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As expected, Donald Trump announced today that J.D. Vance will he his running mate. I think that is a bad decision for a number of reasons.

At 39, Vance is too young for the role. And with less than two years in the Senate as his only political office, he has nowhere near the experience that a vice president should bring to a ticket.

Vance, who is unknown to the general public, won’t bring Trump a single new vote. In fact, there is no reason to think that he is any kind of political powerhouse: in his only race, he ran far behind the other statewide Republican candidates in Ohio.

Further, Vance’s political views are, in almost a literal sense, half-baked. He is still evolving. Thus, he denounced Trump viciously in 2016, while now he is an acolyte. In 2016, it was dumb of Vance to describe Trump as an “idiot,” as “noxious,” as one who is either “a cynical asshole” or “America’s Hitler,” just as it is dumb for Democrats to say the same things today. Vance’s never-Trumpism showed poor judgment, and 2016 is not exactly ancient history. Vance also converted to Catholicism in 2019. Nothing wrong with that; on the contrary, I applaud it. But we don’t need a president or vice president who is still on a voyage of self-discovery.

I am also suspicious of Vance on foreign policy. In tone, he strikes me as something close to an isolationist. He attacks the Iraq war in a manner barely distinguishable from leftists, and his statement that “I got to be honest with you, I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another,” is flippant at best. The world needs a strong America; I am not sure Vance agrees.

In short, while Vance is a bright guy and a pretty solid conservative, I don’t think he is anywhere near ready for prime time, and I don’t think he makes a perceptible contribution to the ticket. Trump had a number of much better choices available, and I think his selecting Vance reflects the poor judgment to which Trump is occasionally prone.