With recent comments by Donald Trump about who he’d consider being his running mate, it made me think about what a Trump Cabinet might look like if he selected only from his competitors.
So, I thought, if I did take the 14 original GOP Presidential candidates and matched them to a Cabinet-level agency, it could make for some interesting combinations and great talk around the water cooler.
Then, if I added Sarah Palin, just to give this fantasy game a new dimension, I’ve got a full set of “nominees” for the Cabinet. And for good measure, let’s thrown in the U.N. slot.
Finally, I’ve identified who “could” (C) be the best agency nominee and then who “should” (S) actually get the job.
So, let’s get going:
STATE C: Kasich ... he’s the grown-up in the room
S: Bush ... he already knows many of the world’s leaders
TREASURY C: Fiorina ... she’s good with numbers and she’d be the 1st woman
S: Kasich ... he’s the only one to balance the federal budget
DEFENSE C: Perry ... he’s got lots of military bases in his state and he looks tough
S: Graham ... he’s a USAF Reserve colonel and he bleeds for the military
ATTORNEY GENERAL C: Graham ... well, at least he’s a lawyer
S: Christie ... strong U.S. attorney; can manage bridge investigations
INTERIOR C: Palin ... she’s from Alaska, which has lots of interior space
S: Palin ... come on, she’d scare the greenies, which is poetic justice!
AGRICULTURE C: Walker ... they grow a lot of corn in Wisconsin
S: Huckabee ... he helped to grow Wal-Mart in Arkansas
COMMERCE C: Christie ... New Jersey has lots of international companies based there
S: Fiorina ... she knows how to work a boardroom
LABOR C: Graham ... South Carolina is strong on right-to-work labor
S: Santorum ... why not? he needs a job somewhere
HHS C: Carson ... Duh!
S: Carson ... Double duh!
HUD C: Huckabee ... Arkansas needs more housing with running water and electricity
S: Pataki ... New York’s got all of the HUD money and housing already
TRANSPORTATION C: Pataki ... New Yorkers know all about traffic congestion and trains
S: Walker ... Good job for a good governor
ENERGY/EPA C: Santorum he’s got lots of shale oil in Pennsylvania
S: Jindal ... he’s got lots of refineries in Louisiana
EDUCATION C: Bush ... his signature issue as Florida governor
S: Perry ... he wants to educate everyone, including immigrants
VETERAN AFFAIRS C: Gilmore ... he’s an Army veteran
S: Paul ... he was a USAF flight surgeon
HOMELAND SECURITY C: Paul ... he’s certainly not an internationalist
S: Gilmore ... he was an Army counterintelligence agent
U.N. AMBASSADOR C: Rubio ... he speaks Spanish
S: Rubio ... he’s multicultural -- from Cuba, then to Las Vegas, then to Florida
So, where did I get it right? Wrong? What selections for what agencies would you make?
Barney Bishop III, one of the most familiar faces within the state business community, is CEO of Barney Bishop Consulting LLC in Tallahassee.
