(AP Photo/Austin American-Statesman, Deborah Cannon)
Vocativ analyzed a huge Reddit conversation among Trump supporters to get a snapshot of who Trump supporters want as his vice presidential nominee. In a thread with more than 4,300 posts, the most-mentioned candidate was Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, followed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio.
We’ve already weighed the value of adding Rubio to the ticket, but what about Paul?
One Reddit commenter said:
Perhaps because what Trump really needs is more votes in the presidential election, so courting libertarians and independents by putting one of their favored politicians in a VP nomination position, could help attract more votes.
We’re a millennial news site, and it’s hard to imagine a better pick of current politicians available than Paul to appeal to the next generation. He’s libertarian, supports criminal justice reform, and advocates for a sensible foreign policy. From a political perspective for Trump, it also makes some sense beyond millennial appeal.
Trump’s path to victory is to get new people, disenfranchised Democrats, and independents to vote for him — even liberals acknowledge this strategy has some merit. The weakness of this strategy is in the urban areas of college towns. Another group of independents that don’t often vote Republican are libertarians. Paul’s appeal is with these libertarians, who are generally younger and more urban. And while vice presidential candidates are normally vote drivers, if libertarians get excited about something, they’ll vote.
But, just like with Paul’s own lackluster campaign, how could a Trump-Paul ticket excite them? It needs to be policies, not just personalities. With Trump running what Ron Paul called an “authoritarian” campaign so far, it might be a stretch. However, Trump’s advantage is he has been short on specifics, and as he releases specifics, he can alter his image. Some potential agreements Trump has with libertarians are on foreign policy, corporatism, and taxes.
As was evident by the debates, Trump is ideologically a non-interventionist, although he does take more of a “strong man” approach than many libertarians find comfortable. Trump has been critical of Middle East intervention and America’s war-first approach to problems in that region. Libertarians and Paul share this view with Trump.
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On corporatism and taxes, both Paul and Trump have advocated for a system where the rich who are taking advantage of our tax code would pay more money, but at the same time, income and corporate taxes would be lowered overall to make us more competitive. Trump and Paul both agree on eliminating the IRS and the tax code.
Beyond these similarities, more might exist. Or, more likely, more could be created as we find out what Trump believes.
Clearly, Trump supporters are more libertarian than expected if they want Paul to be his running mate. And, Paul didn’t take long to endorse Trump after he became the presumptive nominee. Paul should be able to continue to run for Senate and vice president simultaneously. While this pairing might have seemed impossible before, don’t be shocked to find out Paul is on the short list.
