Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing

---

---

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen to Sen. Dan Quayle, Oct. 5, 1988

---

Tonight the nominees for vice president, Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence, will meet in their only debate.

Frankly, I have long thought that the vice presidential debate was the most pointless of the bunch.

Presidential debates have the potential to be significant in the story of a presidential election campaign. As we are often reminded, they are rare opportunities to see the candidates side by side answering the same questions at the same time. Fortunately, many (but certainly not all) of the questions that are asked in presidential debates are relevant to the office the candidates seek. The candidates' thoughts on domestic and foreign issues are important because the one who is chosen to be president is likely to have to make some pretty important decisions in four years.

What are vice presidents typically called upon to do? Well, of course, the vice president is first in line for the presidency if the incumbent should die (which hasn't happened in more than half a century) or resign (which has only happened once in American history). Otherwise, the vice president's responsibilities are to preside over the Senate (and cast a tie–breaking vote when necessary) and attend state weddings and funerals.

Consequently, the questions that are truly relevant to the office those candidates seek would involve things like how well — and for how long — they can establish order in public meetings. Or how many weddings or funerals they have attended in their public careers. Whether presiding over the Senate or attending a wedding or funeral, perhaps the most important skill a vice presidential candidate can possess is the ability to sit still for long periods of time without squirming or falling asleep.

But nobody would watch that so the questions in vice presidential debates tend to be questions one would ask of a would–be president. After all, you never know. The vice president might wind up becoming president (although the last seven have not). And sometimes those questions are remembered.

But what tend to be memorable about vice presidential debates are the lines that are delivered. Sometimes you know they were prepared well ahead of time and practiced repeatedly in the hope that the foes would give even the slightest opening for them. That was clearly the case 28 years ago tomorrow when Sen. Lloyd Bentsen delivered his devastating "You're no Jack Kennedy" rebuttal to Sen. Dan Quayle.

Bentsen was judged the winner of that debate — but Quayle won the election as George H.W. Bush's running mate.

---

---

Vice President Joe Biden may have channeled his inner Bentsen in his debate with Paul Ryan four years ago.

The first vice presidential debate took place nearly 40 years ago on Oct. 15, 1976 when Sen. Walter Mondale squared off with Sen. Bob Dole. Dole, in one of his lighter moments, may have made the best observation about the vice presidency since John Garner asserted that it wasn't worth "a pitcher of warm ****." Dole's assessment of the vice presidency was that it was "indoor work with no heavy lifting."

That was a pretty good line, and it might have been the one for which the debate was remembered — if Dole hadn't chosen to blame the Democrats for the wars that had been fought in the 20th century.

"I figured up the other day if we added up the killed and wounded in Democrat wars in this century," Dole said, "it would be about 1.6 million Americans, enough to fill the city of Detroit."

"Does he really mean," Mondale asked sarcastically, "that there was a partisan difference over our involvement in the fight against Nazi Germany?"

The 1984 vice presidential debate was the first to include a woman. Geraldine Ferraro, Mondale's running mate, took on Vice President George H.W. Bush and chastised him for his "patronizing attitude."

Twenty–four years later, when Sarah Palin became the first woman on a Republican ticket, her debate with Biden was remembered for her personal request: "Can I call you Joe?"

In 1992, America had its first — and so far only — three–participant vice presidential debate. It is largely remembered for Ross Perot's running mate, Admiral James Stockdale, and his meandering "Who am I? Why am I here?" self–introduction to viewers — which, of course, was lampooned by Saturday Night Live.

Well, you get the idea.

Caitlin Huey–Burns, in a column for RealClearPolitics, contends that Donald Trump has had a bad week since his first debate with Hillary Clinton — and that raises the stakes for Pence in tonight's debate.

Until something happens to prove me wrong, I continue to believe that the vice presidential debate is a colossal waste of time.

On the other hand, we are only five weeks away from all of this being over.

Of course, that will leave us with either Hillary or Trump as president–elect.

Can't win for losing.

Citizen Kaine

---

---

The Republican convention has just concluded, the Democrats' convention is about to begin, and Hillary Clinton has named Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate.

The tickets are set for November — or, at least, they will be when the Democrats make their ticket official next week.

And thus the quadrennial angst over the identity of at least one running mate is behind us. But the angst over what it all means and how it will influence the decision America must make continues.

The idealized image of a running mate is someone who will help the nominee's cause, but the overwhelming consensus on both running mates from pundits to both the left and the right was that the choices were rather boring safe picks — picks who weren't likely to hurt the nominees.

Neither probably helped the presidential nominees much in their home states — although you couldn't have said that about a Tim Kaine when Bill Clinton was heading the ticket not his wife. In 1992, when Bill Clinton first won the presidency, Virginia was reliably Republican, having voted for every Republican nominee for nearly 30 years. But after the Clinton administration, Democrats did increasingly better in Virginia in national elections, and they broke a more than 40–year–old electoral drought when Barack Obama carried the state in 2008. He went on to duplicate the feat, albeit by a narrower margin, in 2012.

Most of the polls of Virginia's voters that I have seen this year suggest that Clinton has been enjoying a comfortable lead, but the Kaine pick may prove to be beneficial in Virginia after all. The most recent Virginia poll that I have seen, Hampton University's survey of likely voters, showed Clinton and Donald Trump tied at 39% apiece.

But that, as I say, contradicts the findings in other polls. The NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist and FOX News polls, which came out around the same time as Hampton's but surveyed registered, not necessarily likely, voters, showed Clinton with a larger lead over Trump than Public Policy Polling's June survey of more than 1,000 registered voters. That poll showed Clinton with a more tenuous three–point lead over Trump in Virginia.

