Burnt Orange Report

Veepstakes 2004

By Andrew Dobbs

Alright, so this seems to be the political parlor game of the hour, so I'll get in the act again. The most recent news is that the next Speaker of the House and the hottest woman in Congress Nancy Pelosi is pushing John Kerry to have a running mate by May 1. Political Wire says that the timetable is in the ballpark of 8 weeks. This means that there will be very little time to vet the choice- a solid, breathtaking oppo-style background job can take several weeks and that is the kind of fearless moral inventory necessary for these sorts of things. Jim Johnson, Kerry's VP selection committee chair, knows first hand what can go wrong when you don't have enough time to research your VP selection's background. In 1984 Walter Mondale gave him one day to look into Geraldine Ferarro's history. Ferarro's husband's financial dealings of course came back to hurt Mondale and to wipe out any advantage nominating the first woman on any major party ticket in history might have given him. Johnson surely learned his lesson and he will not want to make the same mistake. This then becomes the key to the race- who do we know enough about already to not be surprised come campaign time?

Everyone wants a candidate too quickly for a real hard look but no one wants a candidate that hasn't gotten a real hard look. The answer? Pick someone who has already been in the media spotlight- pick someone who was on Gore's shortlist in 2000 or one of the 2004 candidates. Most likely, this will be the field Kerry plucks his choice from.

There were 7 realistic candidates for president this year. One of them is the nominee, one (Lieberman) has no real interest in running for VP again, one (Dean) is too New England for Kerry and the other four- Clark, Edwards, Gephardt and Graham- all seem interested in running for the spot. Add into that calculation Bill Richardson whose name was tossed around quite a bit in 2000 and you have a pretty realistic field. Reports say that Kerry has also talked to Tom Vilsack and the name Mark Warner was thrown around long before Kerry had won the nomination. These 6 candidates- Clark, Edwards, Gephardt, Graham, Vilsack and Warner seem to be the most likely to choose from while some others- Mary Landrieu, Kathleen Sebelius, Bill Cohen (who I thought I just came up with out my ass but is actually getting talked up by real journalists now), John McCain and some others all have a shot but seem more like novelty candidates than likely choices.

The question now becomes, what do we need to win. It seems as if the West Coast and New England is locked up and the South and Mountain West belong to Bush (with the possible exceptions of Florida and Colorado). That leaves the Southwest and the Industrial Midwest to be battled out. Bill Richardson would turn out voters in the Southwest, Gephardt and to a lesser extent Vilsack in the Industrial Midwest. Graham might turn out Florida, but his incredibly weak showing in the campaign and his inability to connect with voters makes me think that he'd be a very bad choice for VP. Everyone seems to like Edwards, everyone except for the Kerry people it seems. Many stories have made it into print as to Kerry's doubts that Edwards could be the kind of attack dog the VP needs to be. They are right in this criticism and having another Senator on the ticket makes it a very DC-centered campaign. Clark was another weak candidate and he doesn't really provide anything to the Southwest (except maybe the military cred, but Kerry has a lot of that already) or the Industrial Midwest. Gephardt would be great in the Industrial Midwest but Kerry/Gephardt might be the most boring, most DC-insider ticket since Mondale/Ferraro. Warner has lots of money, but once again- i'm not sure that we'd have time to give him a good hard look. If they've been working on it already he might be a pretty good choice but his tax hikes will make him great fodder for Bush ad spots and he doesn't gain anything in the Industrial Midwest (excpept maybe West Virginia) or the Southwest Richardson is exciting, an outsider, would lock in New Mexico, Arizona and make Colorado a lean-Kerry from its current status as tossup/lean Bush and put Nevada into play. Still, his record at the Energy Department kept him off the 2000 ticket and is unlikely to win him any votes of confidence against George "Steady Leadership blah blah blah" Bush. That leaves Vilsack.

Early in 2002 I wrote Vilsack an email asking him to run for President as I felt that he provided the kind of leadership and biography you have to love. An orphan adopted by abusive parents he worked his way through college and law school and moved to Iowa from his native Pennsylvania and worked as a lawyer for his father in law before serving as Mayor and State Senator from Mount Pleasant. He then went on to run for governor in a race everyone thought he would lose. He didn't, of course, and was elected as Iowa's first Democratic governor in more than 30 years. He was easily reelected in 2002 and provides a great progressive voice in that state. Pro-labor, good on agriculture and a tough as nails progressive he would help us carry any number of states and would make a great running mate. Seeing as he has not been vetted as well as the others, he might lose out to Gephardt or Richardson in the end, but he is probably the best choice.

This isn't to say that I wouldn't jump at the chance to nominate John McCain. Sure, Bush would run an ad that says "Look at John McCain flip flopping- saying he wouldn't run and then running, working for me and then for Kerry, serving as a Republican and running as a Democrat." But it would lock in Arizona and put any number of other states in play as he could focus on Republican states and play up a "national unity" theme. The bounce in the polls would likely be enormous for Kerry, big enough to carry him through Election Day assuming he doesn't screw up. Still, I don't think McCain will do that. More likely, I think that his recent anti-Bush comments are setting him up for perhaps leaving the GOP to become an Independent in the Senate. Still, Kerry/McCain would be probably unstoppable.

To sum up- the truncated VP selection schedule means that the most likely candidates are the former Presidentials and Richardson with Vilsack thrown in as he seems to be getting a lot of attention early from the Kerry camp. Vilsack is the best, with probably Richardson right behind him, then Gephardt, Edwards, Clark and Graham. McCain would be great, but is unlikely to take the job and others are probably just novelty names thrown around.