The General US Politics Thread

TBH I don't see any of the candidates as good VP material to any of the likely winners of this race. Either their agendas are too different, there's genuine personal enmity and/or the candidates have too much pride to be willing to play second fiddle.

Very true. While the primary is a clown car, there are credible Democrats who aren't involved in it.

Wasn't Clinton's choice for VP someone who wasn't on the Primaries?

Yes.

Yep. Tim Kaine, aka some dude you'd never heard of before, had to struggle to hear of during the election, and will probably never hear of again.

Not a particularly compelling choice in the field of exciting voter turnout. He was basically the Democratic version of Mike Pence: the absolute whitest guyest white guy that Clinton could possibly have found.

He was so boring and clean-cut that the talk shows started calling him "America's Stepdad".

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 22nd 2019 at 12:22:08 PM

Most VP’s are boring and not well known, you’re basically benching the politician for 4-8 years, you don’t want to do that with someone exiting.

Castro isn’t a total empty suit, he’s got some exportable both as a congressman and in the cabinet, that’s not presidential material, but the bar for VP is lower.

If we are thinking about the ultimate purpose of the VP to step in should the worse happen to the President then that changes things. Because I bet that the biggest concern for Warren is finding someone who will buy in 100% behind her plans and carry them out should she be removed from the picture.

Which would cast doubt on most of the current candidates as they are openly campaigning for an alternative vision for the Democratic party. Sanders is probably the only exception but as discussed other factors make him bad VP material.

So, who else could she go for? I'd almost want her to double down and perhaps go for one of the Squad - Ayanna Pressley. Probably the least controversial of the four but still leading the conversation on the progressive wing.

The problem is that the "Squad" are relatively inexperienced. The Squad were all just elected to the House, after all.

Officially, Vice Presidents are pretty much just "backup President" with no actual powers or duties unless the President leaves office for whatever reason. (One of the few exceptions is casting tiebreaking votes in the Senate.) However, this is honestly really uncommon — the last time it happened in any capacity was Ford taking over for Nixon after he resigned, and Ford was appointed rather than part of Nixon's ticket during his election, because Nixon's running mate (Agnew) had already resigned over an unrelated scandal. The last time a president's running mate became president was LBJ after Kennedy was assassinated.

In reality, VPs serve several purposes. One is to be a surrogate president in terms of optics — the president can only be in one place at a time, so sending a VP to do something instead shows that the administration is paying attention to it and considers it a priority, if not a top priority. Another one is to balance the ticket, both in terms of the election and actually governing. Biden for Obama is an excellent example for this, he was a nonthreatening old white guy to balance out a (relatively) young black guy, and a long-time Washington insider to balance out a (relative) newcomer to federal politics. Biden did a lot of the backroom politicking that actually got things done during the Obama administration, because he had established relationships with the people involved and Obama did not.

The VP can also be a way to bring an up-and-coming player in the party and give them national name recognition. A VP can effectively run for a "third term" after a successful two-term presidency, though this isn't actually particularly successful as a strategy. The last time it happened was with George H. W. Bush winning the '88 election after being Reagan's VP for two terms, though Gore in 2000 had the election stolen out from under him (as did Hillary Clinton in 2016, who was effectively the same sort of candidate despite not actually being VP).

tldr, there are a lot of considerations that go into a good VP pick besides "would they make a good president if their running mate can't finish their term".

All valid points - the question we cannot answer is which of those reasons for picking a VP is the most important in the eventual candidate's mind.

My assumption is that for Warren the goal would be to continue the progressive agenda - hence why she would pick someone willing to carry her agenda forward as opposed to someone on the opposite wing of the Democrat Party - which rules out most of her primary opponents.

The suggestion of Ayanna Pressley was just that though, a suggestion. Could be anyone on that wing really.

If I'm being honest I'm probably being influenced by what is happening on this (UK) side of the pond, where the squabble over who is deputy leader of the Labour Party turned nasty this past weekend. Other UK tropers could probably explain it better but the interpretation by those outside the party (read: media commentators) is that it's all about the power the deputy leader has should the current leader step down - and since the deputy leader has shown Starscream tendencies in the past it's gotten a lot of people up in arms.

x2 In that case wouldn't a younger VP make more sense for Warren? She's been playing the game for a while, someone who's relatively new, who can connect better with young voters, might be a better choice.

[cough] Castro [cough].

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 23rd 2019 at 7:18:10 AM

Warren/Booker would be my dream team, especially since it sounds like Booker's campaign is sadly on thin ice, financially.

Honestly, it might be better if whoever becomes the candidate picks a VP not involved with the primaries as much as possible.

Also, it seems premature to be wondering who the running mate will be since we still don't really have any clear idea who is going to be the candidate.

Edited by M84 on Sep 23rd 2019 at 10:31:29 PM

It should be pointed out that while Warren is on the older side, she is actually a relative newcomer politician, with her being on the tail end of her first term as Senator.

Well, despite the circus that is the primary, we have narrowed it down to three people. It's ostensibly a huge battle royale in a massive arena but really it's a three-way jousting match between Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Joe Biden, with a smattering of minor NPCs occasionally managing to land blows on the unsuspecting player characters.

I don't think anybody actually thinks a Marianne Williamson or Cory Booker nomination is really in the cards.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Sep 23rd 2019 at 9:07:09 AM

We still don't know for certain which of the three will come out on top. So again, it's premature. We're not even in 2020 yet.

Didn't Williamson dropped out not too long ago?

Unfortunately, no. She just didn't qualify for the latest debates.

Yeah. She's still out there, rambling about dark psychic energy.

Sad thing is, I actually get where she was coming from regarding the dark psychic energy. She was basically just talking about the overbearing sentiment of hostility and resentment that's settled over Americans in the wake of Trump's presidency. A lot of people are more angry and more afraid now than they've ever been before.

But "dark psychic energy" was the absolute worst way she could possibly have phrased it.

There was a Politico article a while back that said the only way the second-stringers have a chance is if Biden, Warren, Bernie, and Harris all die in a plane crash at the same time.

Castro did himself no favors in the last debate, only increasing his unfavorability. If I had to pick one of the candidates to be VP, my money would be on Booker.

I'm surprised that Williamson is still in, I figured her profile and book sales have been sufficiently raised.

I'm not surprised she's still in the race. Someone with such a distorted view of reality isn't going to take a hint from her dismal poll numbers.

who the heck is bankrolling her anyway?

Has she got friends on the other side or something

She was already a multiple times best selling author before she started her campaign. She's got money to burn.