In the case of a Donald Trump presidency, he’d need a vice president. The names that come to mind for this role are … no one. Trump has been an expert at making enemies on the campaign trail. But, Trump floated a few names of possible vice president candidates, including U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, Gov. John Kasich, R-Ohio, and our very own Gov. Scott Walker.
Now, all of these names are a shock, seeing as Kasich is still in the Republican race and given Trump’s rocky history with Rubio, but Walker’s nod as a possible running mate with Trump is truly absolutely absurd and makes no political sense.
First of all, Trump really showed no respect toward Walker when he was in Wisconsin. Trump’s quotes about Walker ranged from taunts of the governor to flat out ridicule.
“Look, I beat him very badly,” he said at a rally in Wisconsin, “… I gave all of the statistics on how badly Wisconsin is doing — the jobs that are being taken away, the businesses, the lack of growth. When I gave all of those statistics, he couldn’t dispute them.”
Choosing a running mate that you don’t respect isn’t a good signal to the American people. The vice president, even if their role isn’t that particularly important, helps to portray the attitude of the president. No respect between president and vice president is a signal to the nation that this ticket won’t respect the nation.
Secondly, Walker recently endorsed U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, during the Wisconsin primary. This showed Walker is pulling for any other candidate besides Trump to gain the Republican nomination.
It’s mind-boggling to think that someone who hasn’t even supported Trump, let alone actively shown his support for another candidate, would be a good fit as a Trump vice president.
Walker put it best when he said, “I literally just heard it in the car and I said — I laughed — it’s kind of interesting to hear that after the things that were said about me a couple weeks ago.”
Not only is it interesting interesting, but this is also a serious misunderstanding by Trump as to how the Republican base views his candidacy.
Aaron Reilly ([email protected]) is a freshman majoring in comparative literature and Russian.
