Gheorghe Explains the Election: Trump's VP Pick

It's a foregone conclusion that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee come November. This is surprising at first blush, but not so much when you look at his closest competitors.



Also surprising at first blush was Chris Christie's decision to endorse Trump. Shortly before he dropped out of the race, Christie used the Marls voice to mockingly impersonate Trump.



Pundits have posited that Christie made this move with the hopes of getting the vice presidential nod. I don't see that happening.

Picking a vice president is difficult. For example, about 25 years ago a man named Bush was running for president as a Republican. At the time the GOP was perceived as being less than welcoming to minorities, so he apparently considered making Colin Powell his veep. Chris Rock explained why he didn't--someone would try to kill Bush so that Powell would be the first black president. So instead he went with Dan Quayle, probably because no one on earth would kill Bush to put Quayle in the big seat. Parenthetically, despite being a remarkably reasonable pick for president, Bush lost to someone named Clinton largely because an upstart billionaire lunatic with no elected experience decided to make a self-funded run for the presidency. It was a completely different world back then.

Although Christie isn't wildly popular, most rational people would prefer a President Christie over a President Trump. So if Christie got the veep nod, then politicians from both sides of the aisle would do anything they could to impeach The Donald. Trump knows this (he's running his campaign on some next-level reality TV competition three-steps-ahead shit) so his VP pick will be even less appealing than he is, but will still bring in some extra votes that Trump doesn't already have. Who might that be?

1. Sarah Palin

She already endorsed Trump and will help get some of the Cruz/Tea Party/maniac vote that Trump doesn't already have. She has that whole mavericky outsider thing going on and could theoretically help remediate Trump's image with women. No one would do anything to kill or depose Trump so that Palin could move up--that's a frying-pan-to-fire situation. Her downside is that she already destroyed a GOP nominee's campaign.

2. David Duke

No one will kill Trump to put Duke in charge. A Trump/Duke ticket would lock up 99.999% of the racist/xenophobe vote, practically guaranteeing that most if not all of Cruz's and Rubio's anti-immigrant base will vote Trump. A Trump/Duke ticket would also repulse all of the non-white vote, as well as all voters with humanity and conscience. Seems like a longshot but then again, nothing makes sense this election cycle.

3. Arnold Schwarzanegger

This isn't an outlandish choice. He ran two successful campaigns as a liberal-ish Republican in a blue state. He governed one of the largest economies in the world. He might be an even bigger celebrity than Trump and he has a devoted following of fans that will bring in votes. Having Schwarzanegger on the ticket might help rational conservatives reconcile the reasonableness of an otherwise unreasonable vote for Trump.

Arnold cannot be president because he was born in Austria so if Trump is out then Paul Ryan would be the Prez. This might seem to cut against Arnold (Geoff would try to snuff Trump in an instant in this scenario), but when you think more it makes total sense. If someone were going to try to assassinate the president, wouldn't you want The Terminator there to protect him? They made like three or four movies on this exact topic where he successfully repelled time-traveling liquid metal monsters to save Edward Furlong! He's perfectly fit to shield The Donald. Sure, some of the more ignorant racist voters would look at the last five letters of Schwarzanegger's name and refuse to vote for him, but how many ignorant racists who are unfamiliar with the Governator can there be?

4. Jim Dolan/Fred Wilpon/Dan Snyder/Donald Sterling

A repugnant inexperienced billionaire president could protect his job by backing himself up with an even more repugnant and inexperienced billionaire vice president. Dolan, Wilpon, Snyder and Sterling have solid track records of atrocious spending and terrible management/decision-making. No one wants them in charge of something as irrelevant as a sports franchise let alone the country. But any one of these four mopes would bring in a lot of votes, perhaps counter-intuitively. If you're a fan of any of their franchises, would you rather have them screwing up your team or screwing up the Trump administration (which will be screwed up no matter the veep selection)? These guys have legs. Snyder and Sterling might be Trump's first options given their enlightened views on race.

5. Stacey Dash

How many famously conservative black women are there? She would provide a modicum of cover on Trump's racist and sexist shortcomings, and she's remarkably photogenic. Damon Dash could be Secretary of Commerce.

6. Dan Quayle

It worked for G.H.W. Bush in 1988.

Any of the foregoing make more sense than a Vice President Christie in terms of getting more votes and for protecting Trump's back. I predict instead that Trump puts Christie up for Justice Scalia's seat and after confirmation he morphs into a law-and-order version of Justice Souter.

And none of it will matter when former Trump endorsee/billionaire Mitt Romney runs as a self-funded independent candidate.