Polls in the summer generally aren't too reliable, though. You really have to get into the fall campaign — and, in fact, get past the first presidential debate in late September — before the polls will give realistic readings on the pulse of the electorate.

Sure, they're fun to watch right now, like the initial phases of a horse race, but a lot can happen between the start of a race and the end of a race.

Polls in July usually can't tell you much about what to expect in November — except when those polls consistently show a landslide in the making, and it has been more than 30 years since America had a classic, textbook landslide.

Right now, it seems best to evaluate the running mate choices on how well they serve perhaps the most obvious need for both nominees — choices who could help heal fractured parties.

In the past, nominees often have sought to achieve party unity by offering the running mate slot to their closest competitors in the primaries. Sometimes offering an olive branch to the party's vanquished wing helps (i.e., Ronald Reagan's pick of George H.W. Bush in 1980), sometimes it doesn't (i.e., John Kerry's pick of John Edwards in 2004).

In Trump's case, he needed to shore up his credentials with conservatives, but the chances that he would pick the runnerup in the primaries, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, were slim and none.

He came up with a conservative alternative, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who appears to be acceptable to most conservatives in the party and, with six terms in the U.S. House under his belt, has legitimate insider credentials to balance Trump's perceived outsider status.

One can argue, of course — and, no doubt, many will — whether Trump, with his business dealings, is truly an outsider. He has often bragged, in fact, of how intimately he knows the system. That can be a good thing if one's objective is to elect someone who can work within the system to change it, but it can be a bad thing for someone who believes a candidate with that much invested in a system will work to protect it, not change it.

It is difficult to make a plausible case that having Cruz on the ticket would have helped Trump much in November. The race between Trump and Cruz never was that close, and, historically, a party's base will unite in spite of differences on some issues even without the runnerup on the ticket — still Cruz's nonendorsement of Trump in his convention speech clearly shows division remains in the Republican Party.

Pence may be able to help with that, reassuring conservatives and potentially uniting the base. If he does, Cruz's nonendorsement may be all but forgotten by most Republicans in November.

There is division in the Democratic Party as well, but it seems less certain that Kaine will be able to help much with that.

Even though the Democrats will have a platform that is considerably more left–leaning than ever before, the leftist wing of the party heavily supported Sanders in the primaries, and many of those Democrats may not vote for Clinton. They probably won't vote for Trump, but they might vote for the Green Party's candidate, Dr. Jill Stein, or they might not vote at all.

All along, the Clinton general election campaign strategy has been counting on the help that young voters gave Obama in 2008 and 2012, but many young voters supported Sanders in the primaries, and it is questionable whether Tim Kaine can address their concerns.

It will depend on what those concerns are.

If Sanders' supporters are mostly concerned about social issues or foreign policy, Kaine might fit the bill. National Journal's most recent congressional rankings — which are based on 2013 roll call votes — indicated that Sanders and Kaine are pretty close in those areas. Kaine, in fact, was considered more liberal in both (68% to 66% on social issues, 71% to 61% on foreign policy).

But the Sanders campaign was based primarily on economic issues, and that is where a considerable divide exists between Sanders and Kaine. The Journal gives Sanders a rating of 82% on economic issues; Kaine receives a far more centrist rating of 53%.

As a result, many of Sanders' supporters may choose not to participate in the election at all if they do not feel another candidate adequately represents them.

(In the interest of comparison, here is how Clinton fared in the National Journal's rankings when Clinton, then a senator, sought the presidential nomination in 2008. She received an 84% ranking on economic issues, an 83% ranking on social issues and a 66% ranking on foreign policy issues. Sanders, two years into his first term as a senator, received a 94% on economic issues, a 77% on social issues and a 94% on foreign policy issues. Citizen Kaine was the former governor of Virginia.)

I have a feeling that, unlike just about every other presidential election in my lifetime, every single vote will matter this time, and the Clinton campaign, mindful of that likelihood, went for a running mate who could be an electoral firewall. The usual swing states will be swing states again — Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida — and each presents its unique set of issues and challenges.

In Ohio, Trump must overcome the resistance of the state's governor, former primary challenger Gov. John Kasich. Trump's economic message is resonating with Ohio's blue–collar voters; three of the last four polls there have shown Trump and Clinton tied. Pence, as the governor of a neighboring state, may help there.

I haven't seen a poll from Pennsylvania in nearly two weeks. At the time, one showed Clinton leading by nine points, the other showed Trump leading by two points. The most recent poll from Florida had Clinton leading by seven points.

Kaine probably can't help much in Virginia, although if the race is as tight as the Hampton University poll suggests, Kaine and his perfect electoral record in Virginia could help Clinton if she stumbles in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

To maintain historical plausibility with political scientists, the winner of the election needs to carry at least two of those three states. Recent electoral results indicate that Clinton might be able to win the presidency without winning any of them, but the fact is that no presidential candidate since 1960 has won the White House without carrying at least two of those states.

Will that be the case again in 2016? Or, as it has been with so many other things this year, will that tidbit of conventional wisdom prove to be invalid?

It's Official Now

---

---

As expected, Hillary Clinton scored a resounding victory over Bernie Sanders in yesterday's South Carolina primary.

And, as I have observed in recent weeks, the winner of the South Carolina Democrat and Republican primaries almost always goes on to win the nomination for president.

If you're looking for a political bellwether, at least at this stage of a presidential campaign, it's hard to find one that is better than South Carolina.

Thus, it is likely that we now know who will be the major parties' standard bearers in the fall — but, of course, we really didn't need South Carolina for that, did we? I mean, didn't we already know it would be Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton?

