Do Not Balance The Ticket

There's any number of reasons to think that Bob Casey would be a bad VP choice for Barack Obama, but I want to make one very general point.  It seems that a lot of people think the way to select a running mate is to figure out what the shortcomings of the presidential candidate are, and then pick someone who compensates.  So if your nominee is Al Gore, tainted by his association to the sexually mischievous Bill Clinton, you pick moral scold Joe Lieberman.  Or if you're running a stiff old Yankee like John Kerry, you pick dynamic Southern populist John Edwards.  Or for Barack Obama, who has had difficulties with white working class voters in the primaries (why are we supposed to expect that this will carry over to the general?)  you maybe pick Bob Casey who did well with the white working class in PA.  This is not a good idea. 

Voters weight the presidential candidate much more heavily than the vice-presidential candidate, as well they should.  And when a presidential candidate chooses a VP to cover a weakness, it's considered an acknowledgement by the campaign that their presidential candidate has a weakness. Thereafter, the media is officially licensed to harp on that weakness.  So now you reinforce the storyline: "Ordinary white folks don't and shouldn't like Obama!" or "John Kerry is a New England aristocrat with no ties to the common man!"  Given the fact that the presidential candidate is more significant, a balancing strategy might actually end up moving perceptions of the ticket in the opposite direction. 

So don't do it. Reinforce the good qualities of your candidate.  For Obama, this might mean Kansas uniter Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, though I understand Stephen asking us not to steal his only hope for a Democratic Senator.  Or maybe you want to tell a beautiful story of national healing and racial unity with the VP selection and pick a white Southerner who will constantly wax poetic about how great it is to be a black man's VP after growing up under segregation.  (That was one of the things I found sweet about the Obama-Edwards possibility that probably won't be realized.) 

Comments

[Christian Prophet]

Let's not jump the gun. The truth has only just begun coming out about Barack. He could still lose. See:
http://miraclesdaily.blogspot.com/

[Christian Prophet]

Let's not jump the gun. The truth has only just begun to come out about Barack. He could still lose if people really examine him. See"
http://miraclesdaily.blogspot.com/

[Nicholas Beaudrot]

That report made me really, really sad. Obama appears to have drunk his own Kool-aid on health care, and not remembered that the plan is primarily a political document. I think Kerry's analysis today is right anyway; the mandate can't pass the senate even if Dems get 59. But it's still sad.

[Neil the Ethical Werewolf]

I'm right there with you, Nicholas.

[CParis]

The VP should be someone who shares the presidential candidate's value and will be able to carry on his/her agenda if necessary.

[Shock Mouse]

First let me reiterate my main VP thought: picking a VP based on electoral help is overrated. They minimally affect the ticket (as Neil points out), and media partisans on both sides will spin it both good and bad no matter what. Either pick the VP based on someone you want in office (like conservatives with Cheney), or (more likely): pick someone you want to be the standard-bearer of the party in 8 years. The chance they may succeed you is medium, but it's high enough and important enough that it's a WAY bigger effect than electoral ones. And certainly stop stealing important office-holders for this minor matter.

It's worth noting that had Al Gore won the presidency but all Senate elections gone the same way, we would have lost Senate majority simply because Lieberman would have been replaced by a Republican Governor.

[Shock Mouse]

That all being said, the Obama-Edwards story of the past few days didn't really surprise me.

Obama is aloof and arrogant. He dislikes sucking up to others and admitting he's wrong. Kinda what you get out of movement leaders, and that's hardly a surprise.

Whereas Hillary is much better schmoozing in person. She adapts all of her policies to please others. Unfortunately the Clinton Schmoozing ability completely fails at getting liberal legislation passed, so I really don't care.

[ikl]

A big counter-example here is Bush-Chaney. Bush's main weakness was the he was considered (for good reason, in fact) a bit of a light weight. So he picked someone who was considered serious and very, very experienced. The fact that Chaney is not an especially appealing surrogate, is from WY and doesn't appeal to any key demographics just served to highlight that Bush was picking someone who, on paper, was probably better qualified than any other Republican in the country under the age of 70. And, I think, this was pretty effective for Bush in the 2000 election.

By this logic, interestingly enough, Obama should pick Al Gore even though that would be odd in other ways.

[John]

As ikl says, the success of Bush's choice of Cheney seems to give the lie to it.

One might add the following successful running mate choices:

1) Dan Quayle, who was young and closely tied to the conservative movement, and thus provided conservative cred for Bush the elder, whose connection to movement conservatism was always dubious. (Quayle was a bad choice in other respects, but he did solidify support for Bush among that crowd)

2) George H. W. Bush, an establishment Republican and veteran of the Nixon administration, provided experience and mainstream clout for Reagan, who was at the time seen by many as too extreme and conservative.

