{"id":15100,"date":"2008-04-03T12:45:16","date_gmt":"2008-04-03T16:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/15100.html"},"modified":"2008-04-03T12:45:16","modified_gmt":"2008-04-03T16:45:16","slug":"what-about-the-vp-searches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/what-about-the-vp-searches\/","title":{"rendered":"What about the VP search(es)?"},"content":{"rendered":"

He didn’t even hint about any specific considerations, but when John McCain mentioned yesterday that he is in the “embryonic stages<\/a>” of picking a running mate, it was treated as big news. The senator said his list-in-the-making has “every name imaginable,” which apparently includes 20 people, and renewed speculation about who might be included in the mix.<\/p>\n

But all of this was also a reminder that McCain, five months before his nominating convention, has the luxury of taking his time and finding the running mate he wants. The vetting process of short-list candidates can be slow and careful.<\/p>\n

And then there’s the Dems.<\/p>\n

I’ve noted, on a couple<\/a> of recent<\/a> occasions, that one of the downsides of the prolonged Democratic process is that the search for a running mate is much trickier when the party may not actually have a nominee until the convention. Yesterday, Marc Ambinder<\/a> fleshed this point out nicely.<\/p>\n

In March of 2004, Sen. John Kerry asked James Johnson, the former Fannie Mae CEO and long-time Democratic strategist, to head the search for his ticket-mate. <\/p>\n

Whether Kerry made the right choice in the end by picking John Edwards is for history to decide, but the search itself was a model of efficiency and secrecy. It took Johnson and a small team of carefully selected lawyers and researchers a few months to carefully vet the ten or so finalists that Kerry had settled on. <\/p>\n

As of April of 2008, Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are way behind Kerry’s pace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The solution, of course, while awkward, is that both Clinton and Obama are going to have to start the VP process without knowing what’s going to happen.
\n
\nAmbinder added:<\/p>\n

Coming up with a list is easy — but a competitive primary — or, if you’re an Obama strategist, a fictitiously competitive primary — turns the active phase of the search into an extra-sensitive operation. <\/p>\n

Absent a presumptive nominee, Clinton and Obama might well compile and vet two separate lists of candidates. And there will certainly be overlap. For example: Sen. Evan Bayh may be on both candidate’s short lists. Would he consent to an Obama interview before Clinton drops out? What about Sen. Joe Biden, who has yet to endorse either candidate, but who many long-time Washington hands are talking up to Obama donors? Will the vetting process complicate the superdelegate endorsement process?<\/p>\n

Aides to Clinton and Obama declined to comment when I asked them yesterday whether any thought had been given to the vice presidential selection process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, of course they declined comment. It’s an unwieldy question.<\/p>\n

This is going to get a little tricky. Both candidates are going to have create VP vetting teams, made up of one set of political professionals who know their efforts won’t matter (it’s a bit like, immediately after the 2000 election, both Gore and Bush started assembling cabinets, knowing one team wouldn’t actually serve).<\/p>\n

It should be interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He didn’t even hint about any specific considerations, but when John McCain mentioned yesterday that he is in the “embryonic stages” of picking a running mate, it was treated as big news. The senator said his list-in-the-making has “every name imaginable,” which apparently includes 20 people, and renewed speculation about who might be included in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}