We take a look through early VP's and then breakdown why Trump chose Pence, and will not be choosing Haley as his 2024 running mate.
We take a look through early VP's and then breakdown why Trump chose Pence, and will not be choosing Haley as his 2024 running mate.
Haley is Not Going to be Trump’s Running Mate
December 2023
“I do not propose to be buried until I am dead.”
Senator Daniel Webster, turning down the vice presidency in 1839.
“I am vice president. In this I am nothing, but I may be everything.”
John Adams, elected vice president 1788 and 1792.
“I will never run against our great President,’ she said, ‘he has done an outstanding job.’ To which I responded, ‘How nice of you to say, Nikki,’ knowing full well that her words mean nothing. She even came to Mar-a-Lago with her family, ‘bearing gifts.’ Anyway, Birdbrain doesn’t have the TALENT or TEMPERAMENT to do the job.”
Donald Trump
A major party’s nominee selection criteria have changed throughout the history of the Republic.
Prior to the 1803 passage of the 12th Amendment, our first few presidents had no choice in their eventual VPs. Until the 1804 election, the person with the 2nd most electoral votes would be named VP. Thus, Adams got stuck with his political enemy, Thomas Jefferson. And Jefferson, in turn, had to manage with Aaron Burr as his number two.
Quick aside, Burr was the sitting vice president when he killed Alexander Hamilton. This is akin to Kamala Harris shooting Steven Mnuchin in a duel. I am not saying that Harris would shoot a man, just speculating, of course. This would be Harris’ explanation of dueling:
Dueling is when two people, a duo, attempt to harm one another in a dueling, dual fashion. There are also seconds, but distinguish these seconds from the original duelists.
There are two seconds, another duo, and they are part of the duel.
The purpose of the 12th Amendment was to separate the elections, which meant that a President might still get stuck with a VP not to his liking. One example included John Quincy Adams, who had to deal with Thomas Calhoun. With such weighty figures as Adams and Andrew Jackson already running for president, Calhoun decided to run for VP and wait for a more suitable time to go for the bigger job. Adams and Calhoun agreed politically on few issues and had a tense relationship, which only deteriorated during the administration.
Realizing the contention this process caused, Andrew Jackson (after enduring Calhoun as HIS VP, decided in 1832 to run as a pair with the Democratic nominee for VP, Martin Van Buren, a close ally of Jackson. The election saw the first use of the presidential nominating conventions, and the Democrats, National Republicans, and the Anti-Masonic Party all used these events to select their candidates. Then, in the election of 1836, Van Buren ran with Richard M Johnson, winning and further cementing the concept of a ticket. By the next election in 1840, sloganeering touted a pair. War of 1812 hero William Henry Harrison ran with John Tyler with the phrase “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.” The former having been a battle won by Harrison.
Later, nominees would begin with the necessary political calculations that they felt would enhance the ticket to garner the most votes. One example fraught with disaster was Lincoln’s selection of Andrew Johnson in place of the Northerner (Maine) Hannibal Hamlin, who ran with Lincoln in 1860. Johnson was not only a Southerner from Tennessee but a pro-unionist and Democrat to boot. Lincoln felt that adding Johnson would assist with reconciling the Southern states after losing the war. In reality, after Lincoln’s assassination, Johnson put in place a blatantly pro-southern program that was vehemently opposed by the radical Republicans then in control of Congress.
I have commented more extensively on the Vice Presidency in my podcast, “The Vice Presidential Choice through U.S. History,” and linked in the transcript.
I will not recapture the details here except for two quotes: John Nance Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s first VP, saying that the job was “not worth a warm bucket of piss.” And there is the John Adams reference to being nothing but could be “everything,” which makes the job of such importance. Of the 46 presidents thus far, eight have succeeded due to the death of a president and one, Gerald Ford, upon a resignation. But there is the “nothing” aspect of the job. Our VPs, with the exception of Dick Cheney in the George W Bush administration, go to funerals and talk to schoolchildren about science, and that is about it.
Though the core of this podcast is history, I certainly engage in the practice of political commentary. If presidential election content were a meal, the election of 2024 is starting to seem less like Thanksgiving, a sumptuous feast involving turkey, cream corn pudding, and pumpkin pie, and more Oliver Twist-like watery gruel.
In 1992, we had an incumbent President, a scion of a long-time political family against a young, brash southerner who played saxophone on late-night TV. This year we will not have a decorated, long-term senatorial maverick vs. a youngish African American as in 2008. Instead, we have an incumbent who is a doddering and ineffectual old man vs. a former president who incited a Capitol Hill riot, thinks it is okay to assault women sexually, and labels fellow Americans as vermin. This candidate has also suggested that immigrants bring “poisonous blood” to our Republic. Aside from the simple fact that we are all descended from immigrants (even Native American ancestors came over a land bridge from Asia), the obvious connotation of this statement should be disqualifying alone. We have an impasse in which the Democratic power brokers are afraid of giving away the power of incumbency, and the Republican base of primary voters have lost their minds.