And, indeed, those are the candidates who won the endorsements of South Carolina's voters.

Mathematically, of course, neither Trump nor Clinton has anywhere near enough committed delegates to be absolutely assured of nomination, but both can take a giant step forward in that regard a couple of days from now when 10 states vote on "Super Tuesday." There will also be one state caucus in each party.

Polls show Trump and Clinton leading in most of them. If those polls prove to be accurate, historically speaking, it's a done deal, and that will spare voters in the remaining primaries the onslaught of media attention and advertising to which the earlier primary and caucus participants have been subjected. For the folks who vote later in the political calendar, I'm sure that will be cause for much rejoicing.

But is that really a good thing?

The only matters left will be the formality of the votes at the conventions and the selections of the nominees' running mates.

The selection of a running mate, of course, is always regarded as the first presidential–level decision a presumptive nonincumbent nominee must make. It is rarely as consequential as it is made to seem, but there certainly have been times, particularly when there was no incumbent in the race, when the choice of a running mate has made a difference.

In 2008, for example, John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin was panned while Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden was seen as being presidential. Polls remained close until the economic implosion, but the choice of Biden did seem to give the Democrats a boost.

Twenty years earlier, the whole thing seemed to be unimportant to voters. George H.W. Bush's choice of Dan Quayle could not compete with the stature of Michael Dukakis' choice, Lloyd Bentsen, but that did not seem to matter to voters. For the only time since World War II, voters voted for the same party for a third straight time, largely because the majority of voters wanted a third term for term–limited Ronald Reagan.

Speculation about the running mates can be pretty intense when there is so much time to fill. There is usually little else about which political writers care to write in the time they must fill before the convention, and everything in the process becomes magnified. You know what they say about idle hands ...

The earlier the nomination battle is decided, the longer the speculation about running mates is apt to be.

That is why it may be best for everyone, including the candidates, if the nominations are still undetermined for awhile.

But there are problems with that, too. If a campaign goes on until the end of the primary calendar, as it did in 2008, it leaves less time for the nominee to make the choice — and increases the likelihood that a mistake will be made.

So it may be that the fact that the likely nominees are known at this stage will be beneficial. At least they can begin vetting vice–presidential prospects before whittling it to a short list that can be paraded before the media at the appropriate time.

Parallel Lives

---

---

The recent release of Sarah Palin's memoir, "Going Rogue: An American Life," has made me ponder the course of her political career and that of the other woman who was a running mate on a major party ticket a quarter of a century ago, Geraldine Ferraro.

Certain similarities jump out at me, starting with their ages. Both were in their 40s when chosen to be running mates. Ferraro was 48, which was within the range of most previous Democratic running mates. Palin, on the other hand, was 44, the youngest Republican running mate in 20 years (considerably younger than Dick Cheney or Jack Kemp had been).

Initial surveys indicated that both were popular choices, although they ran into trouble once their conventions were over and the campaigns began in earnest. Palin's problems in the 2008 campaign have been well documented, but, in case you need a reminder (or you are too young to remember the 1984 campaign), not only was Ferraro criticized for a style that was regarded by some as reckless and defiant, but she had problems with her family as well. Less than a month after being nominated, Ferraro had to face relentless questioning about her and her husband's finances.

That was a distraction, but Ferraro wasn't helped by her shoot–from–the–hip style. After telling reporters that she would release her tax returns but her husband would release only a tax statement (his explanation to her, she said, was "Gerry, I'm not going to tell you how to run the country, you're not going to tell me how to run my business"), she made a remark that dogged her: "You people married to Italian men, you know what it's like." Republicans sensed a gender–neutral opportunity to attack and they didn't let it go to waste.

Both Palin and Ferraro had somewhat limited political careers prior to being nominated, and their lack of experience frequently was compared (unfavorably) to the abundance of experience possessed by their opponents. After Ferraro's debate with George H.W. Bush and Palin's debate with Joe Biden, both were said to have performed better than expected, but they were hammered, nevertheless, by the opposition for their "extremist" political views, and both lost the general elections by wide margins — even though it could be rightly said that the opposition's presidential nominees were more popular personally than their policies.

Ferraro and Palin were chosen in large part to appeal to female voters. It was a roll of the dice that didn't pay off. They may well have attracted some female voters, but exit polls indicated that neither succeeded in winning the women's vote. After the 1984 election was over, most political observers agreed that no potential Democratic ticket could have defeated Ronald Reagan, and, following last year's economic meltdown, the same probably could be said of any potential Republican ticket in 2008. Blaming the female running mates strikes me as convenient but ultimately indefensible.

Like Palin, the year after the campaign, Ferraro published her memoir, "Ferraro: My Story," which was a bestseller. There was talk about her political future, and she was labeled a "rising star" in party politics, but, beyond founding a political action committee that had as its mission the goal of electing 10 women in the 1986 Congressional elections and two unsuccessful bids for the Senate in the 1990s, Ferraro's political career was over.

There is talk today about Palin's political future as well. What that future holds has been debated since Palin's resignation as governor of Alaska a few months ago, but she still clearly appeals to some Republican voters.

I hear some of today's Democrats fretting about Palin. What will become of the nation, they ask, if Sarah Palin is nominated for president in 2012 — and, God forbid, actually wins? I've heard some cite, as an ominous sign, reports from the Des Moines Register that suggest that more than two–thirds of Iowa Republicans have a favorable opinion of Palin.

"That's close to the 70 percent who hold favorable views of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the 2008 caucuses," writes the Register's Thomas Beaumont, "and it's higher than the 66 percent who view former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich favorably. Palin's number is also higher than that of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, runnerup in the 2008 caucuses, who is viewed favorably by 58 percent of the state's Republicans."

