Forget the Horse Race, Here's Some Choices For #2's

No. 2 for ‘08Forget the horse race and watch the chess match

By Dan Coen

In less than 30 days we may have two final Presidential nominees ready to campaign all year to take the White House by storm.  That opens up the intriguing and very surreal possibility that the shadow campaign to be chosen as Vice President lasts longer, and is more fascinating, then the actual real campaign for President was.

The Vice Presidency has risen dramatically in importance in the last quarter century.  The powerful influence of Vice President Dick Cheney, for instance, is a far cry from that of Abraham Lincoln’s first understudy, Hannibal Hamlin, who spent part of his term as a private in the Maine Coast Guard, serving breakfast to the troops.  Whether this is a change for the good, I’ll let historians debate.

In the past, VPs like Hamlin and Garret Hobart (1897-1899) simply – and literally – rented the office if they wanted a place to hang their hat in Washington. The job was more mourning coats and paying final respects than a political stepping stone. It was John Nance Garner (who served during FDR’s first term) who called the vice president’s post  “not worth a pitcher of warm [urine].” We clean that quote up for the history books.

Make no mistake, convincing one person to put you on the ticket is way easier than swaying millions of voters during caucuses and primaries. Not all VPs were simple bumpkins who fell into the job – though a few were -- but all had a knack for being in the right place at the right time.  Jack Kemp surely knew he could never win the nomination in 1996, but he knew how to look good standing next to Bob Dole.

If the actual presidential campaign is a horse race, the VP race is a chess match. The final choice can come out of nowhere – a knight leaping into the fray – like Geraldine Ferraro and Dan Quayle did. Or they could be the steady rook, standing stiffly in the wings like Walter Mondale and Lloyd Bentsen. You can’t disregard a single piece on the board.

VP nominees often start out as Presidential candidates. Cheney, John Edwards, Gore, Kemp and Mondale, all ran or publicly contemplated pursuing the presidency.  But with the exception of Edwards, they didn’t get on the ticket that cycle.  Cheney spent time in New Hampshire before deciding not to run in 1996.  Kemp ran in 1988, and Gore was only 40 when he campaigned in 1988.  By this logic, those who ran in 2004 are in terrific shape, which could bode well for Wesley Clark and Dick Gephardt.

But I love the dark horse, your Ferraros, your Joe Liebermans. That type of pick harkens back to the old days, when the public reaction to the announcement of a VP candidate was almost universally, “Who?”  Chester Arthur was the VP choice in 1880 because the Republican power brokers wanted to kick him out of New York and into obscurity.  (Assassin Charles Guiteau put a quick end to that plan when he shot President James Garfield, moving Arthur to the oval office.) 

Early VP nominees, too, were tied to the extreme wings of their parties: Henry friend-of-labor Wallace, Richard commie-hater Nixon and Hubert civil-rights-now Humphrey. That’s flip-flopped over the last 30 years. VP candidates like George H. W. Bush, Gore, Kemp, Joe Lieberman, Cheney and Edwards were chosen for their moderating influence. (So keep an eye on centrists such as Sam Nunn, Tom Daschle, Lamar Alexander and Joe Biden.) Rabble-rousers like John Calhoun, who was pro-slavery and thought states should be able to nullify federal laws, wouldn’t make the cut today. But he served under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. He stepped down in 1832 when elected to the U.S. Senate.

Today’s senators have an always-the-bridesmaid problem. They never seem to get elected president, but since 1948, there’s only been one election (1984) in which a current or former Senator wasn’t on a ticket as VP.  Conversely, there’s been only one governor to be VP since Calvin Coolidge – Spiro Agnew. And we all know how well that turned out.  Not good news for Bill Richardson, Tom Vilsack, Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney.

Sure, an early primary season will force America to select two new Presidential nominees in a shorten period of time.. And so much the better, as I see it. That leaves months to speculate about potential VPs around the water cooler.

I’ll be pulling for my early picks -- both with senate experience who are staying out of the presidential fray: Lamar Alexander for the Republicans and Evan Bayh for the Democrats. Of course, you never know when another Harry Truman or James Stockdale is just around the corner.

Dan Coen is publisher of VicePresidents.com and author of “Second String: Trivia, Facts and Lists about the Vice Presidency and its Vice Presidents.”