So, with this as a background, political pundits need something, anything else to talk about, rather than the apparent disqualification of one candidate on account of age and the other of insanity. This brings us to Nikki Haley. Though Biden would have done well to dispense with Kamala Harris, he cannot drop a woman of color in this version of the Democratic Party. So that is set.
Despite his obsequious behavior through the four years of the Trump presidency, Mike Pence found his inner conservatism and American values voice on Jan. 6 and did his duty in not contesting Biden’s electoral victory in Congress. RINO is a favorite Trump smear that ostensibly means a person who does not employ the traditional conservative values of the GOP. Yet Trump, who wishes to Nationalize education and desires to be “dictator for the day,” is not a conservative. So, in reality, RINO equals a lack of slavish devotion to Trump. Pence’s actions on Jan. 6 qualify him for the RINO tag, disqualifying him from the running mate slot he held in 2016 and 2020. Thus, the opening and speculation around Nikki Haley assuming the GOP ticket’s underside.
There has been speculation for years that Trump would run with a woman, and so every prominent GOP female who is not on Trump’s naughty list (looking at you, Liz Cheney) seems to qualify. Speculation has run from failed Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake to successfully elected South Dakota governor Kristi Noem to Congressperson Elise Stefanik.
And now there is Haley. The concept of selecting an electoral rival for a running mate has been introduced previously. Lyndon B. Johnson ran against John F Kennedy for the Democratic nomination before being named running mate in 1960. One of the goals of this addition was to add a Southerner to the ticket. Kennedy’s winning of Johnson’s native state of Texas, which tipped the election, proved the worth of his choice. George HW Bush ran against Reagan in 1980 before assuming the 2nd place on the ticket. Reagan was assumed to be a cowboy and a bit too conservative. The more moderate Bush would bring balance.
Not only would Haley be the first female GOP nominee on a ticket since 2008 when Sarah Palin ran, but unlike that 1-year governor of one of the smallest states (population-wise) in the Union, Haley brings a wealth of experience. She was a conservative, two-term governor of South Carolina and then later served Trump himself as ambassador to the United Nations. Candidates rarely possess both domestic and foreign policy experience. She is poised and articulate on the stump. And she can even serve up the “woman of color” card, as her parents are of Indian descent. So, what’s not to like? This should be a slam dunk.
Yet the GOP’s national record since 2016 (the year Trump took over the place) is 1-4. And that, “one” was against arguably the most odious politician of our times. In 2022, the nation was concerned with Crime, Immigration, Inflation, foreign wars, and just about any issue you could think of. Poll after poll showed deep dissatisfaction with the Democrats. But after Trump started to hand-pick candidates to his liking, Lake included, the result was losing the Senate (again) and switching 6 House seats for a tiny majority. In contrast with the supposed RINO years, in 2010, the House GOP caucus picked up 63 seats, and in 2014, the GOP picked up 9 Senate seats, cementing a Senate that overturned Roe. Trump has an uncanny knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. The fact that Haley makes so much sense might in and of itself be a check against her in the bizarro world of politics in which we now inhabit. But there is much more.
When Trump selected Pence, he was trying to kill more than a few birds. Trump is a libertine, or worse, serial sexual assaulter. Pence is famous as a family man castigated for not having one-on-one dinners with female employees. The horror! I love how in a time of Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein this is seen as a negative. Pence was also an old Washington hand who knew his way around the corridors of power. Before his 2016 win, Trump’s only political experience was a failed run in 2000 on the Reform Party ticket.
But I feel there was another more incisive reason for Trump’s selection. Think of the others running for the GOP nomination in 2016 who could have been his running mate. Trump could have selected another firebrand in Ted Cruz, who could also help with the Washington experience. Carly Fiorina may have courted a more significant share of women. There was Marco Rubio for the Hispanic vote. And though Chris Christie has done an about-face on Trump in 2023, Seven years ago, he took out Rubio for Trump, and his behavior was sycophantic as Christie coveted a cabinet post. Instead, Trump went with Pence, who, notably, was not running for president in 2016.
There is a fun website called Personality-Political. This captures Pence reasonably well, “Pence may be described as a dutiful conformist personality type with a conscientious deliberator leadership style.” Other descriptors include “Accommodating, cooperative, congenial, retiring, and reserved.” In other words, the yin to Trump’s loud, boastful, narcissistic yang.
For 50 years now, we have had the Donald Trump show. It’s not the Ivana and Don show or Trotting With the Trumps in which Eric or Ivanka have equal roles. Not only has Trump been Truman from the Jim Carrey movie, but he knew the cameras were on and craved the attention.
