No, JD Vance is not as bad of a running mate as Sarah Palin. He’s worse

As Vice President Kamala Harris continues to keep all of Washington on its toes about which white boy she will select as her running mate, Donald Trump’s campaign is dispatching his running mate — Senator JD Vance of Ohio — for counterprogramming.

Vance will be in Philadelphia on Tuesday, where Harris will make her first appearance alongside her running mate at a rally. Then, Vance will follow her to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, before he trails her to North Carolina.

The tour serves two purposes: Firstly, it allows for Vance to assume the common role of the running mate as the “attack dog” who can hurl javelins that the principal cannot do; secondly, it serves as Vance’s reintroduction to the public after a rocky rollout as Trump’s number two.

Few candidates have had a worse rollout than the Ohio freshman senator. Larry Hogan, the Republican former governor of Maryland who is now running for Senate, told The Independent that there is “no question” that Vance has a problem with women. Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies,” attacks on Jennifer Aniston and other remarks have significantly weakened him. The campaign has had to dispatch his wife Usha to defend his remarks. His previous calling pregnancies from rape and incest “inconvenient” haven’t gone unnoticed, either.

All of this has warranted some political pundits comparing Trump’s nomination of Vance to John McCain’s selection of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

That comparison makes sense to some. Palin’s numerous gaffes — including an interview with Katie Couric that led to Tina Fey doing a dead-on impersonation on Saturday Night Live — turned her into the ultimate example of how an improperly vetted running mate can drag down an entire ticket. Joe Biden’s