J.D. Vance Is About as Flat as a Day-Old Diet Mountain Dew
When Donald Trump selected J.D. Vance as his running mate last week, the Republican convention crowd seemed ecstatic. But nowâoutside the MAGA bubble, and after a seismic shift in the presidential raceâthe luster has worn off the Ohio senator. âHe was the worst choice of all the options,â as one House Republican put it to the Hill. âIt was so bad I didnât even think it was possible.â
âThe prevailing sentiment is that if Trump loses,â another added, it is âbecause of this pick.â
Trumpâs veep shortlist had been stocked with shameless sycophants who pledged themselves not just to an extreme MAGA agenda, but to the former president personally. Vanceâthe preferred pick of Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.âwas regarded as the least likely to expand Trumpâs existing base. That may not have seemed like much of an issue a week ago, when Trump appeared on track to rout a senescent Joe Biden in a 2020 rematch. But then Biden dropped out, Vice President Kamala Harris quickly began closing the polling gap with Trump, and what was previously shaping up to be a Trump cakewalk has become a competitive hundred-day sprint to Election Day.
Where another Republicanâsay, Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, or even Nikki Haleyâmay have been an asset on the trail, Vance has so far seemed a drag on Trumpâs ticket. He is, as CNNâs Harry Enten noted, the least popular vice presidential nominee in decades, according to polls, which also find his favorability ratings low with undecided voters and even those in his own home region. His recently-resurfaced remarks about what he calls the âchildless cat ladiesâ in the Democratic Partyâincluding Harris, who has step-childrenâhave been roundly criticized for their extraordinary cruelty. And then there is what we might describe as his anti-charisma, as displayed by his flat jokes about Diet Mountain Dew and a recent âbehind-the-scenesâ peek at a campaign event he gave supporters in a fundraising video.
âTheyâve got a ton of crap for you to drink and eat,â he says in the video, showing off a table of Snickers bars and none other than Diet Mountain Dew. âThis is the energy that powers the presidential and vice presidential campaign.â
âEnergyâ is maybe a strong word for Vance, who embodies all of the Trump movementâs extremism but lacks the Vaudevillian showmanship of Trump himself. Now, with Harris in the race, âthe road got a lot harder,â as one House Republican put it to Axios. Vance âwas the only pick that wasnât the safe pick,â the representative continued. âAnd I think everyone has now realized that.â
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