With Donald Trump slipping, if not precipitously yet nonetheless seriously, in the polls, his choice of a vice-presidential candidate looms all the more important. The wrong choice could doom him, the right choice pull him up even, perhaps ahead of Hillary Clinton. As a not altogether disinterested observer, I should like to make some suggestions that I hope the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee might find worth pondering.
The advantages of Donald Trump’s taking on Chris Christie as his running mate are evident. More than a third of Americans are obese, and something like 74 percent of American men are said to be overweight. Governor Christie, a role model of sorts for full-figured Americans, ought to bring a substantial portion of these heavyset voters into the Trump camp, thereby demonstrating that overweight, while not necessarily beautiful, is far from disqualifying.
For reasons not in the least difficult to explain, Trump is doing poorly among people of color. This crucial deficit could be easily made up if he were to take on John Boehner as his running mate. Like Trump himself, Boehner is a person of color. The color, of course, is orange, a minuscule minority within a larger minority, to be sure, but one to be neglected at Trump’s peril and one that makes the former Speaker of the House worth considering as a running mate.
No one giving Donald Trump advice can ignore the possibility of his appointing a woman vice-presidential candidate, thus claiming responsibility for shattering a somewhat lower but nevertheless substantial glass ceiling of his own. Elizabeth Warren is for ideological reasons naturally out of the question—tantalizing though it would be for Trump, with such a candidate by his side, simultaneously to eat into Hillary Clinton’s lead among women voters, outflanking Mrs. Clinton on the left, and easily surpassing her in attracting the Native American vote. In this the year of the anti-establishment insurgence, a woman well known yet outside politics might nicely fill out the ticket. As someone who has national recognition, with the added bonus of bringing in that increasingly large body of voters over ninety before they cross the line into dementia, the comedienne Betty White comes to mind here.
A Jewish vice-presidential candidate is a trickier matter. As is well known, the Jews have been in the pocket of the Democratic party from the days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and long before. So much is this so that if today Moses ran as a Republican, a majority of Jews would vote for Pharoah. Yet Trump’s choosing an unmistakably Jewish running mate could change this. The Satmar or Lubavitcher rebbe might be just the man for Trump—black hat, earlocks, tzitzits, and all—thereby reinforcing Trump’s tendency, alluring to so many of his followers, never to go at things halfway. On the other hand, Noam Chomsky ought not to be overlooked, for, along with being Jewish, he can be counted on to bring in the Boycott, Divest, Sanction voters, a substantial number of whom are still lined up behind Bernie Sanders.
A famous athlete or a talk-show host are two other possibilities not to be overlooked. Mike Tyson, who is already in the Trump camp, ought to be considered, though focus groups would need to be conducted to see how large neck and face tattoos play with independent voters. Bill O’Reilly is an intriguing prospective candidate. His large hands might be an asset, for Trump, as is well known, comes up somewhat short in that department.
Whether Donald Trump would be comfortable with any of the potential running mates is less than certain. He might do best with someone whose temperament, taste, and general sensibility come close to matching his own. That person, though it is unclear if he would be willing to undergo the rigors of a presidential campaign, is at hand in Mike Ditka, the bumptious and ill-tempered coach of the 1985 Super Bowl champion Chicago Bears. The bumper sticker is easily imagined: “Donald and Mike—What’s Not to Like?” Sounds like a winner to me.
