Speaking from New York City, Donald Trump unveils his vice-presidential “partner” Mike Pence to the world…
Here is Dilbert Creator Scott Adams’ views on the VP pick…
You might be wondering what I think of Trump’s decision to pick Mike Pence for VP, given that Pence has disagreed with Trump on substantive policy issues in the past.
First of all, policies don’t matter in this election, or in any other election. Reason is mostly an illusion. And anyway, Pence will modify his positions to match Trump. No one cares.
Secondly, political experts say making a good choice for a VP running mate can’t help a candidate much, but a bad choice can hurt. Pence doesn’t do much to help, but he also doesn’t do much to hurt. So he’s a safe choice on that dimension. And he has plenty of government experience, as Trump says he needs. So Pence helps solve for Trump’s lack of experience. But those effects are all marginal.
What matters with Pence is how he looks in terms of contrast with Trump. The best choice for VP is someone who looks like a boring, washed-out version of the top of the ticket. You need that contrast to remind people that the top of the ticket is truly special.
Pence is an experienced politician. But you stand him next to Trump and he sort of disappears. The contrast persuades you – subconsciously – that Trump is better than an experienced politician. That’s totally irrational, and totally effective.
What’s Clinton’s biggest strength? Experience. How does Trump compare to the experienced politician on his own ticket? Better, at least in the public’s irrational way of thinking. So if Clinton and Pence are both experienced, and you prefer Trump over Pence, you somewhat automatically extend that thinking to Clinton – with all of her boring experience – and imagine her to be a weak version of Trump as well.
Replace Trump and Pence with Reagan and Bush-the-elder to see how well this contrast-based persuasion works.
And think of Obama picking Biden. It’s all the same persuasion trick. You want the VP to be the solid, uninteresting version of whoever is at the top of the ticket.
Now imagine if Trump had picked Gingrich for his VP running mate. Gingrich would make Trump look less experienced, less informed, and less intelligent by contrast. That’s a bad formula for winning. Gingrich is simply too interesting.
And after Gingrich came out in favor of testing Muslims for loyalty to Sharia law, he became the worst possible choice for Trump’s running mate. Trump is trying to move to the middle for the general election. Gingrich is running hard in the opposite direction. If Gingrich is not on the ticket, his radical-sounding ideas create an anchor that actually makes Trump look moderate by comparison. But if Gingrich had been a running mate, it would make a Trump presidency look scarier than it already is. And fear is Clinton’s best weapon against Trump. So no matter what Trump planned a week ago, Gingrich took himself out of the running with his recent comments about testing Muslims. Still, I expect Gingrich to be part of a Trump administration somehow.
No matter what you think of Pence, he was the right choice on the dimension of persuasion. And that’s the only dimension that will matter here. Trump just needs to stay boring until November to win. Pence can do that. Gingrich probably could not.
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