Out of the Running
Donald Trump continues to tease folks about who he’s picking as his running mate. The latest suggestion is that whoever it is will be in Atlanta for Thursday’s presidential debate. That doesn’t narrow it down much, since virtually everyone supposedly on the short list is already known to have a flight to Georgia this week.
One person who is not in the running is South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. She admitted as much on one of the Sunday TV talk shows, saying she was not asked to submit information as part of the vetting process.
That’s either going to be the biggest fake-out in history…or the biggest what-might-have-been.
I was one of those who said long ago that Noem was at the top of Trump’s list. She has experience in Congress, she has run South Dakota well, she comes across well on television, and she is female. Above all, she showed full loyalty to Trump by not running for president herself this cycle, and for endorsing him early and loudly.
But then came that book, that included meetings with foreign leaders that didn’t happen and stories about shooting and killing animals. The first is inexcusable, blaming a ghost writer; as one Democrat chirped, “We know you didn’t write the book, but you should have at least read it.”
The other stories are no doubt true as examples of life on the ranch. But it’s still hard to fathom what benefit she was going to gain politically by telling those tales. At least one report suggests that she was going to include those stories in her first book, which came out a couple of years ago, but was convinced not to. Apparently she got her way this time…and it likely cost her the second spot on this year’s GOP ticket, and perhaps much more.
She’s still a solid and passionate advocate for the GOP; witness the big reaction she got as the keynote speaker at the county GOP Lincoln Dinner in Memphis, Tennessee over the weekend.
But from a public office standpoint anywhere outside of South Dakota…that’s going to be a hard sell. The book apparently didn’t sell, either.
