The attention to the VP debate has me thinking about VP choices and what they show about the person making them. Take Donald Trump’s two quite different choices as a recent example.
His choice of Mike Pence reflects Trump’s status as an outsider to politics and his need to have someone who’d spent a lot of life in politics alongside. That Pence had bona fides with evangelicals didn’t hurt when Trump had the show biz baggage and serial wives. Pence was old GOP.
Contrast Vance with Pence. Vance is new GOP and almost an outsider himself. As a successful President, Trump is no longer a political novice and doesn’t need the sort of legitimacy Pence provided. Now he needs an outreach to younger voters and a MAGA true believer, which Vance has become.
It’s likely Vance has a future in Republican politics (see below). His non-white wife and mixed race kids are a bonus in the increasingly multiethnic GOP.