I would give a lot more credibility to those numbers if this were November 2011 and the Iowa caucuses were a few weeks away. But even that couldn't be viewed as conclusive. In mid–November of 2007, polls indicated that Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney would win the Iowa caucuses.

I may be wrong, but my inclination since July has been that, unless she runs for and wins a seat in the Senate or the House next year, Palin ultimately will not pose nearly as much of a threat as many Democrats fear. She will have no recent achievements to bolster a political record that was — to put it charitably — quite thin in 2008, but it was acceptable for a vice presidential nominee. It will be far less plausible for a potential president.

Beaumont quotes a former director of the state's Republican Party, who claims Palin is misunderstood and has been victimized by mistakes that were not hers. Therefore, this isn't about achievements. "She's getting the chance to set the record straight."

Fine. I'm all in favor of personal redemption. But my belief has been that resigning her post will work against her when many Republicans ask themselves the tough questions that caucus participants must ask about every candidate. Typically, if you don't have recent achievements, you'd better have a record of achievements. Palin doesn't have the latter and she quit the former. That's not exactly a bumper sticker slogan.

Even today, more than two years before the next Iowa caucuses, there are signs that decision will hurt a potential Palin candidacy. A GOP activist told the Register that Palin "needs a policy platform, with a conservative organization or media outlet, to boost her credibility."

And, even though she enjoys high favorable ratings from Iowa Republicans, Beaumont reports, "24 percent of Iowa Republicans view Palin unfavorably, compared with 12 percent for Huckabee." Party activists told Beaumont they believe the decision to resign has a lot to do with that.

Democrats who are worried about 2012 are getting ahead of themselves. They need to be promoting the idea of getting all their senators and representatives on the same page.

History says the party in power will lose ground in the midterm elections. Lately, public opinion surveys are saying the same thing.

Without the bullet–proof majorities in Congress, how much of his agenda can Barack Obama expect to push through in the last two years of his term? How will his record of achievements look then? I suppose that depends on exactly how much ground is lost in 2010.

See, that achievements thing works both ways.

Going Rogue

---

rogue (noun)

1. vagrant, tramp


2. a dishonest or worthless person : scoundrel


3. a mischievous person : scamp

Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary

---

The other night, a high school classmate of mine made an interesting observation on Facebook.

Referring to Sarah Palin's new book, "Going Rogue," my ex–classmate posted the Merriam–Webster link and wondered, "So, which of these definitions does Sarah Palin think best describes herself?"

He confessed that "ever since the book was announced I've been very puzzled by her choice of titles."

Another former classmate tried to clarify the point, saying, "She is using the term that McCain's staffers used about her."

The first classmate responded, "So she wants to emphasize the fact that the people whose job it was to sell her to the public thought she was unstable and irresponsible? If I were managing her 'brand' I would counsel her to reconsider. Maybe this is all part of being a 'maverick' ..."

I wasn't a Palin fan last year — in the interest of full disclosure, I wasn't an Obama fan, either — and she never seems to make it easy on people like me. This is the 24th post I have written in which "Palin" has been listed as a label, and I have tried — or, at least, I feel that I have tried — to give her the benefit of the doubt.

When it comes to Palin, I rarely agree with her on anything, but I do try to be fair. Her book hasn't hit the store shelves yet so I haven't read her side of the story, but I am unaware of any lobbying that she did (or that anyone did on her behalf) to encourage John McCain to pick her as his running mate.

In fact, Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson wrote, in "The Battle for America 2008," that, although McCain had been reviewing possible running mates since securing the nomination in the spring, Palin's name wasn't added to the list of prospects until about a month before the Republican convention — when the McCain campaign "became alarmed at the size of Obama's lead among women."

If it turns out that Palin waged an active campaign to be chosen, I would feel differently. But the Balz–Johnson account tends to confirm what I have suspected all along — that she was not chosen because of her political views but because of her gender.

McCain, I have contended, believed that the majority of Hillary Clinton's supporters could be persuaded to support his campaign if he had a female running mate. But, while Clinton's supporters undoubtedly were disappointed that she came up short in her bid for the Democratic nomination, it turned out they were driven more by ideology than gender.

McCain might have been more successful in winning their support if he had chosen a centrist woman to be his running mate — but I have seen no indication that ideology played a key role in Palin's selection.

Once she was on the ticket, campaign officials may have experienced "buyer's remorse" when it became clear that she was in over her head — but it should be noted that McCain was the buyer. He may have felt remorseful at times, but I think that was overridden by his desire to avoid appearing indecisive in what was perceived to be his first presidential–level decision.

The role of the campaign staff was to be supportive of the ticket and try to help shore up any weaknesses, like the fact that she came across as inexperienced and uninformed in her interviews with Katie Couric. If she was ill–prepared for the national spotlight during the fall campaign, it was in part because the campaign does not appear to have made much effort to address her deficiencies.

It was legitimate, for example, to question Palin about the leaders of foreign countries and America's relationships with those countries because, if elected vice president, that was the kind of knowledge she would need if she eventually became president. But five vice presidents had been elected since the last time a sitting vice president ascended to the presidency, and such knowledge wasn't strictly part of the definition of the job for which she was a candidate. The vice president presides over the Senate. In modern times, the vice president has been dispatched to represent the United States at the weddings and funerals of foreign dignitaries so familiarity with the governments of foreign countries is a good thing to have, but it is not a constitutional requirement.

