Tahoe's "Veeps" thread

[Hermy]

Is Liddy Dole too old?

[Hermy]

Is Sonny Perdue clear of that land scandal yet?

[Big Swami]

Is Liddy Dole too old?

I think she's got a reputation for being kind of a lightweight. She's more like a daytime talk show host than she is a politician, and I don't think that style plays well in the post-2001 era.

[Zip Goshboots]

Don't you think McCain needs to go way to the right with his choice to woo the neocons?

McCain needs to pick someone who is breathing to appease the neocons, and even that might be debatable. Especially if he runs against Hillary or Obama. 1) The neocons HATE Hillary, and would vote for a republican even if he performed a partial birth abortion at the Super Bowl halftime show and professed his love for Satan, sacrificed a virgin, and EVEN declared that capitalism is evil.
2) If Obama is the candidate, I lack faith in Americans to elect a Black Man, and the right wing controlled press would destroy him.

[b-diddy]

dude, the right wing on wtfdetroit is as impotent as bukdow's genitalia(sorry tahoe). what else are you worried about?

get ready for 8 years of obama socialism, good feelings. and as we china overtake us as the #1 country in the world, it'll be like easing into a nice warm bath.

[Tahoe]

Peeps make too much obout the VP choice. Just don't make a mistake. I don't think peeps think about the vp guy when they go into the thing to vote.

[Glenn]

It's important to me.

If the Prez goes down, the VP needs to be President-ready material.

[giffman]

I'm pretty sure we haven't had a Prez that goes down since Bill Clinton . . . .

Jenna Jameson for VP?

[Uncle Mxy]

The VP nod can be useful for shoring up weaknesses in the presidential candidate themselves.

Cheney was picked to offset Bush's relative federal, military, and foreign policy inexperience. If not for Iraq, I have to believe that Cheney would've "stepped aside for medical reasons" and an heir apparent selected. Edwards was selected to shore up the southern younger vote, but was too much of a lightweight to matter.

Gore was picked to offset Clinton's draft-dodging liberal side, having been pro-life, anti-music-video, some military experience, clean family life, etc. Their only path to the presidency involved breaking the South. Dole picked Kemp to attempt to unify Republicans without bringing a total wingnut like Forbes or Pat Robertson into the fold.

No one knows why the fuck Potatoe-head Quayle was picked, other than being young. That was the biggest waste of a VP pick on any side in recent memory. He'd have been better off picking McCain. Bentsen was picked to shore up Dukakis lack of federal experience, but just made Dukakis look even less presidential by comparison.

Bush was picked to get moderate Republicans to buy in. This turned out to be important with a serious moderate Republican independent, John Anderson, in the mix. Carter could've conceivably won if Reagan had gone off with a more extreme VP choice, and that would've been Reagan's preference. It was Bush who coined "voodoo economics" after all.

Beyond that, things get messy, but the VP was a different kind of job prior to Mondale, who reinvented the position. (To be fair, in the wake of Nixon and Ford, the job called for reinventing.) VPs were largely spare tires. Cheney's reinvented the job too, and it'll be interesting to see if anyone picks a VP in the Cheney mold.

[Uncle Mxy]

I'm pretty sure we haven't had a Prez that goes down since Bill Clinton . . . .

Jenna Jameson for VP?

You're confusing American politics with Italian politics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cicciolina