3) Walter Mondale, a liberal from Minnesota, helped allay liberal suspicions of Jimmy Carter.

4) Hubert Humphrey, a liberal from Minnesota, helped allay liberal suspicions of Lyndon Johnson.

5) Lyndon Johnson, a moderate from Texas, helped Kennedy with the southern wing of the party.

6) Richard Nixon, a conservative from California, helped conservatives swallow the bitter pill of Eisenhower.

7) John Nance Garner, a conservative from Texas, balanced FDR, a liberal from the northeast.

In recent history, there are only two winning examples which were not pretty classic ticket balancing. One was Al Gore, who was considered a very strange choice at the time (the classic think to do would have been to pick a liberal from the north, not a fellow southern moderate).

The other was Spiro Agnew, who was supposed to balance the ticket, but then turned out to be a right wing attack dog. Agnew got elected as governor of Maryland largely on liberal votes, because a segregationist had won the Democratic primary in 1966 in a field where the liberal mainstream of the party had split among several different candidates. Nixon was basically looking for a liberal, Rockefeller Republican type, as he wasn't too popular with that wing of the party. Agnew was actually nominated by John Lindsay, the very very liberal mayor of New York who would soon quit the Republican Party and run for president in 1972 to the left of McGovern. Agnew didn't prove to be a moderate, but this is how he was seen in 1968.

So, anyway, ticket balancing is by far the norm. Usually it's not about making up the personal defects of your candidate, but about uniting the party around a ticket by selecting a running mate who represents a different wing of the party from you.

I also don't like Casey as a running mate, but not because ticket balancing itself is bad, but because I think he's a lame candidate - an empty suit with a famous name. He might help Obama win Pennsylvania, but that's about all - he would be useless anywhere else, and I doubt he'd be particularly effective as an attack dog. And being pro-life doesn't help much, either.

But really, the logical end of your advice would be that Obama should pick Deval Patrick or Cory Booker, or some other young, reformist Black politician as his running mate, which just seems silly to me. The ticket ought to represent the party as a whole. He should pick somebody who's good on the campaign trail, and not just on, but there's no reason to elevate the Clinton/Gore pairing as the basis for any good VP pick.

[Neil the Ethical Werewolf]

I'd be willing to believe that ticket balancing worked in the past, John -- I think its failure is dependent on a feature of the way that contemporary media narratives get constructed. Once the coverage gets too horseracey and meta and you more people saying things like "Kerry picked Edwards to fight perceptions that he's an out-of-touch aristocrat", ticket-balancing is harder to do effectively. But if the coverage isn't excessively meta, it could work.

[ikl]

Wow! I had no idea that John Lindsay nominated Spiro Agnew. Really, really strange in retrospect for the reasons that John points out.

I tend to think that VP candidates don't matter too much, but John's list is pretty interesting.

One thing that has changed is that there just isn't much ideological daylight in the domestic policy positions of Obama or Clinton (or other Dem candidates for that matter) by historical standards. A lot of the historical Democratic choices seem driven by ideological / regional ticket balancing considerations that seems a lot less salient after the gradual reallignment of the past 40 years.

[ikl]

Neil, I'm not sure that media narratives are too different now than they were in the past. The way information gets disseminated has changed a lot - but that doesn't mean the underlying way that VP choices gets framed has changed. You could certainly convince me otherwise, but I tend to think that things haven't changed all that much.

[John]

Yeah, I think I'm with ikl. Everybody pointed out at the time that Bush picked Quayle to up his cred with conservatives; that Carter picked Mondale to up his cred with liberals; that Goldwater wanted to pick a liberal like Bill Scranton to up his cred with liberals in the party, but was unable to get any of them to agree to be on his ticket; that McGovern picked regular Thomas Eagleton to mollify Humphrey and Muskie supporters; that Kennedy picked Johnson to mollify the south, etc. etc. etc.

The point of a VP pick is generally to satisfy the elements of the party that don't particularly care for the nominee, and thus united the party around the ticket. Public perception isn't generally as important.

[minstrel hussain boy]

he could do a lot worse than janet napolitano

[ikl]

I don't know much about the guy, but Ted Strickland would seem to make a lot of sense: from Southern Ohio (weak area for Obama), white working class (culturally Scotch-Irish?) background, Methodist minister, has been through a lot of elections, has been both US representative and Gov, popular in key swing state, Clinton supporter (but not one who has said things about Obama that would disqualify him). The downsides would seem to be no particular foreign policy background as far as I know and that it might look too much like pandering to Ohio. Strickland is old enough that picking him would not really set him up as a likely heir since he'll be 75 in 2016.

