Former Trump White House adviser Kellyanne Conway on Monday pushed back on calls for the former president to “pick a woman” as his running mate, urging him instead to pick a “person of color.”
Conway, who argued that she was “right” in pushing Mike Pence to be Trump’s running mate in 2016, in a New York Times op-ed rejected the “popular suggestion” that Trump pick a woman as his running mate as President Joe Biden did four years earlier, claiming that the country “suffers daily the consequences of embracing identity politics” because Vice President Kamala Harris does not take “her job seriously” and has “not appreciably helped” Biden govern.
“The ‘pick a woman’ theory also runs counter to the fact that politics is not about biology or even chemistry but about math and science. Indeed, Mr. Trump beat Mrs. Clinton in 2016, snatching from her the all but certain title of first female president of the United States when a majority of voters were women,” Conway wrote, noting that Biden has his own problem among male voters and “as sure as the sun rises in the east, any woman Mr. Trump chooses will be denigrated as not enough of a/not a real/not a relatable woman.”
Conway wrote that she would advise Trump to “choose a person of color as his running mate.”
“Not for identity politics a la the Democrats but as an equal helping to lead an America First movement that includes more union workers, independents, first-time voters, veterans, Hispanics, Asian Americans and African Americans,” Conway wrote, listing as potential options Sens. Tim Scott, R-S.C.; Marco Rubio, R-Fla.; and J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, Reps. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, former HUD Secretary Ben Carson and former presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy.
“Politics is the art of addition, not subtraction — let alone distraction,” she wrote. “A qualified running mate who attracts rather than alienates core constituencies is ready to lead on Day 1 and who can find his or her way in front of a TV camera without becoming the headline is preferred.”
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