#veepstakes

Courtney Hagle at MMFA:

Politico journalist Alex Isenstadt’s forthcoming book about President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House reportedly claims that Trump “seriously considered tapping Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo as his running mate, before being talked out of it by his team.”  According to a January 8 report by CNN, Isenstadt writes that Bartiromo was a “Trump favorite” for her fervent defenses and softball interviews of the president-elect. As per Isenstadt, Trump “was dead serious about Bartiromo and was making the case for her" to be his running mate, but ultimately there “was no time to vet Bartiromo, as they had spent months doing with other candidates." Bartiromo repeatedly used her Fox show to fan the conspiratorial flames during the 2020 election and its aftermath. When she interviewed Sidney Powell about “voting irregularities” in November 2020, Bartiromo was aware that the Trump lawyer would “respond with conspiracy theories about Dominion” based on sources that Powell admitted herself were “pretty wackadoodle” — yet Bartiromo still gave credibility to Powell’s “far-fetched claims.” The lawsuit filings revealed that Fox News knew about Bartiromo’s conspiratorial coverage but did little to stop it, with executives privately lamenting that Bartiromo amplified “GOP conspiracy theorists.” Bartiromo also used the right-wing social media app Parler to push a slew of election conspiracy theories. Bartiromo was instrumental in advancing 2020 election conspiracy theories that led to the January 6 insurrection, particularly the claims that Dominion and Smartmatic voting machines flipped votes. The companies sued Fox News and other conservative media outlets for spreading these bogus conspiracy theories, and Fox ultimately settled with Dominion for $787 million. Bartiromo was repeatedly named throughout the various lawsuits, and it was later revealed that she took directives from the Trump campaign to promote the plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

I think they're just using 1980 as a starting point, not as a comparable example. George H.W. Bush was an excellent choice as Reagan's running mate. He brought ideological balance to the ticket, was extremely qualified, and unified the party (he was Reagan's closest challenger for the nomination in the 1980 Republican primaries). The better example for a horrible VP pick would be, as I have seen mentioned in some places, George McGovern's disastrous choice of Thomas Eagleton in 1972, which ultimately resulted in Eagleton being dumped for Sargent Shriver eighteen days later.

Dan Quayle was a very questionable pick when he first was chosen as George H.W. Bush's running mate in 1988 because people just didn't know who he was. Even though Quayle had served in the House and the Senate up to that point, he had made so little of an impact that his selection was pretty shocking to many observers. I think the bigger problem with Vance, however, is that he's just plain unlikable. Even Quayle had a certain attractive quality to him because he was a youthful pick who brought a different kind of energy to that ticket once people got over the shock of him being picked. Vance hasn't added anything to Trump's ticket, and it's easy to argue that he's actually had a negative impact on the campaign, which is the one thing a Vice Presidential nominee should never do.

In retrospect, Sarah Palin was obviously one of the worst VP picks in American history, but she revitalized McCain's campaign in 2008 and there were moments were she really shined. If she had been actually qualified or prepared for the role she would have been a different story. I was working on the Obama campaign in 2008 and remember watching her give her acceptance speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention and we were all thinking, "Oh shit...they might have something here!" And then she started having to do interviews and it immediately became apparent that there was nothing under the charisma. We went from being scared that she might be good to being scared by how extraordinarily unqualified and ill-prepared she was.

There have been misfires on the other side, as well. Joe Lieberman was one of the least-inspiring choices of my lifetime. John Edwards, one of the slimiest American politicians of the 21st Century (which is quite an accomplishment), was as much of an empty suit under big hair as Sarah Palin was. And Tim Kaine may have been well-qualified for the job, but I don't know anybody who was excited when he was Hillary Clinton's choice. I don't even remember Hillary Clinton being excited about picking Tim Kaine. Kaine wasn't a net negative to Hillary Clinton's campaign, but I didn't think he added anything, either.

When it comes down to it, I think it's more likely that you're correct about the VP selection not having that big of an impact on the election. It's still an important inflection point in a campaign because it's the Presidential nominee's first big decision and EVERYBODY is paying attention. And, sometimes, it's an indication of the type of team the President is going to build around him when he does govern. But there hasn't been a running mate that really made a difference for geographical reasons since LBJ was nominated in 1960 and helped JFK narrowly win Texas. Yet, geographical balance is always one of the most-talked about aspects of building a ticket.

The most important thing is to pick somebody who is qualified to be President if necessary and doesn't take anything away from the ticket. Ideological, demographic, or regional balance is always good, but not necessary. One of the better tickets of my lifetime was Clinton/Gore and Clinton was a young, Southern Governor who decided to double-down and chose an even younger, Southern Senator as his running mate. Clinton chose someone who he thought could help him govern. And one of the other best tickets of my lifetime was a losing one: Romney/Ryan in 2012. There was more of a demographic/ideological/regional balance with that ticket, but Romney chose Ryan because he wanted an active partner in governing and Ryan had the legislative experience that Romney lacked.

Like, they're working together now, or they will if Harris picks Shapiro as her VP, does the Left feel comfortable with this? I know the Twitter types probably think they're influential (laughable) and that they're merely trying to "help" Harris by dissuading her from picking a "divisive to the base" candidate. But in effect they are working with the Trump campaign. These messages will go hand in hand. The Democratic Ticket is both a woke DEI hire but also duplicitous noncitizens who are selling secrets to China and who answers to Mossad, or whatever the fuck. I don't think this tanks Harris' campaign, but it's still very annoying and breeds dangerous rhetoric in these times.

He's just a nice Minnesota dad, dontcha know?

He loves mapping and GIS in policymaking!

He wants to use taxpayer money to feed children, so scary

Do I agree with everything he's done? Of course not. I supported his opponent in the primary! Is he getting credit for the work of decades of progressive organizing he had no part of? Yeah definitely. Do I care? Not until after election day.