I think making a competent decision for VP is a very good indicator as to how well someone is going to run their campaign (and from there the presidency).
Gore picking Leiberman in 2000 was the first sign of a self-destructing campaign. No reasonably competent politician would ever had put that guy on the list at all.
Bush II picking Cheney meant that ethics were out the window. (And also told us who would be Bush II’s “Nancy”.)
Etc.
So picking Edwards all along was clearly the best choice, so this is a Very Good Sign that Kerry isn’t going down Gore’s path of ruin. And given that Gore actually won the popular vote and Bush’s ratings are tanking, Kerry should win the real popular vote again. (Which of course has nothing to do with votes counted or deciding the election.)
Note that the South is the battleground. If Gore had won either Arkansas (easily done with Clinton’s help) or his own home state (if he had not ignored it) he would have won in 2000. Plus there’s Florida of course. If Edwards helps Kerry win just one of those 3 states, Kerry is ahead of Gore.
The Bushies concede that by the end of the month they will be down 15% in the polls merely by the fact that Kerry has named someone as a running mate.
The only foreseeable “bump” in the Bushies favor in the near future is The Amazing And Absolutely Astounding Killing of Al Qaeda Mastermind Al Zarqawi By Our Heroic Brave Soldiers! (Nevermind the man behind the curtain…) October will come early this election.
I disagree. Florida is a battleground, but it’s hardly a capital “S” South state, as opposed to Arkansas, Tennessee, the Carolinas, etc.
The battleground *is * Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Missouri (and *maybe * Oregon and Iowa). There’s a reason Kerry hasn’t spent any time in the South (now or in the primaries). There’s a reason he won’t be spending much time there period. Why? It’s not the battleground.
Then you’ll have to explain the choice of Quayle as Bush I’s choice for VP. I don’t know what he brought to the ticket, and it could be argued that it shows questionable competency on Bush I’s part to put someone so ill-prepared to be a heart-beat away from the Presidency. He won the campaign (was Quayle and asset?), and then was a mediocre (at best) President.
The battleground is Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Missouri (and maybe Oregon and Iowa).
West Virginia, too.
Sure, we are worth only 5 electoral votes. But the Dems were so shocked when we voted for Dubya in 2000 that they’re kissing ass extra hard now, even this early in the game. Kerry’s done been here twice and so has Dub.
Excuse me, but as a somewhat-confused Canadian I have a few questions.
I understand that you elect your head of government (the President) separately from your individual members of Congress.
(I’m not sure how the Electoral College figures into it–your presidential votes go into choosing electors who then choose the President? But that’s not my main question…)
My question:
Is the Vice-President elected separately, or do the President and Vice-President come as an inseperable package? Could one vote for the Democratic president and the Republican vice-president?
Do the President and Vice-President have to be members of Congress or the Senate as well, or is it a completely-separate office?
Sunspace — Yes, they are elected as a package, not separately. You vote for Kerry, you’re also voting for Edwards. (Contrast this with most states, where the Governor and Lieutenant Governor are separately-electec offices.) And no, the candidates don’t have to be Senators or Governors or anybody to get elected. Eisenhower was a military man, as was Clark in the recent Democratic runup. And Perot, a few years ago, wasn’t anybody at all politically (if you know what I mean) when he took his shot.
No doubt the GOP operation had a 31-page attack document on each and every one of the possible choices, probably including several of the longshots just for good measure. (No slam on the GOP. I’m sure the Dems would do the same. Just good politicking.) The exception to the prepared 31-page-document would be Hillary. She gets a 100-page document.
What’s the connection between the Democrats and Kerry? Was there a convention in which the Democratic party selected Kerry as their candidate for President?
The president and vice-president are not members of Congress. If/When Kerry and Edwards win, they will resign their Senate seats so that replacements may be named according to the Constitution and relevant state laws. The Vice-President serves also as president of the Senate, but this is a Constitutional position, not an elected one. The only time the VP votes as president of the senate is in the event of a tie.
The several states may indeed list the presidential and vice-presidential candidates together but the Electoral College votes separately for the two offices. The Twelfth Amendment:
The Democrats and Republicans have a system of caucuses and primaries by which delegates to each party’s national nominating convention are selected. Each state has a certain number of delegates, and there are also what are called “super-delegates” (prominent people within the party, including each party member from Congress, former presidents, other prominent party members as determined by the party). At the convention, various candidates’ names are placed into nomination for president and each state delegation casts the votes of its delegates in accordance with the results of its primary or caucus. If a candidate wins the majority of the delegates that candidate becomes the party’s nominee.
The vice-presidential nominee is also selected at the nominating convention but the presidential nominee is pretty much given carte blanche to select him or her.
Conventions didn’t used to be as orderly as they are now. The parties have figured out that contentious nominating conventions being broadcast to the nation aren’t good PR.
The Democratic convention is scheduled for later this month in Boston, Massachusetts (Kerry’s home state) which is when Kerry and Edwards will officially become the nominees. The Rebublican convention is scheduled for August in New York City and Bush/Cheney will be renominated.
Could the Democrats pick soneone else, or are Kerry and Edwards pretty much a shoe-in? Is the convention then just a rubber-stamp affair, as it seems to me at first glance? I am confused.
Oh yeah…campaigns last a long time here. It seems as soon as one election ends people are lining up for the next one.
The first caucus is in January; the first primary in February. The deadline to file to run in those varies from state to state, but it’s usually 2-3 months in advance at least. So, you have to have an organization going for months before THAT in order to get things in order, collect enough signatures, establish campaign HQ, etc.
When Paul Martin thanked his wife for standing by him for all thirty-nine days of campaigning, I laughed like a crazy person.
As for the conventions, at this point yes, they’re largely rubber-stamps. But drama can arise in the speeches given by other party politicos–who speaks? Who doesn’t? Who gets the prime nominating speech? Are there any riots outside? Any gaffes? Which states/territories give the silliest form speeches when casting their votes (eg. Guam always says something like “Mr. Chairman, the lovely territory of Guam, where America’s day begins, is delighted beyond measure to cast our vote for Mr. X!”) Do the balloons fall in exactly equal proportions of red, white, and blue? Do the First and Second Ladies look comfortable together? Whose kiddies are cuter?
Didn’t always used to be this way, of course; campaigns used to be shorter, although I don’t think the single month that Canada and the UK use would work; there was a time until pretty recently that conventions actually chose the candidate. See if you can’t track down some H.L. Mencken writing about the 1904-1948 conventions, which this famed journalist covered as only he could. His take on the 1924 one is still pretty valid IMO.
Nowadays, yes, the conventions are just a rubber stamp for the candidates already chosen in the primaries and caucuses. In the old days, they used to actually pick the candidates there, as Otto sort of alluded to.
Each party uses its convention to essentially get a few days of free publicity on the news.
I’m not up on every in and out of convention protocol but the way I understand it is that the delegates won by each candidate are committed to vote for that candidate on the first ballot only, although the candidate has the option to release his or her delegates to vote for whomever they want. Since Kerry has won enough delegates to take the nomination (and since the Democrats have no interest in a nationally televised bloodbath) Kerry’s name will be placