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Former President Trump has picked JD Vance to be his running mate.
I must say that this is probably the best pick he could have made if we restrict the selection to just the people on his short list. Vance is the most populist of the potential picks. He has some obvious strengths with a demographic that cost trump his victory in 2020 (white males). The left seems to hate him more than any of the other potentials. He is certainly the most MAGA of the bunch, however it's hard to tell just how mercenary he is. I like that he at least had a life before politics and was a successful person before he came on the scene.
Haley, Rubio, Scott, Burgham, Youngkin. MAGA sees them all as neocon swamp creatures. They were the more moderate choices that would have put the VP just one more assassination attempt away from getting things back to business as usual.
There is a lot to digest here. Trumps statements since Saturday indicate that he wants to run on a Peace, Unity, and Love platform. I think this is a great idea, especially with Vance as VP. He should offer the country an opportunity to unite on his (our, MAGA) terms. It would be a tricky thing to pull off and Trump would need some softer language and a perfect delivery, but I think it's do-able. Let the left reject the call. Trump is perhaps in a unique position to pull this off right now. Vance gives him cover to do this.
It's also been said that VP picks rarely or minimally affect the race. I tend to think that is true which also is a reason to double down on MAGA with Vance. If its not going to be that important to the vote count, might as well go for someone that is ideologically aligned.
Vance lacks accomplishments. He wrote one acclaimed book. The rest of his career is a junior big law stint and then I guess he was good at befriending rich people and became a VC of which I see zero prominent investments.
He has never held a job long enough to do anything. I think it’s questionable “he had a life before politics”. He had internships to become a politician. Even Democrats who wanted to be in politics would spend 3 years in military service before going off to law school back in the day. He’s no Desantis in that regard.
He though is solidly blue tribe. Classic smart white guy marries Asian/Indian.
I don’t think he does much to extend the base. Maybe he helps to push engagement in Pennsylvania which is probably a swing state. Trumps biggest weakness is governance not winning the election. That may not matter for the election but in terms of getting things done Vance is a lightweight.
He reminds me a lot of Palin but with better education. I don’t even think Dems will fear him. He doesn’t remove the assassin risks with Trump.
vice president isn't a normal job where you need experience. The "job" is basically to give TV interviews and make the main guy look good. Maybe run for president in the future, but not now. It's a very strange job. For that, he's as qualified as anyone.
The whole reason that Trump is winning right now is that 1/ Obama thought this way when picking his VP in 2008, and 2/ Biden thought this way when picking a VP in 2020. Choosing a VP is monumentally consequential for your party. You need to make sure you are choosing the right guy if you care at all about the future of your party. And how can you think you have taken the measure of a man to know where he will be in the next decade or two when he's already a completely different man from what he was a decade ago?
It's not that monumentally consequential in a healthy political party. Part of the Democrat Party's problem is this weird desire to keep passing the Presidency to anointed successors instead of actually allowing any kind of party democracy to occur. That's how they got Clinton in 16, Biden in 20 and now look stuck with Harris in 24. But it really doesn't have to be this way, and it wasn't so long ago that it was quite normal to hand the Vice Presidency to an empty suit like Spiro Agnew or Dan Quayle.
Biden won a competitive primary in 2020. If he was Obama's annointed successor (he wasn't - part of the reason why Obama chose him as VP was that Obama thought he would be too old to run in 2016) he would have been on the ballot in 2016. If the "party decided" in 2020, then almost everyone who mattered in the Democratic Party would have endorsed Biden, when in fact the endorsements were all over the place.
Fundamentally, Biden won because none of the wonkier centrist candidates could win the support of the black political machines who deliver a plurality of the Dem primary vote, so the other centrists (by the time the voting started, that meant Buttigieg and Klobuchar) had to drop out and endorse Biden if they wanted to crush the Sanders/Warren wing. This was obvious to anyone who understands Democratic party politics after the South Carolina primary.
The fact that the best available talent on the centrist wing of the Democratic party in 2020 was Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar says something less-than-positive about the state of the American centre-left.
I think it's more about the party base than its leadership. Like you said, the black political machine is huge in Dem primaries, and they came out big for Biden. Buttigieg and Sanders did great in the early, mostly-white states of Iowa and New Hampshire. But then along came South Carolina with its huge black population and just absolutely crushed it for Biden. Almost half of the vote to just one candidate in a multi-way race, and more than half of the delegates in a fairly large state. No one else could touch him after that.\
It's an interesting question as to why he won so much black support. You might think Harris would have won their support, since she's part black. Or maybe someone more progressive. But no. They went hard for the fairly moderate guy who was also Obama's VP. In that case, being VP meant a lot. But I don't think that, say, Mike Pence would enjoy a similar bump- even the most ardent Trump supporters don't really like Pence.
He’s fairly moderate, tied to Obama, a bit quirky, very party insider, known quantity, straight man, professional politician. That’s what the black political machine seems to like.
I'm convinced it's something about his personality/charisma. Bill Clinton had a similar effect on the black community. It's like the affable alpha male politician who looks like he's having a blast whenever he's campaigning.
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