where the governor doesn’t shoot puppies. His seat is safe Republican, and he is clearly competent. He’s also a soothing presence for the squishes, and the dude has money for days. These are great characteristics, but perhaps his best quality is that he has never shot any puppies.
I’m a big fan of Robert O’Brien and JD Vance for a number of reasons. The new, improved, and less thirsty Marco Rubio might work. Kim Reynolds, the Iowa governor, is a good choice, as is Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas. They are all strong veep flexes, in part because none of them have shot any puppies.
Some of the previous favorites are falling behind. The bizarre notion that Robert Kennedy, Jr., might be a Republican vice-presidential candidate seems to have disappeared. Tulsi Gabbard appears to be fading. They are Democrats, which disqualifies them from being Republican nominees – duh – but I will give them this. They never shot any puppies.
We don’t hear about Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott anymore. Both have some fatal weaknesses, but at least neither has shot any puppies.
Nikki Haley is definitely out of the running. As annoying as she is, she had something to offer the ticket. But she has broken her word about endorsing the GOP nominee, which was politically stupid. However, in her defense, that is not as politically stupid as admitting that she shot a puppy.
We’ll probably not learn Trump’s vice presidential pick for a couple of months. Trump is a little busy being framed by Soros/communist scumbags in garbage Democrat cities, but also he’s a consummate showman. He’s going to make this a big deal and wring every bit of suspense he can out of his decision. I defer to Donald Trump on public relations because if there’s one thing Trump knows how to do, it’s to get attention to get what he wants. And what he wants is a running mate who will help him nail down this increasingly winnable election. That starts with not picking someone who has shot a puppy.
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