There will now be endless second-guessing about Donald
Trump’s choice for his running mate. Indiana Governor
Mike Pence is being described as a “safe choice” and a
“reassurance to social conservatives.” In fact, he was the
clear favorite of the important pro-life constituency.
My preference was for another reported “finalist,” but as
I have frequently written recently, second-guessing the
presumptive New York Republican nominee for president
is very risky business for any pundit or so-called political
expert.
Attention will now shift to presumptive Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton’s choice for running mate. She,
like Mr. Trump, has a number of possible choices. Again,
I make no predictions, although I have written that Virginia
Senator Tim Kaine would be a good choice.
Over the next two weeks, the carefully-choreographed
major party conventions will unfold both inside and outside
the convention halls in Cleveland and Philadelphia. Inside
those halls, the narrative will be deliberate and controlled.
I suspect that the two conventions will try to tell a very
different story.
As almost always happens, the summer of a presidential
campaign year is filled with domestic and international
drama. If anything, the 2016 cycle is even more volatile and
unpredictable than the cycles of the recent past. The account
of this cycle so far is that U.S. voters, as well as voters in many
democratic states in Europe, South America and Asia, are
deeply unsettled and anxious about the present and future.
This “mutiny of the masses” on the right, left and even the
center is being expressed again and again in the voting in
2016.
I don’t know if the summer of 2016 is going to be hot, but it
will be long.
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Copyright (c) 2016 by Barry Casselman. All rights reserved.
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