Recently, there has been buzz about Trump picking Bob Corker for VP; and about Clinton picking Elizabeth Warren. Also, the Libertarian convention is coming up soon; so I think this is a good time to speculate on possible VP picks.
REPUBLICANS
There’s two ways to go speculate about this: either use strategic thinking to determine who would be a good choice (from the GOP point of view); or try to get into Donald Trump’s psyche and think who he would like: for example, Jim Webb could be a good strategic choice (if he got the delegates at the convention to swallow him), but maybe the Donald would not nominate someone who came off as more manly than him, or with longer fingers. Also, many high ranking republicans may not want to risk running as Donald’s VP. A good way of winnowing down the field is looking at people who would have nothing to lose by joining Il Douche: maybe Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee or John Bolton. My gut feeling is that he will go the classic authoritarian route and pick a right wing general or admiral: I don’t think Petraeus would go for it, but there is no shortage of dominionist kooks in the military.
DEMOCRATS
I think only a black swan event will prevent HRC from winning the white house. In that sense, the VP pick should rather help downticket democrats. In that sense, I think the veep should be latino, seeing as how 1) there are competitive senate races in NV, AZ, FL, CO and NC; and 2) there are possible house picks in TX and CA due to The Donald activating latino voters. I very much respect Tom Perez’s work, but I don’t think he would make a skilled politician. I think Julian Castro is too green, and the fact that he doesn’t speak spanish would make him less effective in reaching out to latinos who don’t normally vote. Raul Grijalva would make a great form of defense against impeachment for HRC (a la Spiro Agnew), but his radical past makes him too much of a liability. I personally like Hilda Solis and Xavier Becerra, for similar reasons: although they are strong progressives, they are both a part of the democratic establishment as well; so they would make fine bridges between the Bernie and Clinton wings of the party.
LIBERTARIANS
I think this could eb a big year for libertarians, as there are many conservative never-trumpers who could be persuaded. I think Libertarians will see that and pick Gary Jhonson as their nominee, since he is their most credible candidate. I think Johnson could pick a republican and gain a lot of votes from anti-trumpers: it could be pro-choice Brian Sandoval, walk-the-walk libertarian Justin Amash (who is arab-american, and could credibly criticize Clinton on foreign policy), or Ben Sasse, a priviledged voice for anti-trumpers. I think Rand Paul is out of the running, because he is no longer credible as a libertarian
I like Becerra, good resumé, good age, handsome and an able politican.
When was the last time a House Rep at the bottom of a ticket was a general election winner? I can count up several losers in the past hundred years and there is one winner but he was Speaker of the House which might be stronger and a mere Rep.
True, although Becerra is a powerful member of the democratic caucus. And in this particular election year, many good VP choices in the senate would mean the loss of a senate seat. But point taken
Becerra should have been looking up to run for the Senate. But like many states, CA senate seats haven’t been turning over as fast as they should. And that leads to old first time elected Senators and they want to stay for their four terms. The retiring Harry Reid is younger than three others running for reelection.
A more systemic approach to projecting HRC’s running mate would be to consider where she’s weak and where she’s strong. Is it geographical, demographic, and/or ideological? Then slot in different politicians that can help with one or more of those strengths and weaknesses and compare such a ticket against the strong imaginable GOP ticket (that’s somewhat easier this time because none will be inherently strong).
In ’92, Bill doubled down on his self-perceived strengths in choosing his VP. I’d expect a similar approach from HRC. An advantage of that is that visually, perceptually, it communicates that the ticket is a team. That’s what was lacking in Gore, Kerry, McCain, and Romney’s choices. Obama used a different strategy to accomplish the team-ticket. What made it work so well is that there’s a high degree of respect and affinity between the two, and that’s not one of those things that can be faked.
I have no clue as to who HRC would choose. Perhaps because it’s more of a formality this time as we already know who the operational VP will be.
” Is it geographical, demographic, and/or ideological? “
Moral.
From your perspective, but my comment was from the perspective of team HRC.
Well then morality has nothing to do with it.
I doubt that geography matters much anymore. We’ve already demolished putting a progressive into the VP slot. Ethnic might be the way to go. If so, I’m sure it’s been thoroughly tested. A lot of people say it’s too radical to run two women, but it seems like they plan to make a lot of misogyny as they did Sanders’ age. Anything to avoid discussing real policy. In that case doubling down on feminism makes a lot of sense. Also, age. Young would be good but not so young as to be inexperienced, although the Trump camp can hardly point the finger at inexperience. 45-50? Will that upset the older women backing Hillary? Maybe not if the younger woman is definitely number two.
I see this recent assurance that Bill is there to grab the reins as a real sign that they are vulnerable on Hillary’s many bad decisions.
I have to be honest, wrt HRC’s Veep, I keep coming up with a big blank. That suggests to me that any non-entity, not too low in charisma or smarts, will do as well as any other non-entity.
wrt geography, if there were a politician that as Veep would guarantee that FL goes blue, that would be the ticket. No such person seems to exist. A conservative analysis of the EC would put FL in the GOP column and then consider the potential swing states and where HRC could be weakest. She can’t win without PA, but PA has been more consistently blue than the other potential swing states; so, put PA in HRC’s column. I’d also put VA in her column because the MIC is the lifeblood of N. VA. That leaves only six states where she could be vulnerable. At a minimum, she needs some combination of two or more of those six states to get to 270, and four of those six states were red in 2004 and one was barely blue.
Considering where HRC has been strongest and weakest, maybe she should be putting all of her eggs in the OH, NH basket.
Kerry Eleveld: “Why Clinton should quit courting GOP voters and go all in on Latinos and immigration”:
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/5/13/1526168/-Why-Clinton-should-quit-courting-GOP-voters-and-g
o-all-in-on-Latinos-and-immigration
GOP voters actually vote and Latinos not so much.
The point is to change that, which would mean a complete change of the electoral map
That’s not going to happen with a token Latina or Latino VP.
The VP would be “token” if they had a light resumé… I think people would perceive Castro as token; though not Sois, Perez or Becerra
Politico – The Vice Presidency No One Should Want – Whether Trump or Clinton is elected, the new veep will be a weakling, eclipsed either by a massive ego or a super-powerful First Husband.
The article isn’t that interesting and Greenfield inflates the actual power that Gore had as VP (those weekly meetings with Bill was one of Gore’s conditions for accepting the slot).
Whatever you may think of Solis, Perez, and Becerra, they don’t come packaged with high name ID or solid voter faction. As tokens, which is how they would be seen, they aren’t even that good and wouldn’t do anything to nail down FL or any other purple states. Although team HRC may not be thinking like that and are counting on Trump being so bad that she’s a shoo-in.
They have a habit of underestimating their opponents. That’s probably a side effect of massive egos which also means Trump may be underestimating
herthem.Unfortunately, very true.
From what I was hearing on NPR yesterday, going all out on immigration could have an Asian backlash since most entered legally and had to jump through a lot of hoops. They seem to resent all the attention to what they see as “line jumpers”.