Playing the Trump Card
Donald Trump has said that his choice for vice president will be in Atlanta tomorrow for the presidential debate; as noted before, that doesn’t narrow it down much, since it looks like everyone on the short list is planning to be there for post-debate spin room support.
And there will be no small number of people telling you who won or lost the debate; I’d suggest you ignore most of it, since you’re smart enough to make that determination on your own.
But here’s how you can tell if the Trump team itself feels he did not do well: if post-debate, Trump comes out and announces his VP selection. If it’s really a disaster, he’ll walk briskly into the spin room with his arm around the choice.
The only big news surrounding the GOP contest is who will be #2 on the ticket. It’s bound to generate a lot of news coverage and analysis. So it’s a card you don’t want to play until you know it will get maximum attention…or unless you feel you have to play it to divert attention away from something else.
That’s why I say if Trump reveals his vice-presidential choice tomorrow night in the immediate aftermath of the debate…it’s because his team wants to shift attention away from the debate. In our shiny object society, we’ll forget about the much-ballyhooed debate and flip to the new story.
I don’t expect it…and frankly, until the person is actually nominated by delegate vote at the Milwaukee convention and it’s a done deal, I say it’s still an open question, subject to last minute change. But in all the post-debate noise about performance, that would be one set of tea leaves easy to read.
