Last week, Bob Johnson posted a snarky diary which speculated that Trump was going to name his own son, Eric, as his running mate. This freaked a lot of people out until they realized that he was joking.
However, I wasn’t joking when I made my own call way back on March 1st, 2016:
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So here it is...Super Tuesday. Unless the GOP base suddenly decides that they don't want a xenophobic, misogynistic, hate-mongering, con-artist moron to be their standard-bearer, it's looking very likely that by the time midnight rolls around, Donald Drumpf will indeed be almost unstoppable as the Republican Presidential Nominee for 2016.
Which means, aside from the GOP establishment being on collective suicide watch, Mr. Drumpf will have to think about who his running mate will be for the general election.
First, the legal issues:
- They have to be a natural-born U.S. Citizen. That's pretty important to Mr. Drumpf, as I understand it.
- They have to be at least 35 years old as of January 20, 2017.
- They probably shouldn't legally reside in the same state as Mr. Drumpf....except that it turns out this actually isn't the case at all. In addition, he's a wealthy real estate developer, so it's safe to say that he could simply snap up a small house somewhere outside of New York and have his running mate legally change residences, just as Dick Cheney did in 2000, so this is actually a non-issue.
Next, the strategic issues:
- Drumpf will turn 70 years old this summer. He's gonna want to appeal to The Kidz, so picking ayoung person would be wise.
- Let's be blunt: Donald Drumpf isn't the most physically attractive man in the world. Having a running mate who's photogenic is never a bad idea.
- Drumpf kind of has a problem with the female demographic, to put it mildly. Plus, of course, he'll likely be facing Hillary, who'd be making history, etc etc. Picking a woman as a running mate would be helpful.
- He also has a bit of a problem with non-Christians, which wasn't helped by his recent endorsement by David Duke of the KKK as well as kind words from Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. Picking someone who's Jewish might not be a bad idea (somehow I don't think any Muslims are likely prospects, Mr. Farrakhan's words of support notwithstanding).
Now, she may not be Jewish, but I already know what you're thinking: Sarah Palin, right?
WRONG.
She's already endorsed him, she's just as stupid and just as big of a con artist, etc. etc.
However, Palin is also yesterday's news, even from the Tea Party perspective. She's quite literally a loser and a quitter, which of course Drumpf can't stand.
Plus, she's too unpredictable and likely to stab him in the back.
That brings up the two final factors for Mr. Drumpf:
- Drumpf wants someone who he can trust implicitly, and
- Finally, Drumpf's ego is so massive, he's very unlikely to want to have someone else's last namestealing his thunder.
OK, so here's who this person has to be:
- NATURAL BORN U.S. CITIZEN
- 35 YEARS OLD
- YOUNG
- ATTRACTIVE
- FEMALE
- JEWISH
- TRUSTED IMPLICITLY
Which is why I present to you the only possible 2016 Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States....
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Ivanka Drumpf.
That's right. She was born on October 30, 1981, meaning she'll turn 35 years old just 9 days before the general election. She's young, she's photogenic, she's Jewish (seriously...she converted). She's been working with/for her father for years, so he can trust her...and, as a bonus, she appears (from what I've seen so far) to be more intelligent and capable than he is anyway.
The only real downside here is that it probably isn't a good idea to have a sitting U.S. President who openly admits to wanting to have sex with his Vice President, especially when she's, you know, his own daughter.
So remember, folks, you read it here first:
DRUMPF / DRUMPF 2016
I should add that while I was slightly kidding at the time, in the 3 months since then, this choice has only become more likely. His campaign is hemorrhaging cash and the RNC is apparently broke, so he’s gonna have to save as much on staffing and transportation costs as possible; Ivanka already travels around with him everywhere as it is and both she and her staff are already on the payroll, so why not?
Plus, this would be the Trumpiest type of stunt he could possibly pull.
Trump/Trump ‘16. It makes total sense.
UPDATE: It also makes sense from the whole “fascist dictator” POV...how many dictators have historically named their own children as their successors (or tried to do so)?
More to the point, someone in the comments questioned whether immediate family members are Constitutionally allowed to be VP. I did a quick search and came up with the following:
Here’s a FactCheck entry about the possibility of Bill Clinton being Hillary’s running mate; it obviously mostly focuses on the fact that he was already elected President twice, making him ineligible to be elected President, but it also touches on the question of VP eligibility in general.
It looks like the only clarifications about VP are the 12th and 22nd Amendment:
The original Constitution had no requirements for the office of vice president. However, the 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, said that, "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."
So that would mean that a vice president would have to meet the requirements to be president laid out in Article II of the Constitution. Principally, the person would have to be born in the United States, be at least 35 years of age and have been a resident of this country for the preceding 14 years. So far, so good. Maybe a former president, like Bill Clinton, could serve as vice president.
However, the 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, said:
- 22nd Amendment: No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once.
Note that there’s nothing in either amendment about being related to the President.
Also remember that Bobby Kennedy, JFK’s brother, the Attorney General...and the AG is in the line of Presidential succession (although he was 7th on the list):
- The Vice President Joseph Biden
- Speaker of the House Paul Ryan
- President pro tempore of the Senate Orrin Hatch*
- Secretary of State John Kerry
- Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew
- Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter
- Attorney General Loretta Lynch
- Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewel
- Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack
- Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker
- Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez
- Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell
- Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro
- Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx
- Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz
- Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
- Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert McDonald
- Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson
*(the link above lists the Prez Pro Tem as Patrick Leahy, but that’s obviously no longer the case)
In other words, unless I’m missing something, if, hypothetically, Trump were to pick Ivanka as his running mate, it looks like they would be legally eligible to do so.
God help us all.
UPDATE x2: Here’s yet another reason that this is becoming increasingly likely: Who the hell else is willing to do it?
Seriously...Trump is toxic. Any serious politician wouldn’t be caught dead hitching themselves to the Trump train, which means that whoever he picks is bound to be a second- or third-stringer no matter what. The odds of him picking another non-politician are strong, and even in the private sector, movers/shakers like Meg Whitman and Mark Cuban are fleeing for the hills.
So who does that leave? Kid Rock? Sean Hannity? Scott Baio? Given that, someone like Ivanka seems downright reasonable by comparison.