I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen or heard someone talking about a Kerry-Edwards ticket for the Dems in 2004.
A small sampling of the many observers who’ve brought it up in just the past few days include Saletan, Yglesias, Alterman, the New Yorker’s Hendrik Hertzberg, plus a big item about the potential pairing in the Boston Globe, which just happens to be Kerry’s home-town paper. My friend Tom Schaller, I should note, touted a Kerry-Edwards ticket nearly eight months ago in a Washington Post op-ed, which, coincidentally, also ran in the Charlotte Observer, Edwards’ home-town paper.
Edwards was asked directly about this possibility on the Today show this morning and rejected it out of hand.
Asked if he’d take the VP slot if it were offered, Edwards said, “I think you’ve got the order reversed. I intend to be the nominee.” He added, emphatically, “No, no. Final. I don’t want to be vice president. I’m running for president.”
It’s hard to blame Edwards for getting frustrated with these questions. Every time someone brings up his name as an appealing running mate, it reinforces the idea that he won’t win the nomination and he’s better suited for the number two slot than the top slot. It makes sense that Edwards wants to reject this forcefully so he won’t have to keep hearing about it.
That said, as much as I like Edwards as a candidate, he may not have a lot of choices down the road. He’s likely to win South Carolina, but beyond that, his prospects appear somewhat limited. Edwards has already given up the opportunity to run for re-election to the Senate, so if he isn’t the Dem nominee, he has nothing to fall back on. If Edwards were offered a chance to join the ticket, it’s hard to imagine he’d turn it down, despite this morning’s emphatic demands of disinterest.
Would Edwards make a strong running mate, regardless of whether Kerry is the eventual nominee? I think so. Keep in mind, Gore’s campaign winnowed his short list for VP to three candidates in 2000 — Lieberman, Kerry, and Edwards. He has enormous upsides and, aside from his relative inexperience in government, very few downsides for a running mate.
In fact, looking over Schaller’s analysis from June, all of the same accolades still apply.
Young, attractive and flush with both cash and innovative policy ideas, Edwards is the man who could be king … maker. For Edwards, a trial lawyer with only five years’ Senate experience, it’s a no-lose proposition. He becomes vice president and heir apparent if the Democrats win; he gains greater stature and name recognition for his own 2008 presidential bid if they lose….
With Edwards’ cash and Kerry’s cachet, the most formidable pairing might be Kerry-Edwards. That ticket is regionally balanced (at least North-South-wise), and features senators who voted for the Iraq war resolution yet remain thoughtful and dogged critics of Bush’s foreign policy and homeland security failures.
There’s still time for some strange things to happen in this race — and I still believe that Clark’s campaign can make a serious run for the nomination if he’s successful on Feb. 3 — but this analysis seems as correct today as it did almost eight months ago.