And that Romney would tap Stephen Colbert . . .
Oh, the debate . . .
Why do you believe her? She could walk in, save the day, and take over in four years.
Of course, maybe Bill really, really, really did it this time and we haven’t heard yet.
Gov. Martin O’Malley, Maryland
Gov. Brian Schweitzer, Montana
Sen. Sherrod Brown, Ohio
Guarantee a win for the GOP, maybe. That woman is second only to Hanoi Jane on the list of most despised women in red states.
Some names I’ve seen mentioned:
Current NYS governor, Andrew Cuomo, Montana governor, Brian Schweitzer, US Senator, Mark Warner of Virginia, Democratic Senate candidate, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, NY US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, current givernor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, Hillary Clinton, and current Maryland governor, Martin O’Malley.
I think **Warren **gets tossed immediately since she hasn’t won an office yet, let alone served in one. Good choice where she is, IMO.
Patrick gets tossed for wrong skin color. Probably a great guy, but lots of folks would be turned off by an all African American ticket. If he’s good, his time will
come.
I think Clinton has had her shot and is now past her prime. Time to retire gracefully.
Cuomo has done some really good things as NYS governor. Not the least of which was to get the state Assembly and Senate to pass budgets on time. He seems able to facilitate compromise which is a much needed commodity on the national scene these days. I like him, but I suspect he wouldn’t help a 2012 national ticket.
Gillibrand - seems able, but she’s a bit untested, IMO.
Schweitzer - Dubious. Aside from the fact that he’s from a small, GOP-leaning state, his stands on coal (more) and gun control (less) would not be ideal for Democrats in 2016. I doubt Obama would want to inflict him on the country even if he might help in 2012.
O’Malley - Some people think that he’s setting himself up for a run, including his switch on same-sex marriage. Maryland wouldn’t give him a good base to run in 2016, so a four year stint at VEEP would be valuable to him. But he’s little known at this point and wouldn’t help the ticket much in 2012.
Warner would seem to be a pretty good choice. He has executive experience as governor of Virginia and he currently serves on many of the Senate committees that handle issues usually reserved for the VEEP in recent administrations. His half-hearted run at the big job in 2008 gives me pause with regard to his grit.
He’s pro-coal, but he also emphasizes that it should be as clean and as safe as possible. He’s not knee-jerk anti-regulation on the subject like some are.
Guns, he’s pretty unambiguously for (like everyone in this state), but it seems to me that that’s been an extremely low priority for Democrats lately anyway, and could pull a fair number of crossover voters.
I could see Biden resigning for personal reasons on Jan 21, 2013, then President Obama selecting Senator Franken to replace him.
For the election itself, however, the Vice President is just going to have to suck it up and take one for the team.
nm double post
Not only that, they’re both from Massachusetts. Isn’t that against the rules? I thought I remember Cheney having to switch his primary residency to Wyoming to run with fellow Texan GWB.
We’re talking about the Democrats here. Obama’s state of residency is Illinois, so if he nominated Warren, there wouldn’t be a problem. But assuming we were talking about the Republicans, it’d still be a non-issue because I’m pretty sure the Romneys live in New Hampshire now. They do have other homes, including one in California, and could probably switch their primary residency without trouble. Anyway the rule doesn’t say you cannot have two candidates from the same state- it’s that if you have two candidates from the same state, they can’t receive that state’s electoral votes. The Cheney situation shows that it’s trivially easy to circumvent, and Romney isn’t going to win Massachusetts in the general anyway.
Which red states would that cost Obama? Not a one. I, for one, could not possibly care less what the red states think about anything.
Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio would be great, but he’s up for reelection this year, and Ohio (unlike Texas) law makes no provision for someone to run simultaneously for VP and something else.
I like Kathy Sebelius, the HHS Secretary, but the Catholic employer/abortion coverage issue has probably made her radioactive.
I take Hillary at her word that she’s not interested, but I think her time as SecState has made her more politically appealing than she was four years ago. Her approval ratings have climbed, and she’d probably be an asset to the ticket.
I think Sen. Mark Warner would be the best pick, if Biden didn’t go for a second term. Warner’s smart, experienced, a former businessman, and he’d put Virginia in the bag for Obama.
George Clinton served from 1805-12, under both Presidents Jefferson and Madison, and John C. Calhoun served from 1825-32, under both Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson (of different parties!), but no VP has served more than two terms that I recall. FDR, the only President to serve more than two terms, had John Nancy Garner for his first two terms, then Henry A. Wallace for one, and then Harry Truman for his very short fourth term.
I know. But she could win it anyway. That’s how it is, that’s how important the red states ain’t. (And, even the red states will be slightly less red by 2016, owing to generational attrition.)
I never heard this before. Can someone expound upon this for me (or point me toward more info)? Where does the rule come from, what is it meant to benefit?
Our funkiest VP
Article II, Section 1, of the US Constitution:
So, if George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had both been inhabitants of Texas, the electors of Texas in the 2000 election could not have voted for both of them. (It wouldn’t affect the electors from other states.)
The reason is presumably to make it less likely that both the president and the VP come from the same state.
Wow. I had never heard that. Still, Marley23 said “they can’t receive that state’s electoral votes” which had me thinking the state’s electoral votes would be forfeited. You’re saying “electors of Texas in the 2000 election could not have voted for both of them”.
Now if Cheney kept his Texas residency status, the electors still could have voted for Bush for President so long as they didn’t vote for Cheney for Vice-President? That would be a “yes” based on your wording but a “no” based on Marley23’s wording.
My first thought was . . . well, so what then? Bush is still elected President. Then I thought, with a close election like 2000, would this have meant that Bush would have been elected President but Lieberman would have been elected Vice-President?
I don’t see Clinton. She’s still a divisive figure conservatives would rally against. She’d cost Obama more votes than she’d gain for him.
I’m assuming Coumo is interested in a 2016 Presidential run. But it’s hard to say whether he’d see the Vice Presidency as a better path than staying on as Governor. It would probably depend on how much he was concerned about a rival in the VP’s office.
Sebelius is another potential 2016 candidate who’d be a possible VP choice. She’s already a member of the Obama administration, so there’s no reason for her not to accept a more visible job in it. Yes, she might be a lightning rod for some social conservatives but they weren’t going to vote for Obama anyway so not votes are lost. And she would add to Obama’s lead among women voters.
It is my understanding that the electors of that state could not vote for them both. Therefore in the hypothetical, the Bush presidential electors of Texas would opt to vote for Bush, and would be barred from voting for Cheney. They wouldn’t necessarily have to vote for Lieberman, so they could vote for any random Republican and then if a VP candidate fails to get a majority because of it, it falls in the lap of Congress.
But using 2000 as an example, taking Texas’s electors from Cheney would have made Lieberman the Vice-Presidential winner of the Electoral College no matter who Texas’ electors voted for, isn’t that correct?
I don’t think so- Lieberman would not have had a majority of the VP electors. Plurality, yes. Majority, no.