Sidekick Shenanigans

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"Once there were two brothers. One went away to sea; the other was elected vice president. And nothing was ever heard of either of them again."

Thomas R. Marshall
28th vice president (1913-1921)

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Life used to be pretty bleak for a vice president.

From 1836 until 1988, the only times a vice president became president were following the death or resignation of the incumbent. In 152 years, that happened eight times.

(In fact, the vice presidency has been the butt of many jokes — some of them were apparently unintentional.

(For example, in the classic 1947 Christmas movie "Miracle on 34th Street," Kris Kringle is trying to establish that he's been subjected to many mental examinations over the years and is well prepared to face another one.

(To prove it, he says that Daniel D. Tompkins was vice president under John Quincy Adams. But the writer of the screenplay made a mistake — possibly because Adams was the sixth president and Tompkins was the sixth vice president. In fact, Tompkins was vice president for Adams' predecessor, James Monroe. Adams' vice president was John C. Calhoun.)

Until Vice President George H.W. Bush was elected president in 1988, the last sitting vice president to win the presidency in an election was Martin Van Buren in 1836.

And, until the vice presidency of Walter Mondale from 1977 to 1981, vice presidents tended to preside over the Senate (occasionally casting a tie-breaking vote), go abroad to attend weddings and funerals, and serve as campaign window dressing.

Apparently, little thought was given to whether they would be good presidents — until it was too late.

Mondale was given a more active role in the administration than almost all the vice presidents who came before him. And the vice presidency has been changed for the better because of it.

But that doesn't mean that the wild speculation about running mates doesn't persist.

And, with no incumbent running this year, a lot of attention is being given to the selections on both sides. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion.

• "Go West, Obama," urges the Denver Post, editorializing that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson should be named to the Democratic ticket.
  
  "Insiders suggest that [Barack] Obama is mulling Richardson and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, among others, as potential vice presidential candidates," writes the Post. "We think there's only one direction to go."
  
  The Post then answers the question that should be on every voter's mind when it comes to the running mates on both tickets — is that person "qualified to serve in the top job should the occasion arise," and the Post has no doubt. "Richardson clearly leads all other Democratic contenders by that standard."
  
  Denver, of course, will be hosting the Democratic National Convention, which holds its opening session three weeks from today.
  
  If Obama wants to win the election, he would be well advised to pay attention to what is said in Colorado.
  
  Two days after the Post published its editorial on Richardson, it published another editorial that asked, "Which way will Colorado swing?" Clearly, the paper's editorial staff knows how close the presidential race is expected to be in Colorado this year. Before and after the convention.
  
  "The political dynamics in Colorado are changing as the state's demographics morph with more voters registering unaffiliated," wrote the Post. "Of the state's 2.8 million voters, 34.19% are unaffiliated, 34.14% are Republicans and 31.2% are Democrats, according to a recent report."
  
  The Post's editorial staff obviously is aware of the state's history. "With the exception of 1992, Colorado has reliably gone Republican in presidential contests over the last four decades."
  
  Paying attention, Senator Obama?


• Bill Kristol writes, in the New York Times, that John McCain apparently will wait until after the Democrats hold their Aug. 25-28 convention before announcing his choice for running mate.
  
  That move may be designed to steal some of Obama's thunder, perhaps limiting the "post-convention bounce" — or perhaps it's being forced on McCain by the calendar.
  
  The Beijing Olympics begin this Friday and will run until the day before the Democrats' convention begins.
  
  The Republicans' convention is the week after the Democrats' convention. Kristol anticipates an announcement sometime around Labor Day — which is the last day of a very narrow open window.
  
  Kristol says there are four "competing theories in the McCain camp, which, while not entirely mutually exclusive, point in different vice-presidential directions."
  
  
  1. "We’re going to defeat Obama straight up."
     
     This group appears to favor someone who is "broadly acceptable to Republicans, conservative but not too conservative, young but not too young" — Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty or former Ohio Rep. Rob Portman.
  
  
  2. "We need to accentuate Obama’s key vulnerability — inexperience."
     
     This school of thought favors someone who will be perceived as ready to take over if called upon by fate or history or whatever one wants to call it. The top prospects in this group are former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge.
  
  
  3. "Don’t fight the public desire for change; co-opt it."
     
     This group believes "[t]he public wants change but is nervous about Obama. Why not allow people to vote for experience and the next generation of leadership at the same time?"
     
     This group thinks the choice should be Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor or Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. All three are 45 or younger — and, at least one (Jindal) has said he isn't interested.
     
