The position of vice-president in the US is a peculiar one. The position carries with it no power, nor substantive daily duties, other than a largely ceremonial one of presiding over the senate and that usually only occurs when a very close vote is expected and the vice-president takes the chair in case it becomes necessary to cast a tie-breaking vote. The real requirement of the role is to be able to take over in the event that the president should die, resign, be removed from office, or is otherwise incapable of carrying out their duties. So the main criterion for being selected to the position is confidence that the person is capable of taking over if necessary. While there are no real qualifications for being president in terms of experience, and serial sex abuser and convicted felon Donald Trump (SSACFT) has shown us that someone totally unfit for the office can attain it, one would hope that the person picked to be the vice-presidential nominee would display some reassuring qualities that they could rise to the occasion if need be.
However, the last election brought to the fore another task that the vice-president has that had been seen as purely ceremonial but became central to SSACFT’s plan to overturn the election and that was presiding over the certification of the counting of the electoral college votes. Vice-president Mike Pence refused to entertain the idea that he had the power to challenge the votes of states that SSACFT lost, and allow alternate slates of electors. On December 23, 2022, Congress passed a law to rectify any ambiguities and close any loopholes that might be exploited in the future.
The legislation, which would overhaul the 1887 Electoral Count Act, was included as part of a massive $1.7 trillion government funding bill that the Senate passed on Thursday and the House passed on Friday. It will now go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.
The measure to overhaul the Electoral Count Act would clarify that the vice president’s role in overseeing the electoral result certification in Congress is strictly ceremonial. It would raise the threshold to make it harder for lawmakers to force votes attempting to overturn a state’s certified result. Additionally, it includes provisions that would prevent efforts to pass along fake electors to Congress.
In 2008, John McCain threw aside traditional considerations for running mate selection when he picked the hopelessly ignorant and inept Sarah Palin, even though her state of Alaska has just three electoral votes and is fairly reliably Republican and thus brought no tangible benefits to the ticket. He reportedly did so because he felt that an attractive young woman would provide excitement to his campaign which had been unable to close the small but persistent gap in the polls with Barack Obama. That ill-fated decision had both short term and long term negative consequences for the Republican party. In the short term, it turned what had been a fairly close election into an easy win for Obama. In the long term, from that initial choice of Palin, I draw a straight line for the decline of the GOP from a mainstream conservative party to an extreme right wing cult, when Palin ‘went rogue’ and started spouting the wingnut attitudes and policies that are now standard in the party and created the path that has brought to the front all the crazies that we now see.
Often the selection of vice-president is made for short-term reasons, the key one being whether that person can help the ticket win. As a result, the factors that go into the selection often depend heavily on the person’s ability to attract votes among those groups in which the presidential candidate is seen as weak, a process known as ‘balancing the ticket’. Another is the hope that they will be able to help win their home state and deliver its electoral votes.
Using these metrics, it is hard to see how SSACFT’s choice of JD Vance significantly helps the Republican ticket. Ohio has become a reliably Republican state, so Vance does not add anything there. SSACFT’s weaknesses lie with women, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and young people. While in the past, Vance was a never-Trumper and thus might have attracted some of those voters, more recently he has gone completely MAGA, in some cases even more strident and misogynistic than SSACFT, as hard as that may be to believe. The main thing he brought to the ticket was his youth and just a week or so ago when SSACFT announced his choice and the Republicans were running a ‘Biden is too old and decrepit’ campaign, that might have been the key factor, since SSACFT is 78. But with Biden leaving the race and Harris becoming the presumptive nominee, that advantage has disappeared entirely, and now some Republicans are second-guessing the merits of the Vance pick.
“The road got a lot harder. He was the only pick that wasn’t the safe pick. And I think everyone has now realized that,” one House Republican told Axios, speaking on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss his party’s VP nominee.
- Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum were the two other finalists to be Trump’s running mate.
- Some more establishment-minded Republicans had advocated for former UN ambassador Nikki Haley or Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin to appeal to moderates and suburban swing voters.
- “On the whole, the feeling is: doesn’t add much,” another House Republican said of Trump picking Vance.
- “And now with Kamala at the top, the capacity to have expanded the map a little bit … would have been much more beneficial.”
Zoom in: Coming out of the GOP convention, Vance is the least-liked non-incumbent VP nominee since at least 1980 — and the first to register a net negative favorability rating, according to CNN data analyst Harry Enten.
…The bottom line: Trump allies acknowledge that Vance’s selection “was borne of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter,” The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta reported.
Stephen Colbert is also puzzled by the Vance choice.
