The GOP convention kicks off today and if it goes as well as Trump's vice president roll-out drama it should be exciting in a fiery train wreck sort of way. If there's one thing Trump does understand it's the reality TV show formula. His most important decision of the campaign was an exercise in public humiliation for every one of the sad, desperate men who threw their integrity to the wind and prostrated themselves before him. He didn't even offer them a rose.

By the middle of the week, it seemed to have come down to three, Gingrich, Christie and Pence. Keeping the suspense high, a formula requirement, the campaign leaked like a sieve, each story contradicting the other. Chris Christie who had pretty much become The Donald's man servant over the last couple of months was probably the most pathetic, appearing to have sold his soul without realizing that Trump's trusted son-in-law, Jared Kushner would likely put the kibosh on him since he put Kushner's daddy in jail for a very long time. It's a pretty big ego that would have believed that wouldn't be a problem, but this is Chris Christie we're talking about.

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Then there was Newt, the garrulous psuedo-intellectual whose aggressive nasty streak was very appealing to the equally nasty Trump. Kushner was rumored to be in his corner, largely at the behest of Sheldon Adelson, a real multi-billionaire, who actually writes big checks. But the rest of the Trump brood reportedly preferred the midwestern wingnut Mike Pence, likely out of some deluded and desperate belief that they could normalize their father by choosing a standard issue conservative Republican. Unfortunately, after it had leaked that he was chosen, the campaign insisted that a choice hadn't been made so they could keep the "suspense" alive until the big announcement. When that had to be postponed because of the horrific events in Nice, Newt went on Fox and made a last minute hail Mary play for the job by taking a position on terrorism even more preposterous than Trump's, by proposing a sort of Inquisition demanding that all Muslims disavow Sharia law and deporting all those who "fail the test."