Some Potential Women Running Mates for Donald Trump

by Dr. Ellen Brandt


Like many GOP activists, we think it is not merely beneficial, but imperative, that Presumptive Nominee Trump choose a high-powered, highly-qualified woman as his Vice-Presidential running mate. 

 
If you care about the Republican Party and its future, you should be urging Presumptive Nominee Trump to choose a dynamic, well-qualified woman as his running mate for Vice-President.


In contrast to the childishly divisive tactics of Hillary Clinton and her Limousine Liberal backers, we Republicans need to unite the U.S. electorate, not divide it, by shunning the narrow and Elitist political correctness of the Democrats and showing we are the Party of Yes, which actively welcomes all Americans into the fold.


The Demographics of past elections are clear and stark. The GOP lost both the 2008 and the 2012 elections because we didn't sufficiently court and inspire American women, even some within our own Base.


We can't allow that to happen again - and we won't!


While there are many other things we can do to get U.S. women into our camp and our corner this electoral cycle (see our earlier story Trumpio and Juliet), nothing we can do is more important than having a superbly qualified and popular woman on our ticket as Trump's VP pick.


A handful of names of potential Trump running mates, including one or two women, have been circulating through the Mainstream Media the past few days. But since the MSM is now almost entirely in Democrat-leaning hands, we can't afford to let them make the Party's choices for us.


Moreover, I think we need to make this a wide-open field, putting together a substantial list of  qualified women from which Team Trump might choose.


I hope everyone starts doing this prior to the Convention, looking for creative choices which can balance our Presumptive Nominee's perceived drawbacks within parts of the American electorate with a potential running mate's credentials and strengths.


For instance, since Trump has made his homes in one Blue State and another which trends Purple at best, a running mate from a solidly Red State might be helpful. Since his background does not include elective office, a woman with strong experience as an elected official may provide balance. And since some within the Party believe Trump is more moderate than the rank-and-file, a woman VP with impeccable credentials among Conservatives could be - and could make - just the Ticket.


Here, then, are 10 strong and interesting women Team Trump might look at as Vice-Presidential possibilities. I'll follow these up, for pure fun, with 5 off-the-wall additional possibilities, reflecting just how wide and diverse the pool of potential GOP women candidates might be.


Please note that this list is presented in no particular order of priority - that is, we are not touting the early names listed more than the later names. As an arbitrary order of presentation, we started with Governors and Lieutenant Governors, then moved on to Senators, members of the House of Representatives, and a prominent woman Mayor.


1. Mary Fallin: As a counterbalance to Trump's being a newcomer to elective politics, he could hardly find a better choice than Fallin, 61, who literally has politics in her blood. Both her mother and father were former Mayors of her hometown, Tecumseh, Oklahoma, a prosperous suburb of Oklahoma City.


The current Governor of Oklahoma and co-chair of the RNC platform committee, Fallin, the first female Governor of her state, previously served as Lieutenant Governor and in the U.S. House of Representatives, the first Oklahoma woman to serve in the House for over 70 years.


Fallin has a special interest in small business, and as a former hotel manager and real estate entrepreneur, she shares Trump's viewpoints on growth and economic development. She's also an avid pilot, listed in her state's Aviation Hall of Fame.


2. Rebecca Kleefisch: The Lieutenant Governor of key state Wisconsin, Kleefisch is young - just 41 - and somewhat controversial. But she's popular with Evangelicals and almost as good at getting Media attention as is Trump himself.


In fact, Kleefisch, who very much resembles the young Linda Ronstadt, spent most of her pre-political career in Media, as a news anchor for TV stations in Illinois and Wisconsin and frequent Conservative talk radio contributor. She was also a teenage beauty pageant winner.


The mother of two small daughters, Kleefisch announced her entry into politics in a webcast - literally - from her kitchen table, making the theme of her campaign for Lieutenant Governor kitchen table common sense, a stance heartily endorsed by Trump chum Sarah Palin, who welcomed Kleefisch as a fellow Mama Grizzly.