You can be sure that Kamala Harris and her advisors are thinking very carefully about their choice. While there is a lot of enthusiasm and excitement on the Democratic side right now, that will fade over time. While Harris will be able to attract some women and people of color and young people who had been on the fence or planning not to vote at all, there is no question that there will also be some voters, even traditionally Democratic ones, who think that a white, older man is better suited to be president and she may lose their votes, balancing out the gains elsewhere.
This is why I think (as do so many others) that she will pick a white male, preferably someone who has won statewide races in one of the key states that are crucial, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and North Carolina.
Various names are being mentioned. Gretchen Whitmer (aged 52), governor of Michigan that has 15 electoral votes, would be a good choice but given that the country has not as yet shown that it is ready to accept a female president, having a two-woman ticket may be a hard sell. Andy Beshear (aged 46), governor of Kentucky, has won twice in a red state and has been pretty good in terms of policies and is a feisty campaigner but the state has only eight electoral votes and has reliably voted Republican in presidential races, making his potential value somewhat marginal. Josh Shapiro (aged 51), governor of Pennsylvania, is another person being mentioned but he would be controversial, because he in an uncritical supporter of Israel and took a very hardline stance against student protestors over the Gaza issue. Joe Biden alienated a lot of young people and progressives with his lack of action over Israel’s actions in Gaza and Harris will have to try and mend fences with them. Large segments of the Democratic base are angry about this issue and selecting Shapiro will re-inflame it and so although Pennsylvania has 19 electoral votes, I think Shapiro would be a bad choice. Mark Kelly (aged 60), senator from Arizona, also has been an uncritical supporter of Israel and so would not go over well for the same reason. Arizona has 11 electoral votes.
That is why I think that Roy Cooper, governor of North Carolina, would be the best choice. At 67, he is older but not too old. He presents himself as an avuncular and reassuring figure. He would play a role similar to the one that Biden played for Obama, an older white man to reassure white voters about a Black presidential candidate. He has twice won election to the governorship in a southern state, showing an ability to connect with voters there, and his record is pretty good, given that he is constantly fighting a hostile legislature. NC has 16 electoral votes. There have been no major controversies or scandals about Cooper, though one never knows what can come to light when someone is suddenly thrust into the national spotlight. What we have learned about Vance since his selection by SSACFT has not been to his benefit.
But we do not know what the vetting process that is currently underway by Harris’s team will unearth. They will have access to information that is not public and may use criteria other than the ones I think are important and so the final selection may well be none of the above.
I find the notion that Harris needs an older white man as her VP more than a little paternalistic. I think many Americans are weary of a government filled with old white men at this time, and are ready for a more progressive approach. Of course, I could be mistaken on how many undecided voters are prejudiced against women and POC, but it appears that America has gotten a little less racist and sexist since the 2016 election. (Judging by the unprecedented fundraising and general happiness with Harris’ now being the presumptive nominee for POTUS)
Biden himself has been quietly enacting progressive legislation and programs, in addition to promoting women and POC within all areas of government from judges to administrative staff. The results are rather impressive, considering all they have achieved in just 3 1/2 years.
I think that a large criteria for a running mate is actually liking your VP, and being able to work well together. Luckily, there are many excellent Democratic candidates for Harris to choose from, most of whom are white men, so maybe a younger choice would be best.
Gretchen Whitmer sounds like a good choice to me, because bringing her into the national limelight would remind voters that loony fascist Republicans once conspired to KIDNAP AND POSSIBLY MURDER HER. That’s just one manifestation of the Republican culture of violence and hate that needs to be highlighted every chance we get.
I don’t favour choosing a running mate to appeal to swing voters. Why pander to misogynists? They’re not going to vote Harris anyway. Choose a fierce running mate to your left, to energise progressives and revive interest among the jaded. AOC for VP.
Someone’s not been watching the polls. From a less biased outside perspective, it seems to me to have gone MORE that way.
I think Harris is an excellent candidate -- she seems to lack the arrogance and entitlement that made Clinton such a disastrous pick. But the reality of the situation is that the US is still racist and sexist, and that a middle aged white dude would, just as Biden did, go some way to not frightening the horses so to speak.
“AOC for VP” is a nice fantasy I fully agree, but anyone proposing seriously is IMO what is wrong with the left. You want to be righteous? Great. You want to signal virtue? Yeah, sure, that works. You want to WIN, to be IN POWER? Oh, you don’t? That’s not your priority at all? Oh, fine then. Because your fantasy casting while fun to think about absolutely will cost you an election the Dems were ALREADY ON COURSE TO LOSE until last week, in case anyone has forgotten how the polls looked. Why pander to misogynists? I dunno, how about “because they vote?”. How about “do you even fucking remember the ‘basket of deplorables’ speech and the effect that had?”. You pander to misogynists because if you do, just a little bit, then they’ll stay home. You’re right, they’re not going to vote Harris. But rub their noses in it like Clinton did, and they WILL come out for Trump, where they might not have otherwise. We’ve SEEN IT HAPPEN.
