This Week in PurpleAmerica- VP Stakes Edition

Potential Trump VPs! Mother's Day! Kristi Noem's Dog! We Cover it all!

Oy. The newsmediaspheremultiverse is already talking about Trump Vice President pick. Regular readers of PurpleAmerica already know what I think of the job of Vice President. I’ve waxed rhapsodic about it here and here. It’s a worthless, powerless job whose prestige comes only from the fact they are one unfortunate incident away from the Presidency. In the case of two 80 year old candidates, I suppose the VP candidate matters, since it’s more likely they become President than if the President was 50. Nonetheless, we here at PurpleAmerica agree wholeheartedly with the assessment of former Vice President John Nance Garnder who said, “The office of the Vice President is not worth a bucket of warm spit.”¹

And as with every election cycle around this time when the candidates are known, DC establishment types LOVE to play this ridiculous parlor game trying to guess who will be the VP picks. Some pundits even go out of their way to make brackets as if this was some sort of March Madness; or lists counting down their guesses like Power Rankings (looking at you on this Chris Cillizza). Not only are these approaches flat out dumb, they’re pointless; the VP doesn’t matter that much and pundit guesses are every bit as useful as that bucket of warm spit Gardner commented on.

Candidates typically select VP Candidates based on various criteria. Those generally are:

• Demographic diversification. Candidate is a man, select a woman. Candidate is white, select a different demographic. Candidate is old, pick someone younger. (Biden-Harris, McCain-Palin, Bush-Quayle)

• Geographic targeting. You need to win a particular state, especially if its close and swing-y? Selecting a well known pol from that state who routinely wins can help your campaign with those Electoral Votes. (Clinton-Kaine, Romney-Ryan, Kennedy-Johnson)

• Ideological diversification. Candidate is a liberal democrat from the coast? A more moderate and established choice would help. Candidate is a die hard conservative bombthrower? Choosing a pragmatic and smart political insider can help bring credibility. (Obama-Biden, Trump-Pence, W.Bush-Cheney)

• Doubling down on a strength. Want to throw more kerosene on a campaign? Make a pick that doubles up on the strength of the candidate (Clinton-Gore, two young southern Dems)

• None of the above. American History is littered with Presidential candidates selecting candidates that made everyone go “Huh?”

Since Biden is the incumbent, Kamala Harris is a 99.9% lock to be his choice. As I mentioned in the previous post, Biden ditching Kamala would be incredibly dumb, despite what some pundits say. I hedge just that little bit on the random chance some unforeseen health scare or a change in heart where she doesn’t want to be VP again intervenes, two unlikely events I don’t think will happen.

So we’re really only talking about who Trump picks. Mike Pence, Trump’s former V.P. has already taken himself out of the running; that is what happens when the President incites a mob bent on hanging you. So for all practical purposes, Trump’s choice is wide open, and he can pretty much select whomever he wants for the job.

As per usual, every pundit is speculating on which direction Trump will go. They’re throwing out all sorts of names. Any potential candidate is built up or torn down with every news appearance. It really is a stupid and pointless exercise. You want to know why?

Because the candidate is still Trump.

Whether you vote for Trump or not will not depend on who his Vice Presidential candidate is. He’s the whole show. His V.P. pick is the equivalent of the other people sitting on his side of the table during the Apprentice— nobody cares who they are or what they have to say. People aren’t there to watch them. I’m sure he’s going to want to make a huge show of it, and give the impression he’s strongly considering all the options and who would do well in the job. For him, the only real requirement is that the V.P. do what Pence didn’t—shamelessly advocate for him at all costs to their intergity and sanity. Other than that, the choice is irrelevant.

The Trump V.P. stakes is as unnecessary as those early stakes races at the Kentucky Derby that are never really covered and are given no attention; filled with also-rans, looking to garner whatever media spotlight they can for future stakes races but really having nothing to do with the big show for which everyone came. Remember that as the news punditocracy starts focusing on this infinitely pointless exercise and Trump makes his decision. For all intents and purposes, Trump’s choice may as well be an inanimate carbon rod, since it will have the same impact on the election as anyone would.

PurpleAmerica’s People of the Past Week

The Good

Mystik Dan. Speaking of the Kentucky Derby, winning the closest Kentucky Derby ever deserves some respect from those of us at PurpleAmerica. Congrats.

The Knicks and the Timberwolves. Holy cow. This is what playoff Basketball is all about. Brunson and Edwards are taking over the NBA.

Dick Rutan. The first person to circumnavigate the globe in a single flight died this week at the age of 85. Rutan was a pioneer in flight pushing aviation to new levels. Godspeed Dick.

The Bad

Met Gala and Kentucky Derby Fashion attention. Newscasters— why do you waste so much attention on this irrelevant circus sideshow? Leave it to E! and online crap tabloids.

