Trump Doesn't Need a Neocon Running Mate

Scott McConnell

Politics, Americas

He has no reason to dilute a successful formula.

Few voters will make final decisions over whether or not Donald Trump pretended to be his own publicist or carried on like a rich playboy between marriages a generation ago. But his vice presidential selection is enormously important, both in terms of whether Trump can gather the GOP behind him, and whether he can be perceived broadly as a plausible president.

Trump’s own comments have been down the middle—he has specified that he wants someone with government experience who will help him cement the fissures in the GOP. But as if to demonstrate how broad such guidelines are, last week two surprising suggestions from serious Washington journalists were injected into the conversation.

One, by TNI editor Jacob Heilbrunn, was that Trump could calm the party’s troubled waters by selecting Marco Rubio as his veep—which would “enable a Trump-neocon rapprochement. . . [and] go a long way towards ending the schism created by his rise.”

Others nearer the Trump sphere have mentioned Rubio too, with an eye towards softening Trump’s perceived anti-Latino image and appealing to moderate or establishment Republicans. Political comics might have a field day riffing off Rubio’s campaign comments about the size of Donald Trump’s hands, and by every seeming indication Rubio is a long way from being ready to join such a ticket. Still, Heilbrunn is probably correct that a Rubio selection would considerably soften the neoconservative resistance to Trump.

A variant on this idea was put forth by Eli Clifton on Lobelog, this time by recommending Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. Like Rubio, Cotton is a neocon protégé, a foreign-policy hawk who has recently been busying himself in the Senate trying to put barriers in the way of successful implementation of the Iran deal. Unlike Rubio, the young senator seems to be actually lobbying for the role, pouring cold water on Bill Kristol’s plans to run someone as an anti-Trump third-party candidate, and letting it be known that he would welcome being chosen by Trump.