2016 was a lesson nobody here seems to have learned.
Personally I like the idea I heard the other day that she pick Pete Buttigieg, on the grounds that when she wins the US has a first and second gentleman. (This is kind of a joke -- Buttigieg is good, but he’s a bit young, possibly. Not a terrible idea, though, possibly, although I’d be wary of the likely homophobic backlash.)
Mano, you forget that not only was Sarah Palin stupid as a door stop and unwilling to learn anything about the job she was being put up for, but she was also a religious nutter--at least, as it could be used to bully other people (she didn’t appear to live it, having multiple children by different men while married to another, lying, stealing, and breaking the other Commandments at will). She was a thin-skinned grifter, who--with enough money and professional hair, makeup, and styling--was eye-candy, and that’s all the men were concerned with. Several sources close to McCain said she was forced on him as an answer to Hillary Clinton; a woman with four decades of experience in government, perhaps the best-qualified candidate ever fielded. Palin herself bragged that when she wanted something, she’d put on her push-up bra and don a low-cleavage top and the men would fall all over themselves to do whatever she wanted.
Vance? He’s cut from the same cloth as Palin…but it didn’t take 6 schools and 7 years for him to “graduate” (apparently with a degree the school didn’t even offer). So he’s marginally smarter and perhaps harder-working.
Here’s the full “basket of deplorables” speech, and you see that--as usual--the MSM mischaracterized it and the women-hating contingent latched onto the mischaracterization:
https://time.com/4486502/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables-transcript/
And you know what? She was entirely right about the deplorables, and perhaps too generous about the geezers-in-diners/Cletus safari contingent.
The women-haters also latch onto Mrs. Romney’s “it’s Mitt’s turn!” comment and attribute it to Clinton.
I’ve never said she wasn’t right. Whether or not she was right (she was) is entirely beside the point. The point is that when you’re running for President that is emphatically and, one would think, obviously NOT THE KIND OF SHIT YOU SAY OUT LOUD IN FRONT OF CAMERAS, whether you’re a man OR a woman. That she was criminally stupid enough to have done that is what disqualified her. FFS do you even politics at all?
I mean, the “47%” comment did for Romney, so there was a lesson she should have learned, and he said that in private, with no reasonable expectation that it would ever get out. It did, and it destroyed him when the person who recorded it clandestinely released it to the media. Clinton shot her mouth off ON TELEVISION, DELIBERATELY. The MSM amplifying it was absolutely and entirely predictable. You don’t have to be a woman-hater to hate that specific woman for making that mistake and handing Trump the White House. And you’d have to be a woman hater to not be happy that we are where we are now, with the MAGAs on the back foot, Biden safely lame-ducked, and the best candidate since Obama in the running.
I’ll make you a prediction, right now -- Harris absolutely will not do anything remotely that arrogant and clueless, EVER. She’s simply a better candidate, in practically every conceivable way.
This is kind of funny. “Hillbilly Eulogy” is the name of the real book that Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” was a take-off from (title-wise, at least). So it’s come full circle. Eulogy --> Elegy --> Eulogy.
https://www.amazon.com/Hillbilly-Eulogy-Death-Appalachian-Culture/dp/B08DSSZPCM
Speaking of misogynists, it would be fabulous if limey idiots would shut-up forever about Hillary Clinton.
She was in fact far more qualified than Obama, and slightly less qualified than Biden.
Also polls, because how stupid do you have to be to think polls are a useful metric? Especially when those polls were completely wrong in 2016, 2018, and 2020.
How quaint!
In 2016, aggregates of the latest presidential polls overestimated Clinton’s lead over Trump in the popular vote by about 1-2%. In 2020, they overestimated Biden’s lead over Trump in the popular vote by about 3-4%. A sensible assessment would be: not to be relied on to predict victory in a close presidential contest, but not “completely wrong”. For 2018 I couldn’t find a useful summary.