The vice president is next in line for the presidency, but it has been nearly 50 years since a vice president became president following the death of a president, and it has been 35 years since a vice president became president following the resignation of a president. As I observed before either running mate was chosen, we're overdue — historically — for such a thing to happen, but, in a lifetime of studying the presidency and presidential campaigns, I have seldom come across an instance in which a prospective vice president was chosen because he (or she) was believed to be the most qualified to take over as president if that became necessary.

I have seen running mates who were chosen because their presence on the ticket, it was believed, would heal political wounds and unify the party (i.e., Ronald Reagan's choice of George H.W. Bush, his main rival for the 1980 Republican nomination, and John Kerry's selection of John Edwards as his 2004 running mate). I have seen running mates who, like Palin, were picked because it was believed they would appeal to certain demographic groups (i.e., Walter Mondale's choice of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984).

I have even seen people who were mentioned frequently as potential running mates primarily as lip service to shaky supporters.

Perhaps my classmate was right. Perhaps McCain's staffers did view Palin as "unstable and irresponsible." If so, they weren't the only ones. But it was their task, as my classmate also observed, to "sell" her to the voters. And they failed.

I'm inclined to believe Palin is right when she says she has been made a scapegoat for McCain's defeat. As objectionable as she may have seemed to many voters, I don't believe any running mate could have salvaged the Republican ticket after the economic meltdown occurred.

Having a running mate who went "rogue" did not cost McCain the election. No matter which definition one takes for that word.

A Case of Buyer's Remorse?

It's been about two weeks since Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware officially became the Democratic nominee for vice president.

But already, with just under eight weeks left in the presidential campaign and about three weeks to go before Biden's debate with his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, there are signs of buyer's remorse in the Democratic Party.

Should Barack Obama have put Hillary Clinton on the ticket?

Based on his own words this week in Nashua, N.H., even Biden thinks he should have.

But, then, I contend, Obama would have found himself facing the same problem of persuading a skeptical electorate. Only, in that instance, the nature of the objection would be different. More on that later.

Marianne Means writes, in the Houston Chronicle, that, while, in hindsight, Clinton looks like she might have been a better choice, it may never have risen above the status of "political stunt."

In fact, it may ultimately have damaged the Democrats' chances of winning.

Palin's candidacy, Means says, "is still a political stunt, but a successful one."

My belief was that such a "stunt" would not work for Obama. As the nominee for president, Obama is asking the American voters to elect the first black president. He needed a white male running mate to reassure the more traditionally minded voters (and there are many more of them than you might like to believe) — to act as an acceptable counterweight.

(And, with the recent conflict between Russia and Georgia, Obama apparently felt the need to have a running mate with foreign policy credentials.)

Obama has campaigned on a theme of change in his bid for the presidency, and that's a noble concept. In light of the public's response to Palin, should he have made a purely political decision and pre-empted the Republicans by putting Clinton on his ticket?

I don't believe so. In our society, change comes gradually. It would be asking voters to accept too much change at once to ask them to elect a black man president and a woman vice president. I believed that before Obama picked Biden, and I still believe that.

John McCain's choice of Palin as his running mate redefined the dynamics of the campaign. Whoever wins, a barrier will be broken.

And, in an ironic twist, what happens may depend upon what Clinton's 18 million primary supporters decide to do in November.

Two weeks ago, when Palin was introduced as McCain's presumptive running mate, I wrote about many aspects of her candidacy, including her ideological differences with Hillary Clinton.

When the debates are over and the people go to the polls, Clinton's voters will have a big decision to make. Is it more important to them to break the "glass ceiling" than it is to elect people whose beliefs have more in common with their own?

Palin, Means writes, "is the anti-Clinton, opposed to every domestic and social policy for which Clinton has worked for decades, yet she is pulling away hordes of white female voters who refused to settle for Obama after he dumped Hillary."

I guess it depends on the individual. I've speculated that most of Clinton's supporters share her pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-feminist views. And, based on that speculation, I have further speculated that Clinton's supporters would be more inclined to support Obama than McCain.

But for some of Clinton's supporters, gender advancement was and still is the motivating issue.

I know some female Clinton supporters who insist that they will support the McCain-Palin ticket — even though they agree with Palin on very few issues.

It's a decision that 18 million individuals will be making.

As far as I'm concerned, the gender discussion is a distraction.

Politically, is it even relevant? I mean, in 2004, Democrats won the overall women's vote, as they usually do, but by a relatively narrow 51% to 48% margin.

Although they represented approximately 46% of the vote in 2004, men voted heavily for the Republican ticket, 55% to 44%.

So, based on the numbers from the last presidential election, the goals were clear for both sides. Obama's party needs to win over male voters. McCain's party needs to win over female voters.

On the surface, at least, both needs were addressed by the selections of the running mates — both of whom also happen to be effective advocates for their parties' agendas. We'll have to wait until November to find out how much the running mates have helped — or hurt.

Thankfully, this discussion distracts attention from race, at least temporarily. And it can serve a long-term purpose by forcing the public to finally confront the uncomfortable issue of misogyny.

David Harsanyi writes, in the Denver Post, that "'[e]xoticism' in the political realm is no longer an impediment, it's a significant asset. And Republicans, whether they admit it or not, were yearning for the excitement Barack Obama generated — that is, before Sarah Palin came along.

"Palin's frontier mystique has captivated conservatives. Both the lipstick and the pit bull. It's also discombobulated many Democrats, now fumbling to find a strategy to deal with a conservative woman."

But the gender discussion also distracts attention from issues we need to be talking about — like the economy, health care, unemployment, energy, Iraq.

Many of Clinton's supporters empathize with Palin on several levels, but how many of them share her views? My guess would be, not many.

And how many of Clinton's supporters who don't share Palin's views will vote for her anyway — even after they learn more about her ideology?

