Blog
The importance of the vice-presidency
28th July 2008
Essential reading in the Times newspaper on the running mate and the office
In the World section of today’s Times there is an article on who John McCain and Barack Obama may choose as their running mate. It also speculates that the candidates may try to make announcements on their choices before the Beijing Olympics get going.
LEADING CONTENDERS
Barack Obama
Tim Kaine, Governor of Virginia
Joe Biden, senator and foreign policy heavyweight
Evan Bayh, former Indiana Governor and now US Senator
Kathleen Sebelius, below, Governor of Kansas
John McCain
Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts Governor
Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota Governor
Rob Portman, former Ohio congressman and budget chief for President Bush
Tom Ridge, former Governor of Pennsylvania
How significant is the vice president? Some time ago for tutor2u’s first past the post online magazine I wrote: ‘Academic thinking is that swing voters aren’t voting for Vice President (VP), and therefore who is second on the ticket doesn’t positively influence their vote by all that much (an exception here is LBJ in 1960). Indeed, polls suggest that if anything people tend to vote against rather than for VP candidates. But it could have some beneficial effect in influencing those who are natural party voters who carry doubts about their presidential candidate. This means that the VP choice might potentially motivate supporters to rally around their candidates.
And in an exceptionally close election, this could prove crucial. McCain therefore might be advised to choose a candidate capable of wooing some of the conservatives in the party that he personally repels. Alternatively, the focus might be on carrying a swing state that carries a lot of votes with the choice of a “favoured son” – hence why most pundits speculated that McCain would plump for Crist, the hugely popular Governor of the sunshine state.’
There is also a great editorial article in the Times, which would be an excellent handout for lessons, on the importance of the running mate and the office.
It begins:
‘After attracting adulation in Europe, Barack Obama’s caravan moves on. It remains for him and John McCain to choose their respective running-mates. The decision will be important both in attracting votes and - for the new president - in managing the Administration.
It was not always so. The first vice-president, John Adams, described his role as “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived”. Writing in 1974 the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jnr concluded that “the vice-presidency is not only a meaningless but a hopeless office”.
And so, for most of its history, it has been. When Vice-President Harry Truman succeeded to the Oval Office in April 1945, he was entirely unaware of the project to develop the A-bomb, whose use he authorised four months later. When Dwight D. Eisenhower was asked what important decisions of his Administration his vice-president had taken part in, he replied: “If you give me a week, I might think of one.”’