Posted on 07/14/2016 7:45:34 PM PDT by iowamark
The Drudge siren is blaring that Mike Pence is Trump's VP pick. I'm not sure I believe it, though, for a couple reasons.
First, if you're a master showman looking to make as big a splash as possible, at least one head fake is required. In illusionist terms, the head fake is the turn, then bringing out the real VP is the prestige. Just picking a guy, leaking the word 24 hours early, and then rolling him out is the least-showy process imaginable.
Second, Pence is probably the second-worst available pick on the board. Here's how the veep possibilities should have been ranked:
(1) Newt Gingrich: Trump needs both an attack dog and a capable defender. Every time his running mate steps outside, he's going to have to mount a defense of whatever new idiocy Trump has just said. And while there are few people as capable in attacking Clinton, there's probably no one in America who'd be able to defend and contextualize Trump the way Gingrich can.
As Rich Lowry put it, "You could shake Gingrich awake at 3 a.m., tell him Trump just came out for nationalizing the banks, and he would rattle off a five-minute riff on how it has always been the policy of the future and the country is lucky to have such a radical agent of change."
Does Gingrich have problems? Sure. But from an electoral standpoint, all of his problems are dwarfed by Trump's problems. Gingrich isn't popular, but is more popular than Trump. His personal problems are nothing compared with Trump's history. Four years ago, Gingrich was viewed as too out there to be president. Next to Trump, he's Lincoln, Adams, and FDR all rolled into one.
If the Pence leaks are real, I suspect the problem with Gingrich, from Trump's perspective, was just that: Who wouldn't prefer President Gingrich to President Trump? Love him or hate him, Gingrich is one of the towering figures of the last 50 years of American politics. He's smarter and more accomplished than Trump and has a political identity and legacy that are independent of Trump, and likely to be much more significant than Trump's. (Imagine just how ridiculous it would have been to have Gingrich walking around genuflecting before "Mr. Trump" for four months.)
I doubt that Trump could abide that in his running mate, no matter what the benefits to his cause might be.
(2) Chris Christie: In many ways, Christie would have been like a JV-level Gingrich. He's a smart and capable pol. He would have dogged Clinton everywhere she went. And worse, Christie might have gotten into Clinton's OODA loop as she tries to make her own VP selection. Christie is such a good debater that Clinton would have had to think long and hard about how her second would have handled Christie, and that might have taken some possibilities (Julián Castro certainly, Elizabeth Warren possibly) off the board for her.
Why not pick Christie? I wonder if Trump couldn't bring himself to do it because he just doesn't respect the New Jersey governor. It's hard to believe Trump really respects any of the people he beat during the primaries. And the way Christie jumped to get his shine box was…really something.
(3) Joni Ernst: The Iowa senator spent 23 years in the military, served in Iraq, has legislative experience, and yet isn't tied to the old-guard Bushian GOP. She'd appeal to some of the college-educated Republican women who are running away from Trump in droves and might even make some of them pause for a second look. She's from a state that, in theory, only leans Democratic. Think of her as Palin XL.
Too bad she had the sense to take herself out of the running publicly.
(4) Ivanka Trump: Preposterous? Only sort of. She'll be 35 in October. She is, by all accounts, smarter and more stable than her father. Of course, she's a center-left Democrat. But then, so is her dad.
The big up-sides for Ivanka are that she would have been the only running mate with the ability to actually influence the candidate's thinking. And that she's obviously the person Trump would want running with him. As history has taught us, the most workable succession plans for a strongman always involve a family dynasty. They're the only people you can really trust.
So Jonathon Last says Pence would be the “worst” choice for veep and egomaniac/backstabbing has been Newt would be the “best”, with Chris Christie as the “second best”, and then Trump picking his own daughter as veep in the top 4 choices.
I guess he was writing an article for The Onion, and accidentally published it in The Weekly Standard.
Jonathan’s last brain cell must have died the last time he huffed paint.
Chuck Norris’s dog is a Velociraptor.
Are YOU?
Trump has been my #1 pick since the day he announced he was running...
Are YOU?
Of course, and it will count if Oregon flips.
Pence is open borders
pro-TPP
anti-muslim ban
What the hell are his good points? Nice Hair?
Weakly Standard trying to “help” out Trump.
West is my first choice too.
Two words:
Bobby Jindal
red
Mr.Last’s picks are not only stupid and uneducated, but laughable in the extreme.
Jindal is NOT a NBC; he is an anchor baby.
Intraparty harmony, a wonder to behold.
Lots of the same pundits, who said he’d never make it as the nominee are now trying to show how smart their advice is - comical if not so pathetic.
You are getting way too much information that is not correct. The anchor baby definition most used, and one that the information you have is using, is when a pregnant woman from a family, and or spouse, uses the American soil baby born to establish a foothold to stay in the US. This was not the case. The Jindals went through the process of immigration prior to entering the US. They received, prior to entry, visas consistent with their positions. Once they secured immigrant visas and became lawful permanent residents, they could seek citizenship on their own after five years of residence and meeting other requirements,”
At the time of their arrival, his mother had a scholarship to study nuclear physics at Louisiana State University, and his father, an engineer professor, was working for a subsidiary of the Kansas City Southern Railway. A couple of years later, Amar Jindal took a new job with the Exxon oil company. Jindal’s mother Raj Gupta earned two master’s degrees, one in physics and another in nuclear engineering. She ultimately worked for the state Labor Department in information technology.
They came in legal, with the proper clearance from the US government, and Bob Jindal’s birth had nothing to do with it.
Oh, and because he was born on American soil, he is a naturalized born citizen.
red
Jindal, Rubio, and Nikki Haley aren't NBCers and many of us have been calling those three "anchor babies" for a year. It's FR SLANG/SHORTHAND for everything you wrote.
Then I guess I’m unable to determine what your idea is of an anchor baby. I was raised in California and we saw many anchor babies birthed on American soil for the purpose of securing a foothold toward citizenship by the parents who were here illegally. That’s how the term got started many years before it was made a public word. There is no such thing as a legal anchor baby. The only use of the word is to represent a loophole in the border laws to sneak family into the country that did not go through the proper process of immigration. What I displayed for you was what happened and not once did I leave the facts short. Jindal’s parents were here legally so Bobby Jindal cannot be called an anchor baby. Just the first generation of the Jindal family born in the US.
red
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.