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Ted Vetting Carly for Veep
Michael Warren of The Weekly Standard discovered today that Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign is vetting Carly Fiorina as a possible running mate.
According to a spokeswoman for Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO and one-time presidential candidate is being vetted by Cruz’s campaign.
“Normal stuff,” said Sarah Isgur Flores, who served as deputy campaign manager during Fiorina’s bid, when asked about the process. She added that Fiorina has met with members of the Cruz campaign and has given them financial disclosures and other documentation. Flores added that “no offers” have been made.
Several people have pondered if Cruz should announce his Veep pick in the midst of primary season to build momentum and help voters visualize what a Cruz administration would look like. Although she didn’t rack up delegates, Fiorina is a better communicator than Cruz and showed real talent in marrying jabs of the stilletto with a positive vision of the future. It also helped that she emphatically endorsed the Texas senator back in March while other presidential candidates continue to sit out the race.
All indications show that Tuesday’s primaries will go badly for Cruz. An announcement of Fiorina in the two-slot would be a public relations coup that would energize his voters in Indiana and California. It also might give a reluctant press a reason to talk about him instead of the orange-sheened frontrunner for a couple hours.
Do you think Fiorina is a good pick? If not, who would you recommend for Cruz’s running mate?
Published in General
I am all for it. Carly is superb.
I’m glad she’s being vetted. I wouldn’t want a VP without all her shots.
VP’s are never a deciding factor in the votes they bring. because people vote for the President. Full Stop. Maybe there’s some electoral college help a VP can provide, but that’s at the extreme margins of the race. You get another Florida squeaker like Bush v. Gore, well maybe there’s a plausible case that a few thousand votes in one direction or another matters. But you can’t predict that and so can’t make a VP choice based upon it.
Now, if Carly can drain some of the “I Am Women, Hear Me Roar” folderol from Clinton’s campaign (‘cuz who doesn’t think Roar when they see the near-70 year old HRC onstage?) . . . perhaps that’s something new and not experienced before that should be considered.
I’m okay with this. I can see her appeal to the Cruz campaign as pulling support for people who think Cruz is too much of an establishment figure because he’s been elected to office. (This year is really crazy, okay?)
But assuming that she doesn’t shoot this idea down, and actually agrees to the Veep position on the Cruz ticket, it raises a couple of interesting questions.
First, is she accepting this role because she is committed for Cruz, or because she is against Trump? Or is this consideration irrelevant?
Second, is this a ‘hail mary’ for her, or does she think that this is a solid, real, opportunity? How does she see the rest of the primary campaign playing out?
I feel like brewing up an old-fashioned cup of tea now just so I can examine the dregs…
The only advice I would give Carly is please don’t order the pancakes.
If we are proceeding under that premise then this move makes even less sense. The only possible purpose in announcing a VP pick at such an early date is to take news cycles from Trump and aid Cruz in gaining the nomination, otherwise there is no reason for such an action at all at this time.
A complete non-issue, even Democrat primary voters aren’t buying that argument.
How many (what percentage of ) women will choose an women p. over a vp slot based on p vs. vp. Along?
or is it not possible to break it down to just that?
if I’m correct, I don’t think it swings a single vote if you don’t think they are going to win.
But you get a bucket of conffii in your face. If you are lucky.
We can always count on “Casey at the bat”
What in the world is this? Is this a riff off of “look at that face?”
I’m being crated.
I am opposed on principal to stunt nominations. So to the extent this represents a desperation play to get votes, I think it’s a bad idea. We have no idea what’s going to happen in the next two months. The short term gain may cost us in the long term – see Palin, Sarah (and I say this as someone who liked her).
*I* would be happy with this pic. I would be happier if the ticket were flipped. I do question how effective it would be in the general, but my reservations are more with Ted than Fiorina. I’m still holding out hope for a dark horse.
Carly’s problem was largely her organization (or lack thereof). Every report I’ve ever heard from on the ground when she is on the stump is that she is hugely impressive. Like Mr. D, I would have been a huge fan of the order being flipped, but if Ted gets the nomination, he would be foolish not to give her extremely serious consideration.
Criteria #1 of being VP; ability to step into the top job if (God forbid a thousand times) the worst happens. Carly ticks that box, she’s sat in the big chair, and has more experience from the advisory panel than any candidate (except maybe Rubio) on foreign affairs. She wouldn’t have to ask where Libya is on the 1st day. Others, not so much.
Frankly, I’d prefer Rubio, but since a high priority needs to be getting as many Trump voters as possible, maybe Carly’s a better choice.
She’s the only one of all those running who studied philosophy, you know.
Exactly what RushBabe49 and Susan Quinn said. I would be thrilled with Fiorina.But, I would be thrilled with Jindal, Perry, Haley, Martinez, Rubio, Walker or Scott, too. Kasich…eeh… I could live with him. I had to. But I’d rather not (listen to Klavan’s show for this week for a very humorous take on the Kasich campaign).
The writing is on the wall. Nobody knows what will happen at the convention, and nobody knows what will happen in the general. But the continuing strength of Trump makes both more difficult for Cruz than if Trump was fading fast.
