At RealClearPolling Sean Trende doubles down on his complaints about the vice presidential picks of both parties:
When the election is over, one side will claim that the selection was obviously correct, given that the candidate won. Someone has to win, though, so let’s do a little pre-mortem.
Let’s recall that there are a handful of things that a pick can do. It can shore up a wavering portion of the party base, as Mike Pence did for Donald Trump in 2016. It can reinforce a message, as Al Gore did for Bill Clinton in 1992. Or it can help deliver a state, as LBJ likely did for JFK in 1960.
Walz still doesn’t seem to have delivered any of this. The polling in Minnesota is roughly where it was prior to the Walz pick. This means that Harris-Walz will carry the state, but Democrats were already poised to do that. Republicans haven’t won Minnesota since 1972. If they win it this cycle, the election is already over.
Moreover, there’s an opportunity cost here. Pennsylvania has continued to be the state with the closest polling. There is a charismatic, popular governor of the state who was passed over for the nod. Vice-presidential picks can’t do much, but they can move a state a point or so. In Pennsylvania, that difference appears to be meaningful.
What about Vance? He seems to have done his job, debating Walz skillfully and carrying the MAGA flag. But he also doesn’t seem to have energized voters beyond the party faithful.
I think that Sean is missing what has, sadly, become an additional distinctively contemporary motive for picking a vice presidential candidate: impeachment insurance. Don’t like the president? Would you like the vice president better? No—impeachment may not be a good choice.
I don’t think that’s the only reason that Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris for his vice president. He had promised to pick a “woman of color”. But Kamala Harris was not the only possible pick. However, she was clearly the most assertively progressive candidate he could pick. She didn’t help Biden carry a state or “shore up” a wavering part of the base. To the extent that she “reinforced a message” that message was clearly identity politics. Did that need reinforcement? I don’t think so.
However, she did discourage Republicans from pursuing impeachment proceedings against President Biden. It’s hard not to think that the choice was deliberate.
Now consider the vice presidential picks in that light. Republicans, would you prefer Tim Walz as president over Kamala Harris? I don’t so. Democrats, would you prefer J. D. Vance over Donald Trump. I doubt that even more.
I liked Shapiro better but he has faced a recent scandal involving one of his aides which i think scared them off.
“However, she did discourage Republicans from pursuing impeachment proceedings against President Biden.”
I think they would have rather run up against her until it became clear Biden was deteriorating so I dont think that stopped them. I think the bigger issue is that all of their star witnesses against Biden kept folding so they really didnt have a case.
Steve
I don’t know that Biden promised to select a woman of color. He promised to select a woman, and following the George Floyd protests there were public calls from Democratic activists for that woman to be black. Jim Clyburn said after the pick that he privately encouraged Biden to pick a black woman several times. Biden said that there were four black women on his list. By the end, the NYTimes said there were two in the final four.
“Ms. Harris was one of four finalists for the job, along with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Susan E. Rice, the former national security adviser. But in the eyes of Mr. Biden and his advisers, Ms. Harris alone covered every one of their essential political needs.”
https://archive.ph/n12XY
I think there was a bit of historical revisionism that viewed Harris as the only logical choice in retrospect and for party activists to take credit for pressuring Biden to select a woman of color as a means of claiming power.
“Mr. Biden’s instincts were not destined to lead him to Ms. Harris: He and members of his family had long expressed discomfort with the way she attacked him at a Democratic primary debate, and his political advisers remembered well the seemingly constant dysfunction of her presidential campaign.
“There was a particular distrust in the Biden camp for the sharp-elbowed California operatives with whom Ms. Harris has long surrounded herself, fearing that they might seek to undermine Mr. Biden in office to clear the way for Ms. Harris in 2024.
“Yet no other candidate scored as highly with Mr. Biden’s selection committee on so many of their core criteria for choosing a running mate, including her ability to help Mr. Biden win in November, her strength as a debater, her qualifications for governing and the racial diversity she would bring to the ticket. No other candidate seemed to match the political moment better.”
I don’t know if VPs are selected as insurance, but Presidents don’t want a running mate that’s too ambitious, too independent or potentially going to overshadow the top of the ticket.
If Harris was “impeachment insurance,” then what in Holy Hell is Walz?!
I doubt that Trump thinks that anyone could possibly overshadow him.
Trump has acted quickly in the past to fire or clamp down on people who drew attention away from him. I doubt he believes anyone is smarter or better than him but I think he sensitive about being the center of attention.
Steve