If last night is any indication, McCain desperately needs a VP candidate who can help bring in the votes of the rural Southern conservatives who voted for Huckabee without actually tapping Hucakbee, which would only further alienate the economic conservatives.

Maybe Hillary can take you up on your idea since Bill would be her defacto VP anyway...
 

The obvious choice would be Mitt Romney, favored by conservatives, but not scary to independents.
 

Why would Mitt Romney be an "obvious choice" if one is concerned about appealing to Huckabee's constituency, who want a "real Christian" and certainly not a member of an arguably non-Christian sect (according to Richard John Neuhaus in First Things several years ago). Perhaps McCain could persuade Clarence Thomas to step down from the Court!
 

EL:

The other candidates reportedly loathe Romney for being an arrogant rich guy. It is doubtful that he will be tapped as VP even if he could bring in the Southern rural voters.
 

Bart,

So who do you recommend?
 

He'll probably nominate someone like a Bill Frist or John Thune. Huckabee's an affable guy, but as you point out, a risky nominee. I think McCain would love to nominate Giuliani but that would only further alienate the base.

As for your article, I didn't quite get the argument for eliminating the Vice Presidency, other than the fact that you (and admittedly most Americans) don't like Cheney. In your amended version of the Constitution, who would succeed the President in case of death? I don't think it would be advisable to go straight to the Speaker of the House, who's the next person on the list as it stands today. The virtue of having a Vice President is that the people give their consent to the person who would replace the President should he die or become incapacitated. The Speaker, or any other officeholder who attains their office by party caucus or appointment or seniority (like the President Pro Tempore of the Senate or the Secretary of State), isn't chosen by the people to succeed the President. Pelosi was elected by a few Californians, and the people chose the Democrats nationwide to run the House, but they did not choose Pelosi to be the Speaker. Her caucus did. (Moreover, imagine her predecessors, Hastert and Gingrich, succeeding to the Presidency.) I think there'd be something undemocratic about someone who the whole nation didn't elect succeeding the President, and that's why we have a nationally elected Vice President. Now, you can argue that we don't choose the Vice President, that the President, in effect, chooses him, and therefore that he's not so different from a Cabinet member. But, unlike Cabinet members, we know who the proposed Vice President will be in advance of the election, and we may base our vote, if we choose, on whether we think he's fit to be President. You can also argue that we have had unelected Vice Presidents, one of which even became President. But actually, didn't the fact of Ford's appointment and the resulting speculations about the pardon deal undermine his legitimacy? In any event, we need to provide for presidential succession somehow, and nationally electing the successor is the means most in harmony with our overriding constitutional principles.
 

The other candidates reportedly loathe Romney for being an arrogant rich guy.

Not to mention that he is a serial liar. I see no way that McCain selects him as the VP.
 

enlightened layperson said...

Bart, So who do you recommend?

Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi and former RNC Chair.

Barbour is pure deep fried Southern conservative with feet in both the GOP establishment and the rural South. Moreover, Barbour's superb recovery work in Miss. after Katrina is the perfect antidote for the Dem smear of the GOP for Dem state and local ineptitude in LA.

Even though the subject did not explicitly come up, Barbour seemed open to the the idea of VP for McCain in an interview with Fox News last night during the returns.

Jeb Bush could assure Florida. However, folks are tired of the Bushes and the Clintons. McCain cannot very well exploit that fatigue against Hillary if he has a Bush on the ticket.
 

Barbour's an ex-professional lobbyist. It wouldn't look good and I doubt McCain would pick him. Condi's an interesting idea in my opinion. If he goes with her, that would help cancel out the first woman/black in the White House sentiment.
 

What ever happened to the Tommy Thompsons (or Vilsaks) of the political world? Why are no Republicans that sought the nomination this year able to appeal (even in theory) to a large segment of the party, without straining the base over selective issues (McCain on immigration, campaign finance), or lacking credibility as a "true conservative" (Romney), or appealing only to the social conservatives but not economic conservatives (Huckabee).

Why did not a mainstream Republican run? Is it because the party has moved far enough to the right that there no longer is a mainstream within the party (i.e. the ideological space of the party covers more ground than it used to)? Or is it just a lack of fortune? I find it hard to believe there is a lack of willing candidates.
 

Does anyone seriously believe that John McCain (or any other presidential candidate) should be expected to believe that his or her choice is fully equipped to take on the duties of US president. And can any serious person believe that Sen. Thune, Bill Frist, or Hayley Barbour meets that test? Or consider that one name supposedly on Hillary's list is Ohio's Gov. Tim Strickland, a former (or for all I know, present) minister who is apparently very popular in Ohio and who might well provide Ohio in the Dems column. Could Hillary, running as the candidate of "experience" and disdainful of Obama's lack of same, possibly tell us, with a straight face, that Strickland qualifies. Could anyone have made that argument with regard to Bill Miller, Spiro Agnew, Geraldine Ferraro, Dan Quayle, or for that matter, John Edwards in 2004. Dick Cheney obviously was superbly well qualified, by resume; it's simply that he's turned out to have abysmal judgment and to be an authoritarian to boot, which is why I favor being able to fire VPs.

