This is the first of a few diaries I'd like to post about the Veepstakes. The VP nomination is important regardless of whether it affects the election, because so many VP's end up as future presidents or nominees. And an awful lot of them are not very good.
Let's take it for granted that presidential candidate chooses his running mate at least partly for campaign purposes, and this is especially true for non-incumbent presidential candidates. I'll make a list here of VP's since WW2 and what became of them, and ask what it means for John Kerry and the current election.
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Harry S Truman, VP under Roosevelt -- became president and was apparently pretty good, but on the other hand, he didn't join Roosevelt's ticket til Roosevelt's 4th term, when everyone thought Roosevelt would be around forever. There was a joke about a 6-year-old kid in the late 1930's saying "when I grow up, I want to be president!" and his mom answering "Why? What's wrong with Roosevelt?". Roosevelt on the other hand knew of his own serious health problems and probably was quite concerned about possibly dying in office. He had the luxury of not having to worry (much) about the campaign, so his VP nominee was in effect a hand-picked successor as president. Despite this, Truman was pretty much run out of office in 1952 after some Republican-operated (i.e. McCarthy) bogus scandals not all that much different in spirit than some Republican machinations of the Clinton era.
The next president was Eisenhower. Eisenhower's VP Richard M. Nixon would of course go on to become one of the worst presidents of the last century.
After Eisenhower came Kennedy. Kennedy's VP Lyndon B. Johnson also became an awful president, and was run out of office in 1968 over his Shrub-like expansion of the 1960's version of the Iraq war. Johnson and Kennedy were never close to each other personally or politically; he was a clear case of a running mate brought into a campaign purely for electoral purposes. (It's certainly true, though, that JFK may not have won without Johnson).
Johnson's VP, Hubert Humphrey, became the Dem nominee in 1968 but lost to Nixon.
Nixon's running mate and later VP, Spiro Agnew, was an outright crook who was forced to resign from office over a kickback scandal. Nixon's second VP, Gerald Ford, had a reasonably clean presidency (except for the Nixon pardon), but that doesn't count because Ford never ran as anyone's running mate (he was appointed VP after Agnew resigned). Ford appointed Nelson Rockefeller VP, but I won't count Rockefeller since Rockefeller was never elected VP.
Ford became GOP nominee in 1976 and lost to Jimmy Carter. Carter's running mate/VP Walter Mondale became the Dem nominee in 1984 and lost to Reagan.
Reagan's running-mate/VP George H. W. Bush (Bush 41) became president in 1988, presided over the first Gulf war and a nasty recession, and generally sucked though not on the magnitude of his offspring Shrub. Bush 41 lost the 1992 election to Clinton. 41's VP Dan Quayle flirted with a presidential run, but Quayle was considered so laughable that his bid went nowhere.
Clinton's running-mate/VP Al Gore became the Dem pres. nominee in 2000, running against one of the most incompetent opponents of all time, George W. Bush (Shrub). Despite Shrub's mind-boggling ineptitude, Gore managed to eke out only the narrowest of victories from the voters, which can only be explained by Gore having been almost as inept himself. It was as if the Detroit Pistons had played against a no-name college basketball team and won by only two points in overtime.
It may be controversial but I'm of the opinion that Gore would have been a lousy president if he had gotten in (not as bad as Shrub, of course). Gore was chosen by the voters, then failed to take office as president because of Republican operators in Florida violating the Voting Rights Act leading to Florida's choosing an EC delegation supporting Shrub. Gore then leaned on the Dem Senators to leave Florida EC vote unopposed. If even one senator had joined with the Congressional Black Caucus in opposing the Florida EC, it would have thrown the Presidential election into the House of Representatives as specified by the Constitution. Gore's choice left it instead with an extraconstitutional decision by the Supreme Court (Vincent Bugliosi's book "The Betrayal of America" explains why the SC decision was illegal). The poignant scene of the Dem Senators refusing to step up with the Black Caucus was shown near the beginning of Fahrenheit 9/11. (Shrub would have still ended up President if a Senator had stepped up, but Congress would have had to investigate the Voting Rights Act violations, showing Shrub to be the illegitimate crook that he is. That is, the election theft by that point could not have been stopped, but Gore helped make it look legitimate).
Summary:
Every presidential running-mate elected as VP since Truman, with the exceptions of Quayle and Agnew, has gone on to become his party's presidential nominee in a later election, and most actually became president. Quayle and Agnew were of course disastrous VP's. The VP's who went on to become president, except Truman (who never ran for VP except with a popular incumbent president), became lousy presidents. The other VP's who became nominees proceeded lost the election for their party. Quayle was such a poor VP that he was probably a factor in Bush 41's 1992 loss to Clinton.
We can only conclude that running-mates chosen purely to help win elections, even if they do win, almost always end up being bad for the party and (if they become president) for the country. Kerry is very wise in his own VP search to look beyond the immediate campaign and spend some time envisioning an Edwards presidency and decide if he likes what he sees. He is also wise to delay his VP choice as long as possible, to see just how much electoral help he really needs; if the Shrub admin melts down over Plamegate or Iraq or whatever, Kerry will be at more liberty to choose whatever VP he thinks will be best for the country without worrying too much about the campaign consequences.
In any case, the VP nomination has exceedingly far-reaching consequences and must not be made on purely short-sighted criteria.