Influential Republicans in key battleground states are paying close attention to Donald J. Trump’s pick for a vice presidential running mate, and two Alabamians are on their list of preferred candidates.
In an informal survey, “GOP members of The POLITICO Caucus – a panel of activists, strategists and operatives in 10 key battleground states,” gave high marks to both former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and current U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
“Gaining the most support were former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (13 percent), Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (9 percent), Ohio Gov. John Kasich (8 percent), former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (8 percent), Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst (7 percent) and Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions (7 percent),” Politico reported.
Rice received particularly high praise from GOP insiders, many of whom believe she could bring valuable foreign policy experience to a Trump administration.
“She has everything that Trump does not,” one Florida Republican said of Rice, “everything.”
Rice is a former Stanford Provost and currently serves as a political science professor and on the faculty of the university’s graduate school of business. Her private sector experience includes board positions for the Carnegie Corporation, Chevron, Hewlett Packard, Charles Schwab, Rand Corporation and more. But she is most well known for her time in the Bush administration. She became the first female National Security Advisor during President George W. Bush’s first term. She went on the become the 66th Secretary of State, succeeding Colin Powell as the nation’s top diplomat.
Rice has for years resisted calls for her to jump back into politics, most recently rebuffing overtures from Republicans who urged her to seek a U.S. Senate seat in California.
“I’m quite content to spend my life helping young people find themselves, I’ve had my fill of politics,” she said late last year. “I’m a very happy university professor… the best thing about being a university professor is that you see young people as they’re being shaped and molded toward their own future and you have a chance to be a part of that.”
Trump has not been very specific about what he is looking for in a running mate, but did recently suggest to MSNBC’s Morning Joe team that someone with inside-the-Beltway experience could be helpful.
“I think I’ll probably go the political route,” he said. “Somebody that can help me with legislation and somebody that can help me get things passed and somebody that’s been friends with the senators and the congressmen and all.”
Those comments are consistent with an interview Trump did with the Washington Post in March, during which he said his VP would need to be “somebody that can walk into the Senate and who’s been friendly with these guys for 25 years, and people for 25 years. And can get things done. So I would 95 percent see myself picking a political person as opposed to somebody from the outside.”
Sessions, who currently heads Trump’s national security advisory committee, and Rice both fit that general description.
But Alabama’s junior senator has been dismissive of the vice presidential speculation in the past.
“I think that would not happen,” Sessions told The Hill. “I have not talked with him about it.”
Sessions has vocal backers in the Republican grassroots, many of whom have supported him for years as a result of his hardline position on immigration and trade.
Other conservative thoughts leaders, including Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and famed economist Thomas Sowell, have also voiced their support for Sessions.
“(S)omeone like canny Senator Sessions could make a very valuable contribution as vice-president, able to pass on to a new president the fruits of his experience in the Washington environment, along with his ability to resist the pitfalls of that environment,” wrote Sewell.
“Really, is there anyone out there who is better than Jeff Sessions on any of these issues? He’s great,” Ingraham said on her nationally syndicated radio program. “I think someone like Sessions could probably attract Democrats, Hispanics who are here legally who are tired of these stupid trade agreements and who have had their own wages undercut by illegal immigration, African Americans, certainly I think a lot of Tea Party people. Sessions is one of the few people to actually say it like it is.”
“He is right on the money,” Limbaugh lauded. “Well spoken and brilliant.”
But Sessions has always dismissed the idea that he should run on a national ticket.
“I always say, unlike my opponents, I know I’m not qualified,” he says with a laugh. “Don’t bet any money on me.”
