Senator Ted Cruz’s choice of Carly Fiorina for Vice President is a brilliant move for a man who wants to reinforce a certain brand – one of total heartlessness and dishonesty. Cruz has the remarkable distinction of being the most thoroughly despised Senator in the Senate, a status made historically memorable by Senator Lindsey Graham’s infamous remark that Graham and his colleagues wouldn’t convict a Senator who openly shot Cruz dead in the Senate. The news just broke that earlier this week ex-Speaker of the House John Boehner called Cruz “Lucifer” and a “son of a bitch.” So, there you go: these are the opinions of Republican politicians about one of their own.
As to Fiorina: She is an aggressive attack dog who comes with seriously impressive papers proving her pedigree in the field of lies, smears, and callousness. She, like Cruz, opposes an increase in the federal minimum wage; she justifies a tax code that benefits the wealthy and corporations. Fiorina would strip 50 million Americans of their medical benefits under “Obamacare” (she would start all over but offers no cogent method for a transition or explanation of how her vague plan would be better). She is ruthless about deporting people – and the children born and raised here – who entered the country illegally. She doesn’t endorse any more thoughtful and humane way to handle the challenging situation other than proffering support for an ill-defined, socially disruptive, government sponsored police action of mass deportation – the historical shadows of such Hitlerian or Stalinesque methods clearly elude her (and yes, such programs can be both fascist and socialist resolutions of perceived “problems” and their “final solution”). Of course, both she and Cruz are determined to strip Planned Parenthood of all federal funding and Fiorina has invoked a fraudulent tape created by the Center for Medical Progress (a dubious organization in and of itself) that was manufactured as false “proof” Planned Parenthood profited from the sale of fetal tissues (a fraud that set off taxpayer-funded investigations in 12 states, all of which failed to prove a single incidence of such activity). Fiorina’s aggressive, irresponsible attacks on Planned Parenthood, which can only be translated as a soulless disregard for the health and well-being of millions of non-wealthy women, also include other false claims, one of which is reference to a discredited video of a newborn on a table being readied to have its brain harvested. Perhaps this fake video belongs in a zombie movie but it has absolutely no basis in reality.
When it comes to foreign policy, Fiorina’s speeches sometime appear more hawkish than Cruz. Like him, she opposed the nuclear pact with Iran and they both support a continuation of America’s failed 50-year-old hostile policies toward Cuba. It should come as no surprise that they mutually agree that waterboarding is not torture, which further demonstrates a stunning lack of understanding about modern ethical reasoning and human psychology regarding both the moral dimensions and lack of efficacy attendant to torture. In summary, there may be no better political partnership than a Cruz-Fiorina ticket. They most definitely belong together – preferably in the dustbin of history.
There’s a clear Republican precedent for choosing vice presidential attack dogs (Sarah Palin, the proud “pit bull with lipstick,” comes to mind). If these guys want even more aggressive attack dogs than what they already appear to be themselves, then perhaps maybe Donald Trump should pick someone like Duane from the television reality show “Dog the Bounty Hunter.” There’s a certain pugilistic physical similarity, minus the comb-over and Trump’s less-than-buff girth, a guy like Dog would bring to the ticket. Such a persona would certainly be compatible with the raw physicality of Trump’s alpha-male (masculinity-on-steroids) appeal. Also, unlike Cruz, Trump certainly makes no pretense whatsoever that he possesses any social polish or political gravitas so there should be no serious culture clash between Trump and the kind of personality it takes to be a bounty hunter.
I wonder what bounty hunters like Dog think about nuclear war? Are they, like Trump, comfortable throwing around that other “n-word”? My guess is they might be all in on torture, albeit clueless about Planned Parenthood (but that has never stopped a Republican from pretending to be an expert about women’s healthcare). In all fairness to Dog and other bounty hunters, I admit I really don’t know that much about their trade, and am loathe to smear them by association with Trump’s name, but I suspect they’ll relish the notoriety. A bona-fide bounty hunter on a presidential ticket certainly has its own cachet and might make another great match-up like Cruz and Fiorina – provided, of course, such testosterone-laden dudes don’t kill each other first. But then again, that might be its ultimate virtue.