It is a sheer formality to say that Americans "elect" the VP, since there is no known evidence that the electorate actually scrutinizes the VP and ask whether they'd want him/her as president. But if one thinks that election is important, then let the president-elect nominate a VP and submit the choice to a popular referendum, which would presumably limit the incentives to pander to a particular geographical constituency.
 

tray:

Barbour was an extremely telegenic and persuasive spokesman for the GOP for years. He is a minor hero down in Mississippi for his superb response to Katrina. I do not think that working as a lobbyist for a time will be a problem. Barbour has all of Huckabee's down home charm without the associated tax and spend baggage.
 

sandy levinson said...

Does anyone seriously believe that John McCain (or any other presidential candidate) should be expected to believe that his or her choice is fully equipped to take on the duties of US president. And can any serious person believe that Sen. Thune, Bill Frist, or Hayley Barbour meets that test

None of the front runners for President have any executive experience, unless one thinks that former First Ladies gain executive experience by osmosis.

Hell, the two Dem front runners only have very limited Congressional experience with no notable legislation.

Haley Barbour has more successful executive experience under crisis conditions than any of them.

Consequently, I do not see how inexperience is a problem limited to the vice presidency. I agree with you that the voters are far more concerned with who is running for President than they are about his or her running mate. However, the voters do not seem to be too concerned about experience in their Presidents.
 

Well, I can't say I see how Thune or Frist are any less qualified than Clinton or Obama - unless purely by virtue of being Republicans. You are right to say that it's only true that Americans elect their Vice Presidents in a purely formalist sense. However, I still think that Vice Presidents are better qualified for succession than the other options. Speakers of the House tend to either be extremely partisan politicians or undistinguished lifelong Congressmen. Presidents pro tempore of the Senate are usually very old (see Strom Thurmond, Robert Byrd). Cabinet members are usually specialists in their various fields. Vice Presidents, on the other hand, are usually some of the more capable governors or senators in their respective parties. You can cite all the John Nance Garners and Quayles and Agnews you want, but they're the exception, not the rule. Take Gore, G.H.W. Bush, and Cheney - all three were at least as qualified and intelligent as the Presidents under whom they served. If you go back a little further, you could look at Johnson, Nixon, and Truman. Yes, Vice Presidents are chosen to balance tickets, but they're also picked with some concern for ability. That's because presidential nominees genuinely care about picking a good successor; it's also because if they pick someone who's blatantly unqualified or repugnant to half the electorate, it could hurt their chances of election. Moreover, if you eliminate the VP, it doesn't solve the problem you have with VP's - really powerful people in the White House whom we can't fire if they go astray. If Bush didn't have Cheney as his Vice President, he'd retain him or someone like him as an unofficial adviser, in which role he wouldn't even be impeachable. Were we able to "fire" Karl Rove? In all respect, I don't think this is one of your best ideas.
 

The point is that not even the President can fire the Vice President, which is absurd.

The last Vice Presidential candidate that may have had any impact on a national election was Walter Mondale in 1976. "Ticket balancing" may be helpful for party unity and is certainly part of our political lore, but it's pretty questionable nowadays -- Clinton and Bush II dispensed with it altogether (I'm still not sure how Cheney managed to prove he was from Wyoming when he most assuredly was domiciled in Texas), John Edwards couldn't even carry his home state, and the less said about Dan Quayle the better (although everyone remembers well how Lloyd Bentsen nailed Quayle in their debate, it is less well remembered that Bentsen likewise did not carry his home state, as Bush I got 56% of the Texas vote).

It makes no sense for the Speaker to succeed to the presidency (an absurdity much noted after Spiro Agnew's resignation and prior to Gerry Ford's "election" as VP). It would make perfect sense for the senior Cabinet member meeting the Constitutional qualification test for the presidency to be first in the "line of succession".

The framers just messed this one up, even if it's taken Dick Cheney and his lawyers to make it clear just how dangerous the Vice Presidency is, having a foothold in both the executive and legislative branches and thereby violating the separation of powers.
 

Well, my personal choice, since he was in fact my personal choice for president, is Fred Thompson. I don't travel in Southern conservative circles, but from what I understand he'd be acceptable in those circles -- but at the same time, reasonably non-threatening outside those circles.

Of course, I suspect that most people here aren't really interested in a nominee that would help McCain get elected, but that's my $0.02 anyway.
 

Professor Levinson:

Suppose your amendment providing for the apointment of a VP upon election, to be ratified by both houses of congress, were already on the books this year.

How does this actually help McCain out of his dilemma?

GOP voters are still going to be very interested in McCain's VP choice, especially given his age, and it would seem very likely that he'd have to publicly announce who his VP choice would be before election day. One would expect the very same factors as now exist to be in play with that choice as now exist for picking an official running mate. So if you assume that McCain has to pick Huckabee to balance the ticket, don't you also assume he has to declare Huckabee as his VP nominee?

At that point the only thing protecting us from Huckabee a heartbeat away from the presidency would be (1) McCain reneging, which would be very politically costly, (2) firing Huckabee, which would cause a firestorm unless some event intervened, (3) opposition from the Democratic congress.

Of those, only (3) seems plausible, and it is not at al clear that the Democrats would be interested in helping the president finagle out of his promise. They might relish the prospect of an opposition president that might disgrace the Republican party.
 

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