Harsanyi concedes that the campaign is about policy matters. But it's about more than that.

It's tempting, given the kind of news coverage we've seen lately, to believe that the campaign is about tokenism. But it's not. Look beneath the surface. Obama's current problems are not simply the result of Clinton supporters throwing a tantrum.

"Voters may struggle with their mortgage and curse those high gas prices, yet most of them won't surrender core values and policy beliefs due to the vagaries of the economy," he writes. "If roughly half of the nation's voters reject the serious, but collectivist, solutions Obama offers them, it doesn't mean they're racists, it means they're Republicans.

"Now, should Obama lose in November, it will be partly of his own doing and partly because the majority of voters are permanent members of their respective parties."

On a personal note, I do have to wonder why Palin will be here in the Dallas area the day after her debate with Biden.

Texas hasn't voted for a Democrat since supporting Jimmy Carter in 1976. And Dallas has a long history of supporting Republicans — even though there was something of a reversal in Dallas in 2006, when many local elections in Dallas County swung to the Democrats.

So what do Republicans think they can accomplish by sending Palin to Dallas the day after her nationally televised debate? Are they concerned about whether Palin can stand up to Biden?

If they are, does the fact that Palin will be visiting Texas the day after the debate mean the Republicans want to be ready to engage in some damage control on friendly turf?

They don't seem to be anticipating a victory — or even a draw — that they can capitalize on in a swing state. If they were, Palin's October 3 itinerary would be taking her to some place like Ohio or Michigan or Pennsylvania — or perhaps a smaller "swing" state, like Colorado, Nevada or New Hampshire.

I've seen nothing that suggests Texas will be in play in November. So why is Palin coming to Texas? What is there to be gained?

If there's nothing to be gained, isn't it an unconscionable waste of campaign funds to send the running mate to a state that's in the bag?

"Gender may have an initial appeal only," Means writes, "but it could last if Palin proves to be clever and softens her hard-line anti-abortion, anti-stem cell research, anti-gay rights, anti-everything modern positions of the past. She's running for the second spot, not the top one. We'll see."

Indeed we shall.

A Modest Prediction

I'm not gifted with insights that tell me when the presumptive presidential nominees will announce their selections for running mate.

Nor do I have any inside information on who those choices will be.

But Barack Obama will accept his party's nomination in a little more than two weeks.

And John McCain will accept his party's nomination in a little more than three weeks.

So I don't think I'm going out on much of a limb here when I say that we'll know both parties' tickets within a month.

And my predictions on the identities of the running mates aren't based on any scientific methodology — just gut instincts (which means I'm just as likely to be wrong as I am to be right!).

Anyway, here (briefly) is my prediction:

• Democrats: I think Obama's best choice is Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico. With experience as a representative, governor and diplomat, Richardson has a résumé that few people can match.
  
  He's ready to be president if needed, and, being part Hispanic, he can attract support from the fastest-growing ethnic community in this country — a minority group that the Democrats haven't already tapped (unlike, for example, the black community — which has been voting nearly unanimously for Democrats for generations).
  
  Based on what I've been reading lately, I would say Obama's most obvious choice, at this point, is Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia. I don't think he brings to the table what Richardson does, but he has gubernatorial experience in a Southern state, and his popularity in his home state could help flip Virginia to the Democrats after spending four decades in the Republican column.
  
  I'm just not sure Kaine is quite as prepared to step in as Richardson is.
  
  So I predict that Obama will pick Richardson to be his running mate.


• Republicans: McCain has less of a margin for error — and he has fewer solid options than Obama does.
  
  It's a critical decision that McCain must make.
  
  I think the most obvious choice is Mitt Romney, McCain's former rival for the nomination who has been openly campaigning for the No. 2 spot on the ticket. I'm not convinced that McCain and Romney have patched up their differences, though, and I think being able to have a good personal relationship with his running mate is important to McCain.
  
  So, in spite of all the things that Romney could bring to the ticket, I believe McCain will go with the choice that I think best suits his need for someone he can get along with — former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge.
  
  Ridge has a varied résumé of his own — in addition to being a former governor, he's been a representative and a Cabinet member.
  
  He may not be as conservative as some would like — he favors an accelerated death penalty process and he's against gay marriage but he's pro-choice, in spite of his Catholic upbringing.
  
  And he doesn't provide much contrast in age to McCain — Ridge will turn 63 on Aug. 27, and McCain will turn 72 two days after that.
  
  But there's a strong chemistry between the two men, and I think that's something that is important to McCain.

So that's my prediction.

Obama-Richardson vs. McCain-Ridge.

We'll find out soon if I'm right!

Got Those Running Mate Blues From My Head to My Shoes

MSNBC appears to be reporting something that everyone else seems to be suggesting these days — that John McCain will announce his pick for running mate this week.

Mind you, MSNBC is only the latest to make this suggestion. In recent days, Bob Novak wrote, in Human Events, "Sources close to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign are suggesting he will reveal the name of his vice presidential selection this week while Sen. Barack Obama is getting the headlines on his foreign trip."

If that happens, it seems to me that the timing would tell you everything you need to know about how important the running mate selection is for this nominee.

As Novak reported, Obama is overseas right now — ostensibly to demonstrate how engaged he will be as president — but the truth is it's mostly a media ploy, a photo opp that seems designed to reassure voters who are skittish about Obama's credentials on foreign policy.

Of course, going overseas during a presidential campaign is nothing new. Presidential candidates have done it before — and it's a legitimate thing to do, even if it costs the campaign some money to do it. Nevertheless, it's an option that any presidential nominee — or presumptive nominee — is welcome to take.