3. Evelyn Sanguinetti: Illinois Lieutenant Governor Sanguinetti, 45, is the first Latina Lieutenant Governor in the U.S., and the fact that she's based in Hillary Clinton's birth state and Barack Obama's adoptive state might appeal to Trump's sense of one-upmanship.


In fact, Sanguinetti considers herself an outsider, as does Trump. A brainy, combative attorney and law professor, who served as both a prosecutor and a coporate defense lawyer, she was inspired to run for political office, she says, after suffering a serious injury when she slipped and fell at a poorly-maintained municipal railway station.


Sanguinetti is a native Floridian, and both her parents were impoverished immigrants - her mother Cuban, her father from Ecuador. She considers education her salvation and is strongly committed to both that issue and to economic opportunity initiatives. She's also an accomplished concert-level classical pianist.


4. Nikki Haley: Yes, South Carolina's popular incumbent Governor supported first Marco Rubio, then Ted Cruz. But that's one reason why many in the GOP Loyalist Base think that Haley, 44, might be a fabulous reconciliation pick as Trump's VP.


She's also a thoroughly modern Republican woman, from a fascinating family. Both of Haley's parents were born in India. Her father's a college professor, her mother a very successful retail entrepreneur, and her three siblings, respectively, a career military man, an Internet site owner, and a radio host specializing in fashion.


Anyone who has heard Haley speak knows that she's an accomplished debater and persuader, with a keen grasp of issues and the GOP audience. She's also gorgeous, an accountant, and a Girl Scout.


5. Joni Ernst: Among GOP women in the U.S. Senate, Iowa's Joni Ernst might be the most appealing to Team Trump, and word is that he's looking at her closely. That's because Ernst, 45, is a bona fide military and security expert, who serves on the Senate's Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees, as well as Agriculture and Small Business.


Ernst served 23 years in the U.S. Army Reserve and the Army National Guard, with the final rank of Lieutenant Colonel. She spent 14 months in Kuwait as a company commander during the Iraq War and has been awarded with various medals and commendations.


Back on the home front, she served as a county auditor, then in the Iowa State Senate, before handily winning her U.S. Senate seat in 2014. She's the first woman elected to represent Iowa in either house of Congress. Mediagenic and a fine debater, Ernst gets an "A" rating from the NRA and is a crack shot. Not a lady to mess with.


6. Deb Fischer: Nebraska's current senior Senator, Fischer, 65, has a spectacular fairytale back story, at least in GOP terms. She and husband Bruce, her college sweetheart, own a Ponderosa-like cattle ranch in rural Valentine, Nebraska, where they raised their three handsome sons - Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe . . . Well, actually, it's Adam, Morgan, and Luke - close enough!


After raising her boys, Fischer went back to college as an adult student, earned a degree in education, and subsequently became an activist member of the Nebraska state legislature, representing its geographically largest district for about a decade.


She made fireworks in her U.S. Senate run in 2012, defeating celebrity former Senator Bob Kerrey in a landslide, 58-to-42 percent, literally swamping him in every rural and suburban area, picking up 88 of 93 counties. A  Conservative and tax reformer, Fischer would have strong appeal to traditional Red Staters and rural Americans.


7. Shelley Moore Capito: As a leader of the GOP Main Street Partnership (Moderates) and a U.S. Senator from a mostly Blue-to-Purple state, West Virginia's Moore Capito, 62, is not quite the darling of the Far Right. But that might make her a big asset in wooing Independents and crossover Democrats, particularly since she's a former head of the Congressional Women's Caucus and a strong advocate for women's issues, as well as manufacturing and resources.


Moreover, Moore Capito has both brains and pedigree. The daughter of late West Virginia governor Arch Moore, she has two degrees from Duke, served 13 years in the U.S House of Representatives, and won her election to the U.S. Senate in 2014 by 62-to-35 percent, the largest victory margin for a Republican in a statewide race in West Virginia history.


Moore Capito has already sponsored over 110 pieces of legislation in the Senate and chairs a subcommittee of the all-powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. In other words, she's considered a legislator's legislator, which might be just what Trump needs at his side.