RFK, Jr. He admitted this week that at one point he went to doctors, they told him he had an actual worm in his brain, it ate some tissue, and then died. Since then he’s had some cognitive issues. That explains his anti-vax positions but not really why he is still running for President.

The Ugly

Kristi Noem (again). As if killing Crickets wasn’t awful enough, last weekend another blurb from her book claimed she met with Kim Jong Un, which was easily fact checked as a lie. That’s enough to be “bad” but what makes it ugly was the book promo tour on some of the programs when she was confronted with this and she 1) blamed the ghostwriter, despite the fact she spoke the same passages on the audiobook and then 2) avoided the questions when confronted by the reporters. That’s bottom rung right there.

The Stormy Daniels Testimony. The details of this are uuuuuuugggg-lllllllllllyyyyyyy.

Have a nominee for us to consider? Send an email to purpleamericanunity@gmail.com!

PurpleAmerica Pop Culture Random Top Five

This week: The Top 5 Pink Floyd Songs that Capture Our Political Moment.

We live in strange times. Pink Floyd titles currently sum up this week pretty nicely.

5. Waiting for the Worms. It’s not everyday you have a Presidential candidate announce he had brain worms.

4. Young Lust. Tell me that when you were hearing the news coming out of the NY Courtroom while Stormy Daniels was testifying about her time with Trump that you couldn’t picture in the back of your mind Trump saying at the time, “OOOOHHhhhhh….I need a dirty woman.”

3. The Trial. “Crazy, over the rainbow he is crazy, jury gone fishing.”

2. Stop! I realize this song itself is pretty short and doesn’t quite fit, but I’m pretty sure most of you would agree, that at our current moment, we just want all of this idiocy, mayhem, and general bedlam to just stop. I can’t be alone in that.

1. Mother. Well, it IS Mother’s Day weekend (more on that further below). “Mother should I run for President? Mother should I trust the Government?….ohhh aahhh, Is it just a waste of time?

PurpleAmerica’s Best Articles of the Week

This piece by Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic, about the new propaganda wars being waged by China, Russia and other bad actors is a must-read.

The always wise and savvy David Ignatius at the Washington Post posits what “The Day After” in the Gaza-Israeli War looks like, and how a diplomatic solution ultimately will be created.

The always readable and concise Catherine Rampell from the Washington Post talks about the ridiculousness of Trump’s economic proposals which would spike inflation, particularly relating to Fed Reserve Board Independence.

The Liberal Patriot has this interesting piece about “Trump Nostalgia,” that weird sense among the electorate that the Trump years weren’t as bad as the Biden years. (They were actually exponentially worse).

PurpleAmerica’s Subscriber Mail

When we here at PurpleAmerica Respond to the Teeming Millions (well, we’re still working on that first million)

I didn’t get a whole lot of emails this week. Maybe it’s the nice spring weather. Who knows.

“…six percent in six states? This only underscores why we need to scrap the Electoral College!”

No. I’ve written before about that here. It’s a stupid idea. But I’ll add another reason for you. It’s not uncommon to have a recount in elections. Imagine a recount, not just within a state, but within EVERY state. Next imagine the scrutiny that will be involved in every state, and the level of pressure; this would be what Trump did in Georgia on steroids, spread out across all 50 states. Think about the many court cases that would erupt IN EVERY STATE. Think about how long Trump dragged that out last time. Think about how all that energy was parlayed into an insurrection the day they counted EVs. Think about how much MORE likely that would be and MORE contentious. Every vote in every state counts. When we say “six states” it just means that these six can really go either way.

“OMG. Moe Berg! What a great story! Why haven’t they made that into a movie?“

I first heard about Berg from Sam Kean’s excellent book, “The Bastard Brigade,” which was about different ways the US tried getting scientists out of German occupied Europe and how we tried to sabotage the German bomb program. For those interested, it’s a really great read. That book should be made into a movie or a limited series.

Anyway, in writing this piece, I was surprised to find out that they actually HAD made a movie about Berg, titled “The Catcher was a Spy” and starred Paul Rudd as Berg. From the iMDB reviews, it wasn’t a particularly good movie, and even hinted that Berg was a homosexual (from most accounts, the real life Berg was more of a ladies man and womanizer, though he did have a long term relationship with a piano instructor). I’m not quite sure Rudd was a good casting choice either as he usually plays likeable characters while Berg was a little more socially awkward and brusque with people. (who do you think should play Berg? Place your choice in the comments!)

Have a question you want us to answer? Email us at purpleamericanunity@gmail.com

PurpleAmerica’s Historical Note from This Week

On this day in 1908, America first observed Mother’s Day.

Let’s hear it for all the Moms out there. If you’re able, do something nice for your mom this weekend. I’d recommend though that you don’t go as far as Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg do in this SNL video.

PurpleAmerica’s Dad/Uncle/Cheesy Joke of the Week

Why are new computers so smart? They listen to their motherboards.

And with that…

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. This is the quote I have seen repeatedly, but I have also heard “spit” substituted with the word “piss.”