Veep Veep
Posted at 12:29 am on Friday, January 11, 2008, in Uncategorized, and tagged 2008.
There are four major reasons for a presidential candidate to choose a running mate.
(1) Shore up the base. This is usually more useful for the republican side, as the liberals tend to follow suit with the party, regardless of the ticket, whereas the republican base tends to be more fickle on social issues.
(2) Move towards the center. This is the play the democrats usually make, trying to broaden the message and attract centrists, independents and undecided voters.
(3) Perform better in a specific region. Al Gore’s choice of Joe Lieberman has been viewed as an effort by the former VP to win the state of Florida. John Kerry’s choice of John Edwards was an effort to do better in the South.
(4) Increase votes in a certain demographic. This reason has not yet been overtly exploited, but Lieberman, for example, was supposed to help Gore with Jewish voters. In the future however, with the rising importance of the Latino vote, this reason will come more into play.
There is a wild-card reason, which could be called the Dick Cheney axiom, where the potential president may be looking for a high-level advisor, and not any particular advantage at the polls, or for some other reason. Bill Clinton’s choice of Al Gore was considered to be unorthodox since it didn’t seem to help the former Arkansas governor in any particular electorate.
In this year’s democratic primaries, there are really only two potential vice presidential candidates — John Edwards and Bill Richardson. First, if either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton do not win the nomination, they would rather keep their jobs in the Senate, and the same went with Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. The vice-presidency is historically a politically weak position, until Cheney’s reign, that is, but there will not be another Cheney-type power in the vice president’s office anytime soon, although these senators would likely join the president’s cabinet.
That leaves two possible candidates…
(1) Edwards, who will be out of a job if he doesn’t win the nomination, and like four years ago, he would help the democrats be competitive in the South, especially in an election year where the democrats can make a major play in the South because of the unpopular sitting president and the widespread view that the GOP is corrupt.
(2) Bill Richardson, who should help the democrats with the increasingly important Latino vote, as well as in the West, in general.
The Latino vote however may be less important than in past (and future) elections because of the GOP’s disastrous, unconscionable and unconstitutional anti-immigration platform. I think, in the case that Obama or Clinton rise to the top, that Edwards’ phone will be off the hook as the nominee looks for a running mate. The South will be in play, at least more than in most years, and Edwards will certainly help.
I feel the five possible democratic tickets — assuming no outsiders from the current field — are… Clinton/Edwards, Clinton/Richardson, Obama/Edwards, Obama/Richardson and Edwards/Richardson.
Out of those five, I can say with confidence that Clinton/Edwards is a non-starter, because of Edwards’ surprise temporary alliance with Obama, and Obama/Richardson will not do much to broaden the ticket, so the other three are much more likely… Clinton/Richardson, Obama/Edwards and Edwards/Richardson.
Out of those, Obama/Edwards does sound the most successful, at least right now.
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January 11th, 2008 at 8:12 am
I like your thinking but i find it potentially unrealistic for a few reasons. The 1st is the sad reality, that the baby-boomer generation is too racist to vote for a black man for president. Lets say they can get beyond that…a platform with a black president and mexican vp would be too risky for the older voters. Similar condition for a woman president and a mexican vp. These options of course are not an issue for our younger generation but the older people are still hesitant. This is one of the reasons i think that kerry’s endorsement of obama was important. It put some traditional backing to make him seem more legitimate. I’m unsure of Edwards for Obama’s vp only because that would be two young people running. They may wish to offset a younger pres. with an older vp. Just a thought.
January 11th, 2008 at 8:21 am
Good analysis. I’d be willing to bet on the likelihood of the first two of the last three combinations you mentioned.
As for the comments from the previous poster, I’d like to remind “Anonymous” that racism extends beyond generational boundaries, and I know quite a few of “our younger generation” to whom those options WOULD be an issue.
January 11th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
very true chuck, very true! But, the younger generation is definately more acceptive of this. Iowa’s win wouldn’t have been possible 10 or 15 years ago.