2016 May 27^th

Now that Trump has enough votes to win the Republican nomination, the candidate’s choice for his Vice President remains the party’s only unknown. There are many potential choices but most of these are discounted as improbable; Mitt Romney, for example, is a 200 to 1 shot according to Paddy Power, a Brit betting parlor that offers odds on such events. So, one may reasonably ask, who is the most favored politician to receive the honor of sharing the ticket to oblivion with Donald Trump. According to this same Paddy Power, it is Newt Gingrich, slightly favored over Scott Brown.

Scott Brown had been a Senator from Massachusetts until Senator Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren won his seat. Then Brown changed his residence to New Hampshire to run for the Senate there. He had no better luck in New Hampshire and lost to Senator Jean Shaheen, previously New Hampshire’s popular governor.

The slightly more probable pick, Newt Gingrich, has many of Trump’s characteristics, He has the mercurial shoot from the hip temperament and a very checkered past. Gingrich was once Speaker of the House and in that role was a very naughty boy. He ultimately resigned his position to avoid a more scandalous end. It seems that a history course he was teaching was, in fact, a propaganda effort for the Republican Party and did not merit certain financial privileges awarded by the IRS.

Gingrich and Trump also have had similar marital problems: (This would not be a family values ticket.) Each of these men is now with his third wife and each was accused of infidelity in a divorce action. Trump has bragged about his extra-marital affairs, and that many of them had subsequently required treatment for sexually transmitted diseases; we do not have such intimate knowledge of Gingrich’s extra-marital sex life, nor of any resultant medical problems.

Perhaps Trump will be encouraged by his newly hired handlers to pick Gingrich as his running mate. What will happen if, after picking Gingrich, Trump changes his mind? What happens if Gingrich, not known to be at all circumspect in his utterances, says something to which Trump takes offence? Let’s face it neither of these men seem to have effective neural connections between their pre-frontal cortex and their larynx. Once a Vice President is announced, I doubt he can be marginalized as easily as Trump has sidelined Dr. Ben Carson, nor if he attempts it will Gingrich retreat as quietly as has Ben Carson.