Not quite a stampede among top Republicans to join a possible Trump ticket

Donald Trump has hinted he wants a running mate with government experience

Donald Trump speaks during the Republican convention in April. (Gabrielle Lurie/Getty)

Choosing a running mate will become a newly urgent task for Donald Trump if a victory in the Indiana primary on Tuesday makes him the presumptive Republican nominee, a prospect that has already sparked widespread speculation about who might want - or not want - to join his ticket.

If there is very little reliable intelligence about what The Donald is thinking on the subject it’s because he is still busy with other matters. He must first fend off Senator Ted Cruz in the critical Indiana vote. If he doesn’t then he will have to keep scrapping all the way to the California primary on 7 June.

But a big, slightly unexpected, clue we do have: Mr Trump has indicated that he believes it important to have a vice president with significant government experience. If he holds to that, the game of guessing whom he might eventually settle on gets easier. He is not going to choose the winner of Season Three of The Apprentice, his old TV show. Or an Admiral no one has heard of, like third party candidate Ross Perot did in 1992 (the politically hapless Admiral James Stockdale).

Few of the usual rules apply, even so. Already, it seems that the list of senior Republicans making clear they would not want to be considered is looking longer than the list of those who might be interested. Count among them Jeb Bush. “Hahahahahahahahaha,” was the answer of one Bush aide gave when the New York Times inquired if he might, possibly, consider it.

Similar scoffing was elicited from aides close to Ohio Governor John Kasich, who is still in the race for nominee, as well as Scott Walker, the Governor of Wisconsin and Senator Lindsey Graham, both of whom were briefly among Mr Tump’s rivals. The latter muttered that buying a ticket on the Titanic before it sunk would be more attractive.

If government experience is what Mr Trump wants, sitting governors would seem a good place to start looking. As fast as you can say “swing state” the political chatterers have pointed to Florida Governor Rick Scott, who offered serious praise to the brash billionaire after he ran away with his state’s primary in March, consigning Florida Senator Marco Rubio to oblivion.

Then, of course, there is Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey, another victim of the winnowing of the Republican nomination field. Once out, Mr Christie then gambled what may or may not remain of his political career by stepping forward to become the first major Republican figure to endorse Mr Trump, to the horror of most of the party’s establishment.

It helps that Mr Christie is actually a longtime friend of Mr Trump’s. For others, there is the question of how quickly old enmities could be buried. Many, for example, believe that Senator Rubio, also facing the political wilderness, would work. But that would mean him forgetting, if not forgiving, all those times Mr Trump called him “Little Marco” on the trail.

Republican presidential hopefuls from years past have also started to surface, among them Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, who ran four years ago. Jon Huntsman, the moderate outsider who quickly fell by the wayside in 2012, has also popped up this week with a call for the party to unify behind the business tycoon that was also a, “Hey, remember me?”

“We’ve had enough intra-party fighting,” Mr Huntsman noted. “Now’s the time to stitch together a winning coalition. And it’s been clear almost from the beginning that Donald Trump has the ability to assemble a nontraditional bloc of supporters.”

Clearly, a woman Veep for Mr Trump might be a help, not just because he is likely to find himself competing against Hillary Clinton in November but also because of his record so far of alienating women voters. Two names in the mix already that may not inspire instant confidence, however, are Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska and 2008 running mate with John McCain, and the former Congresswoman and Tea Party standard-bearer, Michele Bachmann who ran in 2012. Either could prove popular with the party’s conservative wing.

Nikki Haley, the popular Governor of South Carolina, who endorsed Mr Rubio just before her state’s crucial primary in February, may have ruled herself out with some piercing remarks about Mr Trump’s candidacy and likewise Gov. Susana Martinez of New Mexico. Eyes have started to stray, however, to Governor Mary Fallin of Oklahoma who reportedly has indicated her willingness to be vetted by the Trump campaign.

Mr Trump may yet not be able to resist his usual instinct to surprise and shock and pick someone no-one else has even thought of. Which is sort of what Mr McCain did in 2008 with Ms Palin. Which didn’t work out so well.