8. Lynn Jenkins: Finishing up her fourth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, Jenkins, 53, is the senior member of Kansas's House delegation and the Vice Chair of the House Republican Conference, making her among the most powerful women in the House.


Formerly Kansas State Treasurer and a member of both houses in the Kansas legislature, Jenkins seems to bridge major GOP factions seamlessly, as a member of the Tea Party Caucus (Conservative), the Main Street Partnership (Moderate), and the Republican Study Committee (Conservative, but inclusive). This lady seems to get along with everyone!


A sixth-generation Kansan raised on a dairy farm, Jenkins is a C.P.A. with strong economics and accounting backgrounds. Among her areas of expertise are financial services and capital markets, and she serves on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Among her feminist credentials: She's the founder of Maggie's List, a political action committee dedicated to increasing the number of GOP women elected to federal office.


9. Ann Wagner: If Trump wants to make nice-nice with the traditional GOP elite - including the Bush Wing of the Party - he could not do better than to consider Wagner, 53, the incumbent U.S. House member who represents Missouri's 2nd district, centered in suburban St. Louis.


What has this woman not done? She's held executive positions with two of Missouri's biggest corporations, Hallmark and Ralston Purina. She was state director of the George Bush (the elder) campaign as a mere lass of 29. She served as one of the most successful State GOP Chairmen in Missouri's history, overseeing Republicans taking majority control of both chambers of the General Assembly.


Wagner became co-chair of the RNC in 2001, was a member of the platform committee at the 2004 convention, and challenged Reince Preibus for the chairmanship of the RNC in 2011. Oh - and she also did a stint as the U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg. We hear, however, that Kryptonite can do her in.


10. Ashley Swearengin: Twenty years ago, about half of the mayors of America's 50 largest cities were Republicans. Now, less than a quarter are, reflecting, among other things, the continuing movement away from the manufacturing-deprived Rust Belt, leaving behind constituencies that tend to vote for Democrats.


There are 13 GOP mayors of our 50 largest municipalities, three of them female - and Ashley Swearengin of Fresno, California, may be the one Team Trump needs to look at. A perky, Texas-born blonde, who resembles the actress Hilary Duff, Swearengin, 44, is an M.B.A. and municipal finance expert, whose main priority has been turning around Fresno's economy and trying to eliminate its persistent problems with crime and homelessness.


She must be doing something right, because in her last election, she garnered a whopping 75 percent of the vote, against four other candidates. Married to an Evangelical minister who's also a sportscaster - Hey, it's California! - Swearengin was the first head of the Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, working towards economic development throughout California's agricultural breadbasket region. And she has some Hollywood chops, as a protegee of the former Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger.


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And, Now, For Something Completely Different . . . .


Above, we listed 10 excellent and serious picks for potential women VPs in a Trump administration.


These 10, as we stressed earlier, represent just a sampling of the wonderful and highly-qualified women our Presumptive Nominee should consider as his VP running mate. There are literally dozens - maybe hundreds - more who might prove equally appealing to the American electorate this cycle.


But if Trump wants to think totally and completely outside the proverbial box, here are 5 more wild-and-crazy choices:


11. Heidi Cruz: Although it's unlikely he'd pick her after his dueling spouses brouhaha with opposing GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz, in pure fact,  Cruz, 44, may be the brightest and most accomplished candidate spouse since . . . well, possibly Abigail Adams.


An economist and international development expert, she holds both a Harvard M.B.A. and a Masters in European Business from a prestigious program in Belgium. She worked as an economic policy director on George W. Bush's first presidential campaign, then in influential posts at the Department of Treasury, the U.S. Trade Reprentative's office, and the NSA, where she reported to Condoleezza Rice.


Unlikely as it seems, choosing Cruz as a running mate would be an extreme olive branch held out towards the Conservative wing of the GOP. And it would undoubtedly go over big with Republican and Independent women, who thought the Presumptive Nominee's criticism of pretty, wholesome-looking Cruz was both absurd and disturbingly macho.


