When historians get around to ranking the weirdest presidential elections, we now fully expect the 2024 contest to land squarely in the top five. Top three, probably. We’ll get around to Nos. 1 and 2 directly.
Anyway, as Bum Phillips said when asked about the stature of Houston Oilers runningback Earl Campbell, “I don’t know if he’s in a class by himself, but I do know that when that class gets together, it sure don’t take long to call the roll.”
On this date in the 1978, with the first pick in the NFL Draft, the Houston Oilers select Earl Campbell, from the University of Texas. One of the toughest summamabitches to ever lace ‘em up,.
— Honest☘️Larry (@HonestLarry1) May 2, 2024
pic.twitter.com/Arjg5b3fA5
So it is with the wackiness that is 2024.
It’s no longer simply that Donald Trump, famed for reality television, extra-marital dalliances, gold leaf and, lately, 91 allegations of criminal activity, retains a stranglehold on the party of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan. Nor is it — barring Biden-ex-machima coming to fruition — that Trump will again be the GOP presidential nominee.
It’s not even that the Republican veep-stakes has narrowed to a scant handful, if insider gossip has merit, leaving only a notecard of middle-aged fellows in the running. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) It’s the name at the top that, if he indeed is tabbed, pushes the 2024 race past other famously bizarre modern-day contests, such as Bush vs. Dukakis, Truman vs. Dewey, and Dubya vs. Gore.
It’s “The Apprentice” on steroids this weekend in Palm Beach, with a host of hopefuls strutting their stuff for Trump and mega donors for a shot at what John Nance Garner alleged wasn’t “worth a warm bucket of spit” — a chance to be a heartbeat away from sitting behind the Resolute Desk.
At least a half-dozen contenders will be attempting to catch the judges’ eyes. However, according to multiple published sources, Trump keeps circling back to the senior senator from Florida, the former Young Man in a Hurry, Marco Rubio.
Don Jr. prefers J.D. Vance, the entrepreneur/lawyer, one-book wonder (Hillbilly Elegy) and Ohio senator, conceivably the only member of the apparent finalists who might tempt a Rust Belt fence-sitter to tumble in Trump’s direction.
Nonetheless, Rubio has qualities of his own, as described by Marc Caputo at The Bulwark:
Trump is strongly considering Rubio because he’s keenly aware Rubio is fluent in Spanish, is the only Hispanic on his shortlist, and is attractive to the establishment donors his cash-hungry campaign needs. A member of the Senate’s intelligence and foreign relations committees, Rubio grew close to Trump during his presidency and served as a key Latin America adviser shaping Cuba and Venezuela policy. In 2019, two sources told me at the time, Rubio successfully lobbied Trump to ignore more hawkish voices in his administration who wanted the president to consider military action in Venezuela against strongman Nicolás Maduro.
Rubio for veep? It's his turn to be on the shortlist. He isn't needed to coax Florida into the red column. But the bigger problem is, per the Constitution, he *can't* be from Florida. The latest from @MarcACaputo: https://t.co/nTrrmgY3lY
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) May 1, 2024
Because Trump and Rubio both claim Florida as home, the issue of residency would have to be settled — most likely by Rubio getting his mail delivered somewhere else. Trump likes not paying a state income tax and living where Republicans dominate the political scene. No thanks, Trump National Golf Club Bedminster. It's a "cuck move," per Caputo: "Moving residences is for betas and running mates."
Much handwringing is going on just now over the residency thing, which grew out of Weirdest Presidential Elections No. 2, the 1800 race involving Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, but also Aaron Burr, the future killer of Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson’s titular running mate, and, like Jefferson, a Virginian. You can read the fascinating details, but the messy kerfuffle exposed a loophole in the Constitution, resulting in the 12th Amendment, which sought to put all that to rest.
Tempest, meet teapot. If it’s important to Trump and, if he’s selected, Rubio, and the GOP ticket carries Nov. 5, they’ll get it sorted before the electors convene.
After all, writes Caputo:
“Marco can almost smell the Naval Observatory,” said a Trump adviser, referring to the official residence of the vice president, and echoing others who know Rubio, Trump, and the former president’s vetting process.
After all, too, maybe the flame doesn’t burn quite as conspicuously, but it’s difficult to imagine the years since 2016 have quenched Rubio’s thirst for the White House. And he’d be hitching his wagon to a plump 77-year-old who favors Big Macs just a little too much.
So, about that desire. Lately, Rubio has been incandescent.
There is a breakdown of law and order on college campuses. pic.twitter.com/gvjo8N81Dd
— Senator Marco Rubio (@SenMarcoRubio) May 3, 2024
Colleges tolerating antisemitism on their campuses shouldn’t receive another dime from the American taxpayers.
— Senator Marco Rubio (@SenMarcoRubio) April 30, 2024
pic.twitter.com/eNarLNhK96
.@SenMarcoRubio: "The right from which all other rights emanate is the right to live – the right of a human being to live."
— SBA Pro-Life America (@sbaprolife) May 1, 2024
Sen. Rubio on why he opposes the all-trimester abortion measure in Florida. @VoteNoOn4FLpic.twitter.com/PkALKU53Mv
If you’re in America on a student visa and you’re supporting Hamas then it’s time for you to go!
— Senator Marco Rubio (@SenMarcoRubio) May 2, 2024
pic.twitter.com/SS93e1P8A0
And so on.
Conventional wisdom holds that the defining moment of the 2016 Republican primary came on the debate stage 72 hours before the New Hampshire primary. There, in front of the Saint Anselm College audience and ABC cameras — and to the gaping horror of his fans — Florida’s Young Man in a Hurry transformed into Marcobot, the candidate who repeated canned phrases on command.
The upshot: Chris Christie, the former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and ex-federal prosecutor, got his man. Marco Rubio’s once-surging campaign never recovered; a month and several ballot-box muggings, including Florida, he was out, retreating to the Senate. Which, by the way, he at last began treating as a proper job.
For at least one of us, however, the defining moment of that primary came two months earlier at a debate conducted by CNN during which interlocutor supreme Hugh Hewitt raised a perfectly legitimate topic: What to do about America’s aging nuclear triad. It was then, when Trump demonstrated zero comprehension about the topic, then was schooled in real time by Rubio, but the needles scarcely moved, that some us knew all we needed to know.
Republicans and others fed up with being belittled for eight years by Barack Obama and his condescending crew wanted something different. And that something different was an insult-slinging New York developer and television ratings king who regaled his followers with Low Energy Jeb, Liddle Marco, and Crooked Hillary.
We also learned how awful Rubio is at the insult game. Small hands means what again?
That was then, in the run-up to the all-time Weirdest Presidential Election. And this, when Trump may be thinking in terms of peeling away Nevada and restoring Arizona and Georgia by adding a Spanish-speaking son of Cuban emigres to his campaign, is now or never.