     However, as Kristol observes, "The two young governors also have this advantage: They’re very popular with conservatives, especially social conservatives. And they’re real reformers."
  
  
  4. "The public is really sick of politics as usual in Washington."
     
     Kristol suggests that McCain could use this to his advantage and pledge that, in the spirit of reform, neither he nor his vice president will seek re-election but instead will devote all their time and energy in office to "the big challenges we face."
     
     Kristol says, "This opens up several unconventional V.P. possibilities" — among them, Joe Lieberman, Robert Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Meg Whitman.
     
     "I run into plenty of moderate and conservative women who don’t consider themselves feminists but would be pleased to see a qualified woman on the ticket," Kristol writes. "Especially if Obama picks a man, rejecting hope and change in favor of the same old patriarchy — won’t McCain be tempted to say: cherchez la femme?"


• Virginia's newly perceived status as a "swing state" has both candidates focusing on potential running mates from the Old Dominion.
  
  On the Democratic side, Sen. Jim Webb took himself out of the running, but Gov. Tim Kaine is being eyed by the Obama campaign.
  
  And Republicans have been looking at Rep. Eric Cantor lately.
  
  The fact that both presumptive nominees are considering Virginians as potential running mates is "perhaps the clearest sign yet that the state has presidential cachet," write Alec MacGillis and Tim Craig of the Washington Post.

I'm not sure I buy the argument that the race is that close in either Virginia or Colorado.

But I also don't believe either candidate would be wise to ignore what is being said in either state.

Back to the Future

If you look back in time through the misty haze of the last century, to the presidential election of 1908, you can see some interesting parallels to the campaign of 2008.

For example, both 1908 and 2008 will be remembered in the history books as the conclusions of multiple-term Republican presidencies. Actually, in 1908, the Republicans had held the White House for three consecutive terms, but William McKinley, who was elected in 1896 and 1900, was assassinated in 1901. His successor, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, served almost all of McKinley's second term, then was elected to a full term on his own.

It appears that the only similarity between the progressive Roosevelt and "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush is the fact that both served more than a full term as president.

In 1908, after all, America was not involved in a war, as it is in 2008. And, for the most part, Americans were prospering in 1908. The 2008 economy is in a recession -- and, while some Americans don't appear to be struggling, millions of Americans are hurting financially.

But, if you look a little bit closer, you will see that several political observers have compared the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, to Roosevelt. Is that good news for the Republicans? Well, the right-wing nature of today's Republican Party would be at odds with the progressive nature of the Republicans of 1908. Perhaps McCain would have been more comfortable in Roosevelt's era.

It's important to remember, though, that, in 1908, Roosevelt wasn't running. His hand-picked successor was running, however. And that certainly is a difference between 1908 and 2008. Bush may have endorsed McCain, but he did so once McCain had already wrapped up the nomination. Bush never expressed his choice during the competitive Republican primaries and caucuses.

We may never know which candidate was Bush's preference, unless he chooses to disclose that information in his memoirs.

When the Democrats meet in Denver for their national convention in late August, it will be the first time they've nominated their presidential candidate in that city in 100 years. The 1908 convention was held in Denver, and the party's nominee (for the third time) was William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska.

Obviously, the Democrats will not be nominating a candidate for the third time when they gather this summer -- although one can draw a modest comparison to Bryan if Hillary Clinton is the nominee. If that comes to pass, it will be the third time in the last five elections that the Democrats have had someone named Clinton at the top of their ticket -- and, of course, the Clinton who was nominated the first two times was Hillary's husband.

I've heard and read suggestions that, if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination and goes on to win the election, Bill Clinton would be the real king -- behind the scenes. I have no proof to support or discredit that theory, but if one subscribes to it, I guess that person also would be inclined to look at Hillary's nomination as a third Clinton nomination by proxy.

In theory, the Democrats could have nominated a black candidate 100 years ago -- although whether such a candidate could have succeeded nationally is unlikely, given the nature of the attitudes of the times. Even so, the Constitution said blacks could vote -- but a variety of roadblocks prevented many from voting in the South and in other places. So, while it was technically possible, it was highly unlikely that someone like Barack Obama would have been considered for the nomination.

But a woman almost certainly couldn't have been a factor in the proceedings. A few states allowed women to vote in 1908, but women didn't get that right constitutionally until 1920.

And, because women weren't allowed to vote in most states, it stood to reason that you wouldn't have been likely to see many female faces at a political convention in 1908. They weren't delegates, and their names certainly weren't being placed in nomination for president or vice president.

