Vice-Presidential Pool

In selecting from the pool of Vice-Presidential candidates, a Presidential candidate’s choice has some interesting similarities to the actual game of pool itself, especially at the beginning of the game. Right after the “break” a player chooses the next shot. In a typical round, there are a lot of questionable next shots, perhaps one or two good ones, and, almost certainly, some that are more problematic. Conventional wisdom says, President Trump needs to take a prudent next shot and select a strong enough candidate to help him get re-elected. Fortunately, for President Trump, he has a full table of capable candidates

But while the immediate need of getting re-elected is certainly the number one goal for the former President, and for that matter, the country, and the world as well, the stakes in this election cycle are gravely different. Our country is on its heels and about to fall. Long festering national problems have now metastasized under the Biden Administration. 10 million illegal immigrants are overwhelming our social services’ system. Our 35 trillion dollars debt increases by one trillion dollars every 100 days. Inflation is achieving escape velocity. The military has gone woke, has been humiliated in Afghanistan and is lacking basic munitions as well as 40,000 new recruits. Major cities everywhere are being transformed into movie sets for Mad Max III. Inmates are running our college asylums. Our allies no longer trust us and our enemies no longer fear us. Each one of these poses an existential crisis by itself. To be clear, with all of them together, our nation is in collapse mode: the storm has already hit, the power is out, and the ice-box is thawing. Will we be able to restore power in time?

Sadly, as good as the next Trump Administration should be, our problems will not be solved in just four short years. It took FDR 12 years to enshrine modern socialism and bloated government into the American psyche. It took Barak Obiden 12 years to seduce our country toward its current Orwellian precipice. If we are to rebuild from the ashes, it will take a minimum of 12 uninterrupted years of strong leadership in Washington, restoring conservative sanity to the nation. Even that may not be enough for the USS Titanic.

One of the skills of an advanced pool player is how he sets up his shots. The set-up is the ability to make the current shot while simultaneously leaving the cue ball in a place that facilitates a good next shot. Of course, this is a somewhat riskier strategy because it adds a second criteria to the primary one of simply making the immediate necessary shot.

But President Trump’s need to plan ahead and set-up a successor and heir-apparent to the MAGA movement is imperative for future generations of Americans. We can no longer play games with pretty faces or political pandering. Said another way, the country needs four years of a bulldozing Donald Trump and eight more years of a Trumpian like leader to re-make the institutions that have failed us and the policies that have broken us. Leaving us with a strong VP is more important now than ever. Many of the potential candidates may help Trump get elected in the short term, but will they be strong enough on their own to take on the raging left’s war machine in 2028? Let’s not kid ourselves, the wrath of the left and their Uni-party accomplices will not abate once Donald Trump is gone. Their self-serving, America-hating vitriol will need a new repository, should one dare to arise. As with conservative Supreme Court nominees, the left now has an established playbook. Few people, maybe none, will be able to handle the intense scorched-earth pressure that has been unleashed on President Trump. It is his preternatural ability to withstand their 24/7/52 slings and arrows that makes him the champion of mainstream America that he is.

So, the question then becomes what game will President Trump be playing when choosing a running mate. The shorter, beginners, game would be to worry only about his re-election above anything else. He could choose an affable candidate that panders to a constituency where he lacks support. If he does so, he will probably win.

However, if he is more than just the champion of his own imminent return, he will look ahead and play the longer, advanced, game. If he is truly the skilled pro that I hope he is, he’ll play to leave us with a strong, capable leader in his place, one who, unlike Bush Sr. after Reagan, will actually continue his policies. I truly believe that President Trump is viscerally motivated by his love of country. Watching him over the years, I also believe that President Trump is a man driven as much by winning as he is with establishing his brand, the thing that will out-live even him. Without a doubt his return to the Oval Office in 2024 would achieve both. But, as good as that may be, if he were to usher in a new era of conservatism, he could, would, be seen as the best president in modern times. It is harder than you might think, even Reagan struggled with it.

But after listening to numerous rallies and speeches, I am convinced that President Trump views himself as the only thing standing in the way of the deep state and the American people, between tyranny and freedom. Because of that, I suspect he will play the riskier, but more MAGA, set-up game: get re-elected AND leave the country with a proven leader to continue his legacy. Of course, the advanced game is harder to play. In setting up the country for a possible prolonged era of conservativism, he could fail and lose everything in 2024. But the greater his lead in the polls, the greater the risks he can afford to take.

So, let’s get down to it. Who are the truly good shots in the pool of Vice-Presidential candidates? In the long game, the list of viable candidates shrinks rapidly. While speaking of shots, Kristi Noem may have already taken her valedictory political shot, poor puppy, even before her meetings with Kim Jung Un. Tim Scott is too passive. Rubio, Vance, Burgum, Stefanik, Carson, Donalds (et. al.) are all OK but they lack either political skills or are unproven in national conservative leadership roles. Haley, well, forget about it. Tulsi, we love ya, but check back with us in 12 years after your Democrat spots have disappeared for good. My purpose is not to dissect the pro’s and con’s of the obvious candidates, nor to disparage their abilities. But as you filter the potential candidates through the lenses of leadership ability, backbone, and executive experience (all hallmarks of President Trump himself), only two pass muster. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has done a solid job as governor of Arkansas gaining 16 months of leadership and executive experience. She has shown incredible spinal fortitude and poise as press secretary during the first Trump administration. She also has an excellent personal working relationship with Trump himself.

Finally, as governor of one of the most flourishing states in the country, Ron DeSantis has done a wonderful job. He has six years of executive experience of a much larger and demographically diverse state. Nationally, he has shown himself to be a stand-out among his fellow governors, subdued as that field may be.

Our conventional wisdom reminds us that the main role of a VP nominee is to help the president win the next election. Sometimes, but seldom in history, the VP is even a viable presidential nominee. This time the stakes are different. America needs lasting, institutional change if it is to recover from the deliberate, prolonged thawing of its founding values and virtues. Arguably, none of our burning national crises will be solved in four years. Trump needs a VP who is both MAGA capable and MAGA suitable. A capable VP may even spearhead initiatives to address any one or more of our existential problems, and then still have the time to see these nascent initiatives through to fruition in 2028 and beyond.

President Trump has a choice to make. Which game will he play, the long or the short? Where will the VP ball end up once he’s taken best his shot? For our nation’s sake, I believe that he will play the advanced long game and select either Sanders or DeSantis. My money is on Ron DeSantis. Of course, if you’re a Democrat, this is all so much easier, you’re only focused on the eight ball.