And, of course, both nominees are expected to name their running mates soon.

But, to this point, the conventional wisdom I've been hearing has said that McCain will wait until after Obama makes his choice.

Obama is under a little more pressure than McCain is. As the presumptive nominee for the party that is out of power, Obama's convention will be held first. And the Democrats will hold their convention starting on Aug. 25, because the Olympics in Beijing will consume most of August and the closing ceremonies won't be held until Aug. 24.

The Olympiad starts on Aug. 8. So, if Obama doesn't announce his decision before Aug. 8, he will have two choices:

1. he can disrupt the TV coverage of the Olympics by announcing his choice


2. or he can wait until the convention is about to begin.

The Republicans, on the other hand, are scheduled to hold their convention the first week of September, which gives McCain a little more flexibility for announcing his choice.

Unless he makes that announcement this week, while Obama is traveling overseas.

In which case, McCain clearly cares more about disrupting his opponent's press coverage than he does about choosing the most qualified running mate.

Obama, according to Charlie Cook in the National Journal, is working to strengthen his appeal to skeptical white voters. Depending on the quality of McCain's choice, Obama may feel pressured into making an unwise decision in an ill-advised attempt to mollify undecided centrists.

(Although sometimes I have to wonder why some of our nominees even bother to go on these trips abroad. As David Aaronovitch writes in the London Times, "[E]ventually, we will hate or ridicule Mr. Obama, too — provided, of course, that he is elected." Seems like a no-win situation to me.)

It remains to be seen whether Obama's selection of a running mate appears to be more concerned with appealing to particular demographic groups or with disrupting his opponent in some way than it is with the country's best interests.

I've said this before, but it bears repeating: This is the most presidential decision either candidate will have to make before Election Day.

By the way ...

For the last month or so, MSNBC has been running an interactive game in which participants made their choices for the Republican and Democratic tickets based on a series of head-to-head, single-elimination matchups that resembled the NCAA Tournament brackets.

The contests finally wrapped up this week, with participants choosing (drum roll, please)

Mitt Romney for McCain's running mate and Joe Biden for Obama's running mate.

My initial reaction is that neither choice is right.

McCain and Romney don't get along. It isn't necessary for the president and vice president to get along, but the modern vice presidency requires a working relationship with the president, and I'm not sure McCain and Romney can work together.

And I don't think Biden works because he's part of the "old Washington politics." He's been in the Senate since 1972. I think he's very knowledgeable, very talented, and I think he'd be a great choice for secretary of state or ambassador in the next administration. But I don't think he works as the running mate.

What do you think?

I'll Admit It — These Are Random Thoughts

It's a hot, stuffy July night in Dallas, Texas. And my thoughts are like fireflies, darting from one spot to the next with little warning:

• I was reading an article in the Washington Post that was discussing a couple of the hottest names being tossed around lately for Democratic running mate.
  
  They are Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana and former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia.
  
  Both men are from so-called "red states" that are presently predicted to remain in the Republican column in November.
  
  But the feeling is that either state could flip sides — especially if a native son had a spot on the ticket with Barack Obama.
  
  Obama has no executive experience so a vice presidential candidate with a background as a governor would be helpful to his ticket. Bayh brings that to the table — he was governor of Indiana from 1989 to 1997.
  
  In 1998, he was elected to the Senate, winning the seat his father, Birch Bayh, held for three terms.
  
  Evan Bayh received 64% of the vote in 1998 when he was elected to the Senate, the greatest victory margin ever for a Democrat in a U.S. Senate race in Indiana.
  
  I remember his father. And, in spite of the elder Bayh's accomplishments, I have to wonder about the wisdom of putting someone with his political genetic makeup on the ticket.
  
  The elder Bayh had been in the Senate for 18 years when he ran for his fourth term in 1980. Now, I know 1980 was a Republican year, but Birch Bayh lost to Dan Quayle — after debating him several times.
  
  Quayle, who was never known as a great debater, went on to be elected vice president with George H.W. Bush eight years later — after Quayle had been reminded by Lloyd Bentsen that he was "no Jack Kennedy."
  
  Of the other prospect — Sam Nunn — well, he'll be 70 years old before Election Day. Won't that kind of negate the age problem John McCain's been having?
  
  Also, how does Nunn fit in to the image the Obama campaign likes to project about how this campaign is a break with the past? I've been hearing Nunn's name mentioned as a vice presidential possibility for a couple of decades now.
  
  And he's clearly a part of the "old politics" in Washington. He was elected to the Senate in 1972 and he retired in 1997.
  
  Nunn was only 58 when he retired — many analysts have said the Democratic Party's "shift to the left" led him to leave public service.
  
  I've heard rumors that Obama will announce his decision before the start of the Summer Olympics in Beijing on August 8. I hope he comes up with a better choice.


• While we're on the subject of the vice presidency, The Economist mentions — albeit briefly — a subject that has been discussed tentatively on both sides — picking a running mate from the other party.
  
  It's not as outlandish as it sounds. It has been done before — and successfully — by no less than Abraham Lincoln, the Republican president who was re-elected with Democrat Andrew Johnson on his ticket. (Of course, let's not forget that Johnson became president when Lincoln was assassinated and then became the first president to be impeached.)
  
  And the vice presidential prospects make sense — to a point. Especially if the objective is to appeal to voters from the other party. But not particularly if you want to strengthen your own party's base — except on the issue of the war.
  
  For McCain, the prospect from the other party is Sen. Joe LIeberman — the Democrat-turned-independent from Connecticut, as well as Al Gore's running mate eight years ago. "The senators are seen so often in each other’s company that they might be Siamese twins," says The Economist. But, aside from Lieberman's support for the Iraq War, there isn't much for a garden variety Republican to like about him.
  