His life has been a reality TV show until he hosted one. And in that there were two other judges, including his daughter, but they rotated in and out. Trump is Harold Hill from The Music Man without Marion librarian, the townsfolk, or Iowa. Trump’s show is like Two and a Half Men if the promiscuous Charlie were alone and had no brother or nephew. He is Elder Price from the musical Book of Mormon, but instead of Mostly Me, the song is Only Me.
Many people think he went with Pence because he was experienced and evangelical. Those were bonuses. He went with him because Pence is low-key and was ready for the obsequious on-demand attitude that works with Trump. It is not that Trump does not like loud people. There was a time when he liked Christie well enough. Don Jr. is no shrinking violet. Instead, it is that the megaphone must always be in service to Trump, not to the ambitions of any around him. Note how Lake and Noem have faded from consideration because both carry their ambition on their sleeves – for themselves, and that will not do.
Here are a few Haley quotes:
I wear heels, and it’s not for a fashion statement - it’s ammunition.
I encourage people to find and use the power of their voices just as much when I do not agree with those voices as when I do agree with them.
This all sounds like typical rhetoric from many female politicians. But coming from an ex-two-term governor, an ex-Ambassador to the UN, and a woman who is currently besting all of the men in the GOP primary (with the notable exception of who is not on the stage), it sounds different. It sounds like someone who is in it for herself.
There are also two aspects of Trump’s choice in 2024 that are very different from 2016. Though if anyone were to try to negate the 25th Amendment, it would be Donald Trump, but thinking that is one institution too far. So, he is a one-termer. And though Trump probably is of the I-will-live-forever crowd, even he must acknowledge the candles on his birthday cake could start a raging inferno if he is not careful. That means whoever he chooses will be positioned for a run in 2028 from the get-go. Or thinking of assuming the office even sooner.
If you do not think the “nothing to everything” move has occurred to Kamala Harris, I want to talk to you about a beautiful piece of real estate in Manhattan’s Upper East Side. And it is the same with the overweight, 78 year old former president. So instead of the low-key dog on a leash just happy to be out for a walk with its master Pence type, Haley will have a husky pulling at the cord, trying to break free and make her own way. She might initially toe the line in the first year or two, but second terms are always lame-duck ones, which is why, for the past 50 years, the big stuff (except for Reagan) tends to happen in the first. Knowing he has just the one term, Trump will be even more conscious that the spotlight stays on him.
Then there is the contention that Haley has been very weak in directly attacking Trump, which is supposed to be some sign. In a normal, pre-Trump era, a front-runner who had 91 indictments was successfully sued in court for groping a woman in a store or who called his fellow Americans “vermin” would generate attack ad after attack ad. Only Christie attacks Trump, and the rest do not for two reasons. The first is that a successful presidential bid will have to form some accommodation with the 20-30% of hardcore Trump supporters, the MAGA bloc. The second is that Trump is the classic schoolyard bully, complete with pejorative, infantile nicknames. Better to let others earn his wrath lest he come for your lunch money. For all the crap that Ron DeSantis has taken (Desanctimonious, meatball Ron – again, these names alone should disqualify Trump), he has not punched back as hard or as often as a typical campaign would entail. RDS is really aiming for 2028.
And yet, as I was recording this podcast: a super PAC that supports Haley made a direct attack on Trump. Why now and why this vehicle? Super PACs are interesting things. Technically known as independent expenditure-only committees, super PACs may raise unlimited sums of money from corporations, unions, associations, and individuals, then spend unlimited sums to advocate for or against political candidates overtly. Unlike traditional PACs, super PACs are prohibited from donating money directly to political candidates, and their spending must not be coordinated with that of the candidates they benefit. They advocate for a candidate but are not of the candidate and are considered separate from the formal campaign. Haley can publicly exert as much or as little direct control over these as she wants. She can tell MAGA, “So sorry, the boys just get out of control. I don’t really mean those things.” Unless her poll numbers go up, of course, were that to happen, the Trump attacks might begin to resemble something more normal.
Which is another reason Trump will not select her. I may make this distinction per Haley’s formal campaign and her Super PAC. You may as well. MAGA might even make that distinction. Trump will not.
So, Haley will not get the role. A better selection from Haley’s home state might be Tim Scott, who has the right demeanor for what Trump wants. He would be happy to be along for a ride but never want to grab the wheel. But Scott is not a woman and he has shown his hand by running for the nomination in the first place, the one that Trump believes is his by right. We will eventually see a deferential GOP woman whose every utterance will accrue to the benefit of Donald Trump and nothing about her worth (mayyyyybeee Stefanik). It will not be Haley. Someday, perhaps in 2028, Nikki Haley might be everything, but that will not come in a run with Donald Trump.