Republican presidential primary, we barely knew ye. Salvé, veepstakes.
Expect the next several months to be a gladiatorial to-the-death showstopper extravaganza where the part of imperial Commodus will be played by the once and future near-octogenarian de-facto fascismo nominee, Donald J. Trump.
Conventional wisdom would suggest the Mar-a-Lago Mussolini ought to be clearing his casting couch for swing state or youthful party leaders, who, like eight years ago, could help him coalesce the establishment wing of the GOP. Except it’s eight years later and the Donald (now a convicted lady-groin grabber) has transformed the party establishment into his own personal plaything. He does not need conventional. He needs a lickspittle lackey.
Mike Flynns and Ric Grenells of the world, rejoice. But in the event the great Orange God King does choose to humor the political class, he has a few limited options.
Trump will need every state he won in 2020, plus some combo of the six that swung away, namely: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada. Of those, half elected Republicans in 2022, while the other three stayed the course and shut the GOP out entirely statewide.
Packers fans sent Republican Ron Johnson back to the U.S. Senate after narrowly delivering the Badger State for Joe Biden by fewer than 21,000 votes two years prior. Johnson has been a reliable shill for every “America First” initiative over the past eight years, voted twice to acquit the former president during his impeachment trials, and consistently promoted fringe conspiracy theories like “race replacement” at every opportunity.
Next, we can safely say that without Trump, Ohio’s J.D. Vance would be just another corpse collecting maggots on the landfill of political also-ran obscurity. Since eking out a bare plurality on the back of Trump’s endorsement in the 2022 Senate primary, Vance has manifested himself a staunch acolyte of MAGA eternal — refusing to acknowledge the 2020 election wasn’t stolen, and fanboying over Vladimir Putin.
Given his proximity to and shared roots with Appalachian Western Pennsylvania, Vance could prove a boost in a state Biden flipped by a little more than 1%.
Conversely, Govs. Joe Lombardo of Nevada and Georgia’s Brian Kemp have signaled such a vexingly stubborn allegiance to the Constitution that the frice indicted career kleptocrat has practically excommunicated both from his orbit.
There is one potential short-lister who ticks all the based boxes: former Hawaii congresswoman and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard.
Unlike Q-Anon Ron and Surrender Vance, Gabbard is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, was deployed to Iraq, is a recipient of the Meritorious Service Medal, and the first Samoan-American to serve in Congress. She’s what the former “Apprentice” host would consider “good casting.”
No longer a Democrat, Gabbard has spoken at CPAC, voted “present” during Trump’s first impeachment, guest hosted what used to be “Tucker Carlson Tonight” where she vilified the Justice Department for its lawful raid on Mar-a-Lago, and, perhaps most telling, successfully rattled rival Kamala Harris during the July 30, 2019 Democratic presidential primary debate.
Checkmate, gin, and yahtzee.
While poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight pegs Biden’s approval rating at 39%, Harris rates shockingly worse, at 37.5% — coupled with her boss’s advanced age and the perception he could suffer a debilitating health crisis in a second term, the thought of a President Harris sends voters stampeding into the open sweaty embrace of the con man from Queens by an 8.5% margin, according to a Real Clear Politics average.
Oddly, pundits continue to popularize the forever thirsty Rep. Elise Stefanik and Gov. Kristi Noem as potential VP material. But why would Harvard Elise, who did debate prep for Paul Ryan after toiling away in the Bush globalist White House, who spent three years lambasting Trump before greasing herself up to be MAGA’s chief congressional sleaze, get anointed over true believers Johnson, Vance, or media maven Gabbard?
As for Noem, her preference for extra-marital intrigue effectively puts the kibosh on any vaulting ambition. However, none of these Falange Five can help buoy their Golden Pyrite Calf over his ever-mounting electoral hump.
Trump’s conscious effort to systematically shrink the GOP over the past eight years — especially, in must-win swing states, will end up caponizing any vice presidential vetting pool, and leave his already cash-strapped campaign threepeat starved for hyper-oxygenated political phosphodiesterase.
Brass tacks: Nov. 5 will be a referendum on Trump and Trump alone. Dictum factum.
Schiffbauer is a political consultant and served as deputy communications director for the New York Republican State Committee from 2014-16.