12. Barbara Bush: If Trump wants to make an even stronger statement about the need for reconciliation among all branches and factions within the GOP plus showing his support for the already more than 2 in 5 Americans - and fully 1 in 2 voters this year - who are Gray voters age 50 and older, he could go all-out with these themes and pick the Silver Fox, Barbara Bush, America's Favorite Older Woman, as his running mate.


Remember, Trump himself said it: At the GOP debate before the New Hampshire primary, Jeb Bush remarked on his Mom's drawing large and enthusiastic crowds wherever she went and commented that she was "the strongest woman I know." To which Trump answered, "She should be running."

 
True, Barbara Bush is now 91 and has had some health scares in recent years. But what other possible running mate has written best-selling books about her lovable dogs or can claim to have a dozen schools, hospitals, and clinics named after her, not to mention an internationally acclaimed literacy foundation?


13. Selena Gomez: Some say that our Presumptive Nominee needs to improve his standing among Latino voters, especially those of Mexican descent; among young voters; and among voters in perenially Blue States, who might be persuaded to cross over to the GOP. Why not go for all three constituencies by choosing someone like Selena Gomez as a running mate?


At the other end of the spectrum from Silver Fox Barbara Bush, Gomez is just 24. But she's already a top-of-the-charts pop singer, an accomplished actress, and a budding entrepreneur, with a popular new clothing line featured at K-Mart, a designer fragrance line called Selena Gomez, and her own production company, set to produce a Netflix original series.


Born in Texas and of half-Mexican ancestry, Gomez is now firmly identified with California and with Disney, whose power status within the Mainstream Media would surely be helpful. She gets empathy Brownie-points as a survivor of the painful disease lupus. And she's been an active and visible UNICEF ambassador since age 17, as well as spokesperson for the African development charity Raise Hope for Congo. One possible problem: We're not sure she's Republican.


14. Elizabeth Warren: Don't laugh! If Trump picked Warren as his running mate, he might be saving her from her recent pure folly.


Many of Warren's most loyal supporters, who have viewed the fiery Massachusetts Senator, 67, as the great champion of Wall Street reform, have looked on in bewilderment and dismay as she has campaigned side-by-side with Hillary Clinton, darling of Wall Street hedge funds, investment banks, naked short sellers, and Hot Money thugs everywhere.


Warren's personal history is compelling and admirable to most Americans - especially, perhaps, Republicans. Born in Oklahoma to a family of very modest means - her Dad a maintenance man, her Mom a saleswoman - Warren worked after-school jobs as a waitress starting at age 13 to help her family make ends meet. A straight-A student, she became a champion debater; won a college scholarship; dropped out to marry young and raise two children; then returned to finish college and law school as an adult student.


By dint of pure talent and intelligence, she became an acclaimed law professor and later, a financial regulatory official, chairing the panel overseeing the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in the wake of the 2008-9 financial crisis.


As most know, Warren was a registered Republican until nearly age 50. In truth, she has a lot more in common with Trump, in terms of their views on growth, corruption, our rigged economic system, and various Populist memes and themes than she does with Clinton. And think how entertaining a Trump-Warren pairing would be!


15. Ellen Brandt - i.e. Me! Since Trump and I share an Alma Mater - his degree in economics is from the University of Pennsylvania, as are all three of my degrees - we could constitute an All-Penn ticket.


Not that it would help one iota with the current Ivy League, which is so thoroughly in the hands of Limousine Liberals, a recent academic study found that 90 percent of current faculty, staff, and administrators at the 8 Ivies self-identify as Democrats.


Back when Trump and I - and much of the current Congress and other U.S. leaders - were in college, that wasn't the case. The Ivies and other top universities were generally equally divided between Republicans and Democrats, with freedom of expression and respect for a wide range of political and other opinion the norm, not the exception.


I believe Trump shares my concern - and that of most Republicans - about the current status of our institutions of higher education, which have been locked into the intellectual stagnation of political correctness far too long.


As we've said elsewhere - and repeatedly - Team Trump should also embrace our ideas about reinstating Gray Americans 50 and older - now over 2 in 5 U.S. citizens and about 1 in 2 U.S. voters - into the American economic, social, cultural, and Media mainstreams, where we belong.


I would make that my priority as your Vice President.