@9: “speaking of misogynists”
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
If you mean me, you mean the “misogynist” who’s volubly ecstatic about Biden stepping aside and endorsing Harris. I think she’s going to be great and I’m really glad she’s the candidate, I have a newfound optimism about the election I wouldn’t have believed possible even a week ago, and if I were in the US I’d be doing whatever I could to get her elected. Such is my “misogyny”. /shrug/
“it would be fabulous if limey idiots would shut-up forever about Hillary Clinton” -- I bet it would. Bod forbid anyone learned anything from that debacle, just STOP TALKING ABOUT IT, that’ll make it go away and we can all forget it ever happened. Except, y’know, TRUMP WAS PRESIDENT because of that. So I can’t see anyone, limey, idiot or otherwise, choosing to shut up about it while it’s relevant. And even a septic moron would surely concede that now that there’s another woman candidate, Clinton’s experience as one is relevant. Surely? No?
And again -- nobody, to my knowledge, ever disputed that she was eminently qualified and experienced for the role, especially when compared with objectively the LEAST qualified candidate ever to stand. And it was demonstrated handily just how much any of that shit mattered.
I agree that the only poll that matters is the one in November, but until then, polls are all any of us have that’s an objective measure of anything. Are they super accurate? No. Are they better “Tethys’s gut feels”? I’d have to say yes.
I only have one more blank square on my “Clinton fangirl” bingo card. Let’s see if we can fill it can we? She was, objectively and provably the worst candidate ever to stand, evidence: she was beaten by Trump, objectively and provably the least qualified candidate ever.
@9, Tethys: all you said is true, but the incels and misogynists will forever live in their own minds. They are not movable by facts.
No. Had it not been for the antidemocratic Electoral College (originally installed to keep the lower classes at bay) she would have been elected, since she won the popular vote. Also, had it not been for James Comey’s illicit interference, she would almost certainly have won even with the EC. There are plenty more inept candidates in US history -- John McCain with his idiotic selection of Sarah Palin as Veep candidate, for one.
Of course, with Vance, the real criteria Trump used is probably something along the lines of ‘how shiny is my footwear after the bootlicker was finished?’ because he’s made clear that loyalty to him is the only thing he really considers important. (And stacking the government with ideological lackeys is a pretty blatant part of the next term’s agenda.) Sucking up is something Vance has demonstrated he can do very well.
Also, as a protege of Peter Thiel and through him to Curtis Yarvin/Mencius Moldbug, Vance was a presumptive favourite of the techbro crowd like Musk and Andreessen who are supplying a good chunk of Trump’s money at this point. So a lot of buttering up and some cheques (many directly from Thiel), and Trump was sold. These are the people who think that the ‘company town’ where a corporation has autocratic control over everybody living in the area is the ultimate form of government.
He actually confirmed that explicitly, departing from his usual habits by apparently telling the truth. He said something close to (I can’t now find the exact words) that he selected Vance because “He likes me more than anyone else”.
Me, 11: “I only have one more blank square on my “Clinton fangirl” bingo card. Let’s see if we can fill it can we? ”
KG:, 13: “she won the popular vote”
BINGO!!!
There’s always at least one that if only they’d not run the election by, y’know, the rules, then she’d have won it. Thanks for being that person! L actually OL.
Fun fact: I won the Olympic triple jump in London in 2012. I got far, far further along the sandpit than any of the other competitors. There’s the technicality that I walked a fair way down the side of the sandpit before I jumped in… and didn’t qualify or anything, but y’know, apart from the rules, I won it fair and square.
Since Dan Quayle, the primary function of the Vice President has been to prevent the President from being impeached by being an obviously much worse replacement.
Good morning; what a lot of frothing at the mouth sonof.
(replying in kind)
Even a septic moron can see that SSACFT NEVER panders to swing voters. He doubles down, ALWAYS HAS. So you think that, y’know, we could fucking LEARN SOMETHING from his undeniably successful tactics rather than wishfully thinking that voters will flock to Harris because, y’know, she’s just SO FLEXIBLE?
You pander to misogynists because if you do, just a little bit, then they’ll stay home.
Along with a lot of disenchanted voters that otherwise would have voted Harris. We’ve SEEN IT HAPPEN. FFS do you even politics at all?
(/replying in kind)
Nate Silver’s/538 assessment of Clinton’s chances in 2016 (overall and broken down by state) was in the 70% range. Donald Trump was in the 20% range. This was after Comey of the FBI interfered defied Department of Justice guidelines against disclosing politically sensitive details of an investigation by writing a letter to Congress saying the Bureau had potentially discovered new emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server (narrator: it had not). It was all a huge nothingburger, but it freaked out enough of the ninnies who joined the misogynists and the Putin puppets.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
Katydid
Why acknowledge facts? Better to make oblivious statements about “gut feels” and then blunder on to explain how “fangirls” should pander to the misogynists.