Nor would you have seen any black faces at a political convention in 1908. Unless you happened to be attending a minstrel show when the convention wasn't in session.

Of course, the whole nominating procedure was different 100 years ago. Delegates to the conventions -- and the candidates for whom those delegations voted -- were decided by each party's elders in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms. Party primaries are a relatively recent political phenomenon in this country.

For the record, the Republicans have never held their national nominating convention in Denver. In 1908, the Republicans gathered in Chicago (where they met in five consecutive presidential election years, from 1904 to 1920) and nominated their candidate, William Howard Taft, in the Chicago Coliseum (which was torn down in 1982).

The Republicans aren't holding their convention in Chicago in 2008 (the last time Chicago played host to the Republican convention was in 1960, when Richard Nixon was nominated to run against John Kennedy).

The GOP will gather in Minneapolis-St. Paul this year. It's been more than a century since the Republicans came to Minneapolis to nominate their presidential candidate. The last time was in 1892.

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What were the big electoral prizes in the 1908 general election, and how do they compare to the prizes 100 years later?

Well, in 2008, clearly the biggest prize is California. It offers one-fifth of the electoral votes a candidate needs to be elected. No other state comes close.

But, in 1908, California was not even a blip on the national radar. The top two prizes in the 1908 election were New York and Pennsylvania. Both are still large states, but the roles have been reversed, in a few ways.

For one, New York and Pennsylvania each offered more than three times as many electoral votes as did California in 1908, but today California dwarfs both states. California has more electoral votes in 2008 than New York and Pennsylvania combined.

Also, in 1908, Taft carried New York, Pennsylvania and California en route to receiving two-thirds of the electoral votes. If a candidate carries all three states in 2008, he/she will have nearly 40% of what is needed to be elected. (In 1908, those three states gave Taft about 34% of the electoral votes he needed.)

Today, voting trends suggest that the Democrats are the favorites in New York and California, and they've won Pennsylvania (albeit narrowly at times) in the last four elections.

Whether those trends hold up in 2008 may depend upon how much the losers in the Obama-Clinton battle resent the winners and whether they choose to support the eventual nominee in the fall. Today, surveys indicate that there may be a schism in the party that could threaten its chances of success in November.

The rest of the top 10 electoral prizes in 1908, in order, were Illinois, Ohio, a tie between Texas and Missouri, Massachusetts, Indiana, Michigan and a tie between Kentucky, Iowa, Wisconsin and Georgia.

One hundred years later, the top 10 electoral prizes are California, Texas, New York, Florida, a tie between Illinois and Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and a three-way tie between Georgia, New Jersey and North Carolina.

Some of the prominent players in 2008 were hardly even factors a century ago. Florida's population in 1908 was so small that it was the least significant state in the South -- and it offered only one electoral vote more than states like Vermont and New Hampshire. In fact, Maine was bigger (in terms of electoral votes) than Florida.

For that matter, Kansas and Mississippi each offered the same number of electoral votes as California.

But in 2008, California is the biggest electoral catch, and Florida is the fourth-largest prize.

A lot of things changed between 1908 and 2008.

During the Great Migration, for example, millions of blacks moved from the South to places like Detroit and Chicago, as well as California, adjusting the electoral importance of states where those blacks could participate. By the time Theodore Roosevelt's cousin, Franklin, was elected president in 1932, population shifts were already apparent in many places, changing the emphasis of presidential campaigns. California's population had more than doubled, with the influx of blacks and Depression-era Dust Bowl migrants, while Southern and Midwestern states were showing declines in their populations.

And, as advances in technology allowed hot and humid places like Texas and Florida to acquire air conditioning and other creature comforts, the populations in those states grew.

They became particularly attractive for Northern retirees looking for places to live that had warmer climates, once the federal government began to link cities and states with the highway system that sprang up in the middle of the century.

I guess, if there is a lesson to be taken from the 1908 campaign, it would be that success can be fleeting.

Taft was elected by a 2-to-1 margin in the Electoral College in 1908. But Taft never wanted to be president, and it showed. His ambition had always been to be chief justice of the Supreme Court. And, when he ran for re-election in 1912, he carried only two states and finished third behind Democrat Woodrow Wilson and Roosevelt, who ran as the Progressive candidate.

Maybe Taft wished upon a star because some wishes apparently do come true. The former president was chosen to be chief justice by President Warren Harding in 1921 and served in that position until about a month before his death in 1930.