For what it’s worth, apparently only one person who’s served in Congress has endorsed Trump, and he’s from purple-state Virginia, and it’d mean the posters and the bumper stickers and the phrase on everyone’s lips would be…TRUMP/GOODE!
Seems crazy unlikely. Then again, what in his run hasn’t been crazy unlikely?
Tom Tancrado? He’s run on a similar nativist platform to Trump, while at the same time, he was a real-life GOP political office holder, and so brings at least some seriousness to the ticket. And he’s not doing anything at the moment. Plus his political career is pretty well over, so he’s got nothing to lose.
It’d be interesting to see how many people would say no to a spot on the ticket. IIRC, McGovern got shut down serveral times before talking the unfortunate Eagleton into taking the job. I’d think Trump would have to dig even deeper to find someone who would both bring some level of seriousness to the ticket, while at the same time wanted to take the career risk of tying themselves to Trump.
No chance in hell. Penn has repeatedly said on his podcast that if Trump is the GOP nominee, he will vote for Hillary. IIRC, he would actually be willing to campaign for her to stop Trump.
Considering Penn is a hardcore libertarian who detests the Clintons, Hillary in particular, that should tell you his opinion of Trump.
Clearly, anyone who chose to run with Trump will (should) realize that they are committing political suicide. Trump is an egomaniac and clearly anyone running with him would have to be weak and spineless. Political suicide. Michele Bachmann is nutty enough to do it I suppose.
She’s famous for literally nothing other then loosing elections (and, umm, not being a witch, I guess). I think even Trump could find someone with better credentials then that.
Hey, here’s a crazy-one. How about Mitt. He’s got nothing to lose, he still seems vaguely interested in being Prez, he would bring an “adult” to the ticket, he’s an actual successful GOP politician trusted by the establishment, family-value type voters seem to like him and he and Trump could have a unifying theme of being business-bros. And he has a pretty long track-record of swallowing his pride to appeal to the more xenophobic end of the GOP.
Yes. Or Rubio. The reason I mention Rubio is that he gave up his Senate seat to run for president. The reason you are right about Cruz is that, until recently, he was frequently complimenting Trump. Cruz and Rubio would be under a lot of pressure, from the GOP establishment, to do it, so as to avoid the humiliation of not being able to recruit a well-known VP candidate.
However, I can’t get past Trump’s (the next word is generous) nuttiness. How can any halfway sensible person want to be on the same ticket with someone having this ISIS policy:
My best guess is that Trump would have to make a surprise pick, but I don’t really know. Maybe there is a Senator who can’t resist the limelight.
Rubio and Cruz are both ambitious and probably have fairly long careers ahead of them (though Rubio is apparently not running to retain his Senate seat). I have trouble imagining them signing on to a doomed Trump campaign.
Especially Rubio, whose image is largely built on being a moderate Republican. I doubt he’d blow that up just for the opportunity to spend six months trying not to look like he’s gritting his teeth endorsing whatever crazy policy Trump was spouting off that week. Even outside of the Senate, he’ll probably want to leverage his current position into either another office or a cushy lobbyist or thinktank job.
Trump is shrewder than people give him credit for, and there’s no way he’d pick someone like Palin or even Cruz. He’d be looking to balance the ticket and bring in more moderate Republicans, independents, and minorities. That means he needs someone mainstream. The trick would be finding someone who is:
A. Willing to get on the Trump Train, virtually guaranteeing himself either an end to his political career or at least 4 years of living in Trump’s shadow during his presidency (I’m not sure which would be worse), and
B. NOT going to upset Trump’s base too badly, who don’t want to hear anything from career politicians and Washington “insiders.”
This person would be very difficult to find, considering that the best feeling the GOP mainstream can muster for Trump so far is “resignation.”