As I said, I don't know much about the guy, but he looks pretty good on paper. He also has a Ph.D in psychology and has worked in prisons and been a Professor. I get the sense that he is an intelligent and thoughtful sort who might support the Obama brand (liberalism informed by Christian commitments, respect for other points of view, appeal to people's better instincts etc. . . . ) I also like the fact that he is a prominant Clinton supporter - this would send a good signal to those that didn't support Obama in the primary.

[Sir Charles]

I like Strickland and Sherrod Brown as well.

I like Janet Napolitano too, but would she really be able to put Arizona in play?

[Shock Mouse]

For the love of God do not pick Ted Strickland.

Seriously, who thinks some minor (definitely minor) electoral advantage for this election (hopefully a blowout, we'll see as it develops) is possibly worth losing ourselves the Governorship of Ohio? Ohio is a very important state for Democrats, and it's pretty hard for us to get a Democrat elected state-wide there (2006 being the exception that proves the rule).

If Obama picked Strickland as nominee, the seat would definitely get filled by (R) Rob Portman, an incredibly popular politician who's always been a devoted Bushie, and has expressed specific interest in running for Governor. Portman would probably win in 2010 anyway against Strickland, but definitely will against an empty seat or the current VG. The Dem bench in Ohio is pretty shallow. And then who would be in charge of congressional re-apportionment and pulling the levers of government in 2012? It's incredibly bad.

Which just leads to the general point: stop considering VP nominees who currently hold offices that are traditionally held be Republicans. In general it doesn't mean they're a good national politician, just a good local-retail politician, and it often loses that seat to the Republicans. (This holds for Casey, Brown, Napolitano, and ESPECIALLY Sebellius).

I'd be much much happier if Obama said "eff this image stuff", chose an intelligent liberal bureaucrat who never would have gotten a name otherwise, and that intelligent liberal technocrat became the likely nominee in 2016. That result is way better for the party overall.

[ikl]

If you think that Strickland will lose to Portman in 2010 anyway, who cares? Portman would be Gov for congressional redistricting in that case anyway. Strickland is 67, so we wouldn't exactly be losing the future of the Democratic party in Ohio. Winning Ohio in November is more important than keeping Strickland in Columbus, I think.

If Strickland is VP in 2008, Obama can still choose somebody else as succesor in 2012. Changing VPs every 4 years was the norm until quite recently . . .

Arizona doesn't matter this year - McCain will win there unless there is a total landslide. New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada is what we should be targeting (especially if Obama is the candidate).

I don't really see an idea VP out there for Obama. Everybody I have heard mentioned has some clear pluses and minuses.

[Shock Mouse]

I think Strickland would only probably lose in 2010, and that was perhaps too strong a term. I certainly don't want Portman guaranteed to win, no thank you.

And why do you act like Strickland makes the difference in Ohio? Without him Obama could possibly win it, with him Obama could still lose it, and either way Obama could win enough states that Ohio isn't necessary. So no, I definitely don't think it's worth losing the governorship for.

Again, you keep thinking about the VP purely in electoral terms, when they are only a minor boost to what should be a blowout anyway (we'll know more come July I guess). Instead of looking at elected office-holders from moderate or conservative districts, think about good bureaucrats, heads of NGO's, and office-holders from liberal districts. The sort of people that it would really benefit liberalism for their profile to be raised, and don't lose us any other offices.

Wesley Clark, Barbara Boxer, John Edwards, Jeffrey Sachs, Warren Buffet, Chris Dodd, Deborah Wasserman-Shultz (bad on Cuba, but otherwise great progressive Dem who represents a very Dem district), or a number of other creative names.

In all of these, we don't get much electorally, but we get a powerful liberal voice out there, which is way way better than another moderate retail-politician.

[ikl]

OK, I agree that my answer was too glib. So here is the non-glib version. If Strickland will probably lose to Portman, then his odds of winning are less than 50%. Let's say that they are about 40%. To be pessimistic, let's say that a replacement Dem would have a 20% chance or winning. So Strickland gives us a 20% better chance of winning Gov of Ohio in 2012. Suppose that Strickland as VP would give Obama 3% better chance to win in 2008 (Obama is highly likely to win if he wins Ohio given his strength in all of the blue swing states outside PA and maybe MI). I would definately trade a 3% better chance to win the Presidency for a 20% worse chance to win in Ohio in 2010.

As for as the other point goes, I prefaced my suggestion by saying that I don't know much about Strickland. If one is skeptical that he would be a good Democratic President then this is definately a reason for him not to be the VP whatever the electoral advantages. But the reason can't just be that he didn't have a wonderfully progressive voting record when representing his right of center district in the House - if this were a disqualifying factor then John Edwards, who you suggest, would be a non-starter. So I'd have to know more about Strickland.