  For Obama, the prospect is Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran who has been a very vocal critic of the Iraq War. But, like Lieberman, Hagel brings a voting record on social and economic issues that wouldn't necessarily appeal to most people outside his party.
  
  The Economist advises both McCain and Obama to "err on the side of caution." I'm inclined to agree.


• Back in March, when Brett Favre retired, I was saddened to hear the news, even though it was something I had been expecting for awhile.
  
  This week, with the news reports that Favre wanted to return to action, I guess I've grown accustomed to the idea that his career is finally over.
  
  As a Packer fan, I'm not looking forward to the losses that I believe will come in the early stages of the "post-Favre era," but I'm prepared for them.
  
  It's a part of the natural cycle. Teams struggle when their star player retires, whatever the sport may be.
  
  As much as it pains me to say it, it's time for the Packers to move into their future, and it's time for Favre to move into his.


• I recently learned that my high school class will be holding its 30-year reunion in another week.
  
  I won't be able to attend, but I wish I could. I know that a couple of my classmates have died recently, and it would be good to be able to see the ones who are still around and find some comfort from being with them for a few hours.
  
  Life, as George Carlin was fond of saying, "is a zero sum game."
  
  (By the way, my high school class graduation was held on Carlin's 41st birthday.)

On the Importance of Vice Presidents

---

---

Can you stand some more commentary on how important the choice of a vice presidential running mate is?

The latest comes from the dean of American political science, Michael Barone, co-author of the biennially published Almanac of American Politics and a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report, who writes about why vice presidents are important.

Barone, ever the political historian, cites a book about the vice presidency, Not Exactly a Crime, which was published 36 years ago — ironically, the year before Spiro Agnew resigned the vice presidency because of crimes he committed while governor of Maryland.

"[A]s we await Barack Obama's and John McCain's choices for vice president, we do so with the knowledge that vice presidents in the last five administrations have been important officers of government," Barone writes.

There have been times — important times — in our nation's history when vice presidents were chosen for just about every other reason except their competence to be the national leader.

And, in some of those cases, the fates conspired to elevate those vice presidents to the Oval Office. The nation managed to survive the far-too-frequent Andrew Johnsons and Chester Arthurs who rose to the presidency that way — and it benefited from the occasional Theodore Roosevelt.

But as Barone points out, as recently as the mid-20th century, Harry Truman had been vice president for not quite three months, and he was so out of the loop that he didn't know that Franklin Roosevelt wasn't even in Washington when Truman was summoned to the White House to be informed of FDR's death in Georgia.

And Truman was left to make perhaps the most critical decision a president has had to make — whether to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.

It wasn't until 1977 that Jimmy Carter truly modernized the role of the vice president, giving Walter Mondale a wider range of responsibilities than merely presiding over the Senate. And every vice president in the last three decades (including, as Barone points out, Dan Quayle) has become better equipped to become president if that need should arise.

This has happened because all of Carter's successors have followed his example.

It's been a good thing for the country that the vice president has played a more active role, although the last vice president to ascend to the presidency through death or resignation did so prior to Carter's presidency — when the vice presidency still amounted to little more than presiding over the Senate (as Barone rightfully points out, a "clerk's job"), going on an occasional foreign junket and representing the country at foreign funerals.

Between 1841 and 1974, the vice president became president through the death or resignation of the duly elected president nine times. That's an average of one every 14.7 years.

It hasn't happened in 34 years.

That doesn't mean it will never happen again.

In fact, I believe the odds are good that the next vice president, whether he/she is a Republican or a Democrat, will become president.

People don't usually tend to vote for a president on the basis of whether they believe the running mate will actually turn out to be president in the next four years. But I believe it's a factor that voters should seriously consider in 2008.

At the age of 72, John McCain would be the oldest man to enter the presidency. It's far from certain that he would live to be 76.

And, as the first black president, Barack Obama — whether people want to talk about it or not — would be a tempting target for a racist would-be assassin. Even a heavy security detail cannot guarantee his absolute safety.

The point to remember is simply this. The selection of a running mate is an important decision for a presidential nominee. It's really the only presidential decision he will be asked to make during the campaign.

If the selection seems to be motivated by concerns over the impact it may have on voters in a certain state or region in the general election, that's a sign that the candidate is not making the choice with the nation's best interests at heart.

Observers Indulge in GOP's V.P. Guessing Game

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would be "a decided asset" as John McCain's running mate, Nat Hentoff writes in the Rocky Mountain News.

Palin is "an independent Republican governor, a woman, a defender of life against the creeping culture of death and a fresh face in national politics, described in the Almanac of National Politics as 'an avid hunter and fisher with a killer smile who wears designer glasses and heels, and hair like modern sculpture.'"

Palin seems to bring a lot of things to the ticket that McCain lacks. She's younger than Obama, she's made decisions in her personal life that clearly show her commitment to the anti-abortion position, yet she has the reputation of a maverick, much like McCain.

Meanwhile, an even younger Republican governor is continuing to draw attention as a potential running mate.

Louisiana's Bobby Jindal is stirring Republican imaginations, reports Sasha Issenberg in the Boston Globe.

Jindal has been recommended, the Globe reports, by the likes of "Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and the Washington Times."

Meanwhile, talk continues to swirl around the possibility of Hillary Clinton being chosen to be Barack Obama's running mate.

Donald Lambro writes, in the Washington Times, that choosing Clinton would be a mistake for Obama.

"A vice presidential candidate in most cases won't win the election for him," Lambro writes, "but the wrong nominee could ensure that he loses. Hillary would be that candidate."