Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Veepstakes Chatter
Lots of Veepstakes reporting yesterday. First Marco Rubio was reported to be out of the running; a follow-up had a list of finalists down to Rob Portman, Tim Pawlenty, Paul Ryan, and Bobby Jindal. By the end of the day, Mitt Romney himself was saying that Rubio was still alive.
My main response is: why should we believe any of this? Oh, I’m not blaming the reporting. It’s just that there’s a long history of nominees who do plenty of spinning and misdirection on their way to selecting and announcing a running mate. Most of that is with good reason; it's generally good politics to appease various party factions by pretending that their favorites are serious Veepstakes players, even if it isn't actually true. Don't forget, also, that there's actually a reason for the vetting, and it's certainly possible that things could turn up that disqualify a candidate.
(Although: has that ever happened? Have we had good postmortem debriefings of the VP vetters focused on how the vetting part of it actually goes? Obviously the vetting team didn't screen out Palin in '08, Edwards in '04, or Cheney in '00 -- yes, I know -- so we're getting some Type II errors, but as far as I know we have a lot less information on whether the vetting process actually does disqualify anyone, correctly or not).
As for the specific names...my sense of this has always been that the research establishes a clear strategy, because the upside (a couple of points in the home state of a running mate who is popular back home) is much less than the downside (hard to know exactly, but probably a couple points nationwide in the case of a disaster pick). And I think the best way to avoid a disaster, Edwards sort of notwithstanding, is to choose someone who successfully survived a nationwide campaign. Unfortunately for Romney, there's really only one person out there who fits. Which is why, at least based on what we know on the surface, that I think the Huck is the best bet. But beyond that? Find someone who has been successful statewide, and hope for the best. I'd avoid those who were first elected in 2010 (unless they have other credentials; Portman sort of does). I'd certainly avoid Paul Ryan for multiple reasons. Beyond that, you're really just hoping that you get lucky.
I thought about what you've had to say about Huckabee this week as he decided to punch way below his weight by having a spat with Bristol Palin, of all people. Do you think he'll be seen as a viable candidate for, well, anything if he continues to drift toward full-on media personality mode?
ReplyDeleteHuckabee doesn't have good chemistry with Romney. Huckabee simply doesn't afford enough respect to individuals on account of their having amassed a big enough pile of cash. I doubt if Romney could trust him sufficiently to make him his successor.
ReplyDeleteNot for nothin', but as I understand things, Edwards' dirt didn't develop until '06, and wasn't a problem until he'd already been bounced in '08. So it's not like Kerry's team missed it; it wasn't there yet, and I think it's hard to argue that Edwards was a Palin-esque disaster pick.
ReplyDeleteSame with Cheney, actually; yeah, the guy's an ass, but it's not like there was some impropriety that vetting could uncover. And I'd argue he helped Bush in 2000, at least.
As for the rest, I suspect that that stuff is found at something before the "finalist" stage, and the campaigns simply deny the pols in question were ever serious candidates. Nonetheless, I remember a few things from '08- Richardson's supposed zipper problem, Clinton's problems with her husband's donors. Though, admittedly, that seems a lot like typical "open- and unproven- secrets" kinda stuff.
Well, apparently there's some question about whether Edwards had plenty going on well before 2004. You don't want someone who might implode if you win, either; Agnew was a disaster pick, even though it didn't hurt in either election.
DeleteAgree on the last point. What I'm wondering is whether the kinds of vetting they do turns some of that unproven stuff into proven, or at least accurately distinguishes between rumors likely to be harmless and rumors that have a large risk of becoming costly.
I imagine anyone whose issues are massively disqualifying doesn't get on the list in the first place -- I can't imagine David Vitter being considered for VP by anyone, ever. Perhaps anyone with a skeleton of that caliber in their closet isn't going to make even the long list because they'd likely not be in a position to be on the long list in the first place.
Delete"Well, apparently there's some question about whether Edwards had plenty going on well before 2004."
ReplyDeleteBeing the words of Ms. Hunter.
Not what we call a reliable witness. And certainly not available to the Kerry team in 04.
But, more to JB's point: the political science research on vetting is extraordinarily thin. Our methods are just vastly inferior to those of the journalists on this front. We really don't have good, systematic data on who made the long list or the short list. We have anecdotes of questionable sourcing for a number of these (for example, Ridge and Lieberman were vetted and then rejected by party factions in 2008 has been reported on {sorry, don't have a link or good memory of the story}), but as far as I know, that's it from 2008. We don't have the "here was the full list, and here was the short list, and here's why they rejected X, Y or Z." Sigelman had a really fun piece on the veepstakes in the APSR back in the 90s, but it was all using media-based lists, so somewhat questionable.
ReplyDeleteIt's remarkable how many bad VP picks there have been in recent years: Palin, Edwards, Lieberman, Quayle, Ferraro, Eagleton, and Agnew all look, in retrospect, to have been pretty horrible. There are as many bad ones as good ones.
ReplyDeleteI think Cheney was terrible for the country, but I don't think he was any kind of political liability.
If I were the presidential nominee, my main question for VP candidates would be, "How would you feel about spearheading my administration's campaign to abolish the vice presidency?"
ReplyDeleteThe only real criterion for a veep pick is whether the person is a plausible President. Nobody votes on the basis of the veep.
ReplyDeleteThe media should stop talking about this stupid issue. Nobody knows who Romney is going to pick, and once he picks the candidate, none of the speculation will matter.
Portman served 12 years in the House, and then had year long stints as the US Trade Rep and as OMB director, both Cabinet level posts. That's better than "sort of"; that's more like "heck of a resume".
ReplyDeleteIn terms of being a potential president, sure. But in terms of exposing potential electoral vulnerabilities, only sort of.
DeleteAren't they vetting candidates for Cabinet-level offices (and even candidates for lower-level offices) pretty thoroughly these days? You've posted about that occasionally. I suppose there might be a difference between what people doing that kind of vetting look for, and what people on the campaign trail look for.
DeleteI think it will almost certainly be John Thune. He hasn't run a national campaign, but he checks all the other boxes. The main strike against him seems to be that he voted for the bailout. But Romney's campaign strategy already calls for a whitewash of the entire financial crisis, so I don't think it would be much of an impediment.
ReplyDelete