Chuck Todd: What the JD Vance pick means — for Trump, the GOP and the future
If the Trump-Vance ticket is successful this November, it could mean the Bush-Romney-Cheney wing of the GOP is in the wilderness for not just another four years, but for a generation.
Let’s start by noting that it’s a rare vice presidential pick that actually moves the needle all that much in a presidential race.
The most solid proof of this theory came in 1988, when the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee, Lloyd Bentsen, seemed light years more qualified for the job of VP (and president-in-waiting) than GOP nominee Dan Quayle. Bentsen even landed one of the more decisive debate knockdowns of the television era: “I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy.”
To say Quayle wasn’t well-received by the general public is an understatement. But it didn’t matter — voters were choosing between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis, not Quayle and Bentsen, and Bush won in a landslide even though Bentsen polled better than Quayle.
The simplest way most campaign strategists judge running mates comes down to two questions: Do they pass the basic “qualified” test for enough voters that they could be president, and will they do no harm to the presidential nominees’ chances? That last one is key.
For Mitt Romney in 2012, his pick of Paul Ryan made a lot of sense culturally and for governing purposes, but it also invited Democrats to attach Romney to Ryan’s plans to revamp Medicare, which became extraordinarily unpopular once Democratic ad-makers got done with it. Picking Ryan probably didn’t cost Romney the election, but it probably did cost him precious news cycles responding to Ryan’s Medicare plan instead of putting more pressure on the Democratic ticket.
Rating: 5