With this in mind, Cruz has to think about positioning himself for his next couple of terms in the Senate. How can he maximize his power base (in order to maximize his chances of getting what he thinks ought to be done, done)? Part of his influence comes from real grass-roots buy-in to his anti-establishment positioning. But if he can build up some credits with the establishment, too, while not alienating (too many of) his supporters, that has to be a good thing. Hence the Kasich deal. And hence why the VP pick — and the process of picking a VP — is about so much more than primary or electoral college votes.
What difference does it make. Cruz is toast.
Deck chairs, Titanic. Cruz won’t be the nominee. That’s clear to everyone except the political junkies and the Cruz faithful.
You don’t nominate the guy who came in a distant second. Ever. Under any circumstances (except of course an indictment, hah!). Delegates or no delegates, that won’t happen.
I think Cruz really hurt himself this cycle. He will have about as much success next cycle as Perry had this one. He did not solve any of his manifest character problems with the part of the Republican electorate who finds him skeevy and at the same time alienated himself from the plurality of new Republican voters who support Trump. He does not benefit from a bigger party – which is exactly what the Republican Party is now. Perhaps too big. But its really a lot bigger.
I also think the days of nominating a conservative are over for a generation. The lesson of this season has been a hard one to swallow – namely, the conservative movement failed to create a majority even within the Republican Party and made that task more complicated when so many otherwise disaffected Americans, who are not conservative, decided to sign up with the Republicans.
Only he’s probably not going to be a distant second. Maybe a close second, and maybe just plain old second.
And it’s not like the guy ahead of him is guaranteed a majority; Trump may well end up (on the convention’s first vote) as the first among losers.
If the second among losers is a preferred second choice to some critical mass of voters or delegates, why not choose him?
This is exactly the biased thinking that I was talking about. This isn’t going to happen. Distant, close or whatever. It’s an academic argument that disregards the reality of what will occur when the formal nomination is secured.
The pressure, both within the Party and from the public/media, to nominate the guy with the most votes will be insane and completely insurmountable for Cruz or anyone else.
This isn’t 1976. The idea that a major party can buck a democratic vote and survive is insane. (and yes, a plurality IS enough democratic legitimacy for the public – they want the winner to be chosen by them, not some delegates, and by winner the public means the guy who gets the most votes, not the guy who meets the threshold under the rules).
I am sure that 100% of the Cruz supporters on Ricochet will defend the rules and the pages of NR will be filled with really detailed discussions of rules and processes and fairness in rules and the glory of rules and how the rules are good and mean something and rules and rules and rules…and the rest of the country, including a majority of the Republicans – even those who did not support Trump – will at best ignore all of that and at worst actively come to despise those making those arguments.
This won’t happen. There will be some drama, and it will look like maybe there is a chance of this happening for a day or two, and then poof!, the consensus will consolidate around the guy who got the most votes from voters (not delegates).
In 2016, that is the only way it can work. If you think otherwise, then you have a fundamental misunderstanding of where Americans and Republicans broadly are today. Then again, this is the same group that thought the Romney loss was because of all those conservatives who stayed home. Pffft.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but in # 49 you said it wasn’t going to happen, then gave two premises for it–that you don’t nominate a guy who’s a distant second, and that Cruz will be such a guy.
I objected to the second premise on grounds which you (in # 52) do not object to. You call that bias on my part? It’s nothing of the sort. It’s just a statement of fact on my part.
I objected to the first premise on grounds articulated in # 51, which you have ignored.
If I expect a Cruz victory, you may accuse me of bias if you like. But don’t accuse me of bias because I refute your premises.
Now this is a new premise. I wish I could refute it also; but, alas, I fear it may be true.
The “distant” aspect was not intended to be a premise for the argument, only a statement of where I think it winds up.
The key point is that he is second. Tried to clarify that in my comment to you.
The bias is because people who want Cruz to come into the convention and take the nomination through the delegate process are biased in a sense that their preference for Cruz is blocking their ability to see how this unfolds in reality. The pressure to nominate the guy with the most primary votes is going to be intense and cannot be resisted.
I understand why Cruz supporters want some hope, and they are putting their hopes in this delegate process and some deal with Kasich. Heck, Cruz himself is doing that.
But if one can take a step back, look at it without the “bias” of wanting Cruz to be successful, its pretty easy to see that it just cannot happen.
Every time I see or hear Carly, a little ray of hope shines up through the dark depths of my despair.
If Trump were a normally acceptable fellow, I can see how securing a majority of the delegates would surely win the nomination.
But Trump is not acceptable, and a very considerable number of delegates are never-trumpers. The mood at the convention could allow a great many possibilities besides simply handing the nomination to the perplexed duck.
Jon, may I suggest an alternate title?
Little Ted Car Vet
Doug, she snaps Lewandowski’s spine over her knee and recites Conan’s speech:
This is a very legitimate scenario as are some others. The difference is this comment comes with humility lacking in many others and given the author I am not shocked by the thought and presentation.
Bleg for the wise prophets on this thread and elsewhere that know exactly what will happen and what will never happen in politics in the next 90 days.
a) Please link to your comments and posts one year ago that predicted Trump leading the race and Rubio, Walker, and Perry home on the couch, because let’s be honest, everybody saw that coming.
b) Please fondle your crystal balls and tell me the exact wording of the FOMC’s policy statement tomorrow so I an position myself appropriately to retire this week.
If for some reason you can’t produce these 2 things how about producing less BS on Ricochet about how you have this all figured out.
Thanks.