KG
How quaint.
I agree.
As to polls, remember the Red Wave that was being predicted by all major media in the 2022 midterms?
My recollection of the media predictions in 2016 are much closer to the numbers posted by Katydid @19.
A Hillary win was practically a foregone conclusion according to the major network media and news organizations.
There was also the issue of a significant number of Bernie supporters who had hard feeling at not securing the Democratic nomination going on to not vote at all or vote for Jill Stein. It was just enough voter apathy to give Flump an electoral victory.
Marco Rubio would have been an historic pick, being the first severely dehydrated American on a presidential ticket.
sonofrojblake@16,
You are a remarkably silly person. It’s always worth pointing out that the electoral college is antidemocratic, and at least in recent years, has given the right an unfair advantage.
Katydid@19,
Which means he assessed Trump as having a significant chance of winning. You wouldn’t want to cross a road if there was a 20% chance of being mown down by a truck.
Tethys@20,
That was media misinterpretation of the polls, rather than the polls being badly wrong. And in 2022, while the polls certainly indicated more Republican votes and wins than occurred, the Republicans did win control of the House, along with more total votes than the Democrats in House contests. I’d say there are three mistaken attitudes to polls: over-confidence in their accuracy, over-interpretation of their implications (even a completely accurate poll can only tell you about the electorate’s current intentions, and factors such as the weather on polling day make a difference), and dismissing them as completely useless. In the recent UK elections there was a mix of the first and the third: most showed a Labour lead over the Tories of approaching 20%, the result produced a lead of 10% -- so, in those terms, worse than either of the last two US presidential polls -- but there were also a surprising number of people still expecting (or at least, claiming to expect) a Tory win -- with the actual result being a Labour landslide and the worst Tory result (both by seats won and vote share) in history.
I have read that the proportion of Democrats who backed losing candidates but still voted for the winning candidate was not out of line with previous elections. (Which of course doesn’t mean those who failed to do so escape blame for Trump’s win.)
@KG, the prediction was AFTER the October ratf**king by Comey. Before that, Clinton’s chances were in the 90s against Orange Foolius. So it was not (as some have claimed) a close race at all, and the polls were overwhelmingly in her favor. People are rewriting history when they claim otherwise.
#9 Tethys
I can agree that there are plenty of people who put too much stock in polls, but you seem to be putting too little in them. That, or you misunderstand statistics and predictions. If something has a 90% change of occurring, and then does not occur, that does not necessarily mean the odds came to an incorrect value. It may simply be that the 10% chance took place.
___
#11 sonof
Sigh, this again. Sonof, sometimes people use ‘best candidate’ to mean ‘most able to win’, while other times they use it to mean ‘most beneficial for the nation’. With boring regularity, you admit only the former.
I never said polls are completely useless. It’s simply a fact that in the last four elections the polls were completely wrong. The pollsters themselves don’t know why they are so bad at polling.
The article delves into voter turnout rather than polling, with lots of hard data. Mobilization of voters is key.
It’s also worth noting that the 9 seat margin in the House has been whittled away to a 1 seat margin in the last 2 years, with every special election going to the Dems.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/new-voter-turnout-data-from-2022-shows-some-surprises-including-lower-turnout-for-youth-women-and-black-americans-in-some-states/
@Holms, 24:
With boring regularity, the only way to be “beneficial for the nation” is to WIN. See also Jeremy Corbyn in the UK -- you can have the loftiest principles and the most progressive policies, but none of it is worth a sack of shit if you don’t WIN. And far, far too often those on the left would rather be right than in power, which usually ends up with them being neither. Again referring to the UK, Blair knew that and so did Starmer, and they both led campaigns that annihilated admittedly moribund incumbents. Scandalously Corbyn didn’t, and managed to lose TWO elections against what were objectively two of the worst PMs this country had ever had up to that time. I’m not sure if losing to Boris Johnson is worse than losing to Trump -- I leave that as an exercise for the interested.
Apparently you’ve never heard of a conversation about Y while setting aside consideration X, also known as a hypothetical.
#25 Tethys
As I already pointed out, a poll is not necessarily wrong just because the outcome rated as less likely was the one to occur. That is, unless you can point to a poll that claimed 100% certainty Clinton would win.
Care to point one out to me from this list of polls?
Tethys @1,
Proably so.
But, for context, she’ll be 60 come election day.
“The current life expectancy for U.S. in 2024 is 79.25 years, a 0.18% increase from 2023.”
(https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/USA/united-states/life-expectancy)
(Anyone can see the USA’s population pyramid, as well)
So, yeah. Lots of younger men. 🙂