The nation could vote on its first presidential ticket made up entirely of reality TV show stars this summer.
Ben Carson, head of Donald Trump’s vice presidential search committee, says the presumptive Republican nominee is vetting Sarah Palin for the position.
Carson told the Washington Post that four of Trump’s former opponents from the primary are also on the list: John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Chris Christie.
A one-time competitor in the GOP race himself, Carson remains well-liked.
Donald Trump is said to be looking at Sarah Palin has his running mate (pictured last month). The former Governor of Alaska also tried her luck on the ticket alongside John McCain in 2008
‘He’s not interested,’ though, his business manager Armstrong Williams told the Post, adding, ‘But miracles can happen, right?’
Palin, the former governor of Alaska already tried out for the role of vice president once, in 2008, when she ran alongside John McCain.
The pair lost at the ballot box to Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Palin’s presence on the ticket was retrospectively declared a disaster by some of McCain’s top aides after the little-known politician stumbled over domestic and foreign policy questions.
The 2008 post-mortem book Game Change, which was also adapted into a film, portrayed Palin as increasingly power-hungry and unwilling to take directions – a diva who helped sink the campaign
She emerged from the election as conservative star, however. And in spite resigning from her job before her first and only term as governor was up, Palin became a leading member of the Tea Party movement.
Fox News awarded her a contract, and Palin inked deals for reality TV shows that feature both her and her family.
She shocked the political world when she endorsed Trump in January over opponent Ted Cruz, a fellow Tea Partier whom she backed in 2012 for the U.S. Senate.
Ben Carson, head of Donald Trump’s vice presidential search committee, says the presumptive Republican nominee is vetting Palin for the position
Even with her help, Trump narrowly lost to Cruz in Iowa. He went on to beat the conservative senator in other states expected to be strongholds for Cruz, forcing his friend-turned-nemesis out of the race in late April along with Kasich.
Trump said this week that he’s looking at five or six people for the position but wouldn’t name names.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich have indicated interest in the job.
‘If he asks me, I'm certainly going to say I want to sit down and talk about it,’ Gingrich said today on Fox News Sunday. ‘I don't think it's an automatic yes.’
The senior statesman said he’d want to discuss Trump’s vision for the role with the political newcomer first.
If Trump convinces him he’d give the position ‘serious’ weight, Gingrich said, according to The Hill, that he'd be ‘hard-pressed not to say yes.’
‘It's certainly a great challenge, but ... I have a pretty interesting, exciting life,’ the 2012 presidential candidate said. ‘We're pretty busy, but we could be lured into a new path.’
This week former vice president Dan Quayle recommended Ohio Senator Rob Portman.
Portman’s said he’s not interested – the freshman senator’s running for re-election this year – yet his name keeps coming up.
Trump was noncommittal last week when asked if Portman, who he met Friday during his Capitol Hill meetings, was being looked as a possible running mate.
Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, is also on the hunt for a second-in-command.
Ohio’s senior senator, Sherrod Brown, didn’t rule out the possibility of joining her ticket today on State of the Union as he refused to directly answer the question.
‘I love the job I'm doing. My priorities are to continue to fight for manufacturing in my state and for jobs and health care and deal with lead issues in my beloved city of Cleveland, where I live, and every other city in the industrial Midwest,’ he told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Brown went on dodging and told Tapper, ‘I will put real effort into helping elect Hillary Clinton.’
‘I love this job, and...I'm just not going to give you a different answer,’ he said.