By Darren Johnson
Journal & Press
Special to Campus News
I find this kind of an interesting thought, but I haven’t seen any other press people broaching this subject, so maybe it’s my thought alone:
But say Trump replaces JD Vance — who is imploding — on his ticket with our local Upstate New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, who was the only female on Trump’s shortlist for VP at one point, though considered too much of a longshot at the time?
I was watching one of those Sunday morning press shows, and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, of all people, came on and suggested Trump still has until early August to swap out his problematic VP. I’m not sure why a top Democrat is giving the opponent a good idea.
Newsweek is speculating Nikki Haley may be the replacement, though Trump really seems to dislike her after she ran a sometimes nasty primary campaign against him.
Biden Is Out, Maybe Vance, Too?
I wrote about this possibility before:
Also, I’ve been a pretty good handicapper of presidential elections, because I am an independent and can turn off any ideological leanings I may have when writing for a mainstream audience.
In 2016, I was one of the only journalists who speculated that Trump could win vs. Hillary Clinton because of what I termed “secret voters.”
Secret voters are people who don’t respond to polls and don’t publicize their views for fear of retribution or at least for fear of being a social outcast.
Clinton was coronated president by the court of public opinion, and these secret voters didn’t like her, but couldn’t feel comfortable talking about it at the work water cooler, either.
Who Are the 2024 ‘Secret Voters?’
Vance’s persona reminds me of the people who run the new government in “Handmaid’s Tale.” Then again, Harvard accepted him at some point, so maybe, aside from the rhetoric, his inner voice is more fair and balanced?
As someone who couldn’t even dream of attending an Ivy League school, I imagine such institutions do vet their students for relative sanity. Maybe I’m wrong?
Stefanik is also a Harvard grad — Trump seems to like academic brand-name credentials — and adding a woman, and a mother, to his ticket, someone who he can completely trust won’t backstab him, makes political sense.
Yes, a Lot of Our Readers Don’t Like Stefanik; I’m Not Talking Ideology but Pragmatism
She’s a political person playing a political game; I don’t agree with much of the rhetoric espoused, but the cynic in me also believes that the candidates don’t always believe their own rhetoric, either. They run for office, they listen to a lot of people, and try to formulate a strategy to win within the parameters of the game. We the voters create the parameters, so we’re also to blame if we don’t like the candidates presented to us.
A knock on Stefanik is that she’s from New York, like Trump, and there’s no way this state is turning Red, so she doesn’t give him a big state’s electoral votes. Another knock is she’s been too loyal to Trump, and Trump did pick Vance, who’d called him a “Hitler” at one point. Maybe Trump likes a bit of defiance. Third — especially with an elderly candidate like Trump — voters may wonder if the VP is capable of taking the top spot should the president have health issues. Being a congressperson isn’t an executive position, so she’s relatively untested. But Vance is even less qualified governmentally, having only had served a partial term in the Senate.
Overall, Stefanik would be a good pick for Trump. She’s young-ish, homespun at times but not in an icky religious kind of way, and could help by campaigning in swing states. Maybe some women “secret voters” could be swayed to vote for the Republican ticket with her on it. Not a lot of them, but some, and this race will probably be close. She is a strong campaigner in our deep-Upstate district, which more resembles the Rust Belt than the stereotypical New York.
In any case, I know a lot of our digital readers who dislike Stefanik for her brazen use of rightwing ideology are cringing at the thought of her being VP — I cringe too at much of the rhetoric, and rarely run it in the paper — but I’m just trying to present a line of logic should this possibility happen, so people can understand it if/when it does.
Darren Johnson started Campus News in 2010 and picked up his hometown weekly paper, The Journal & Press, in 2019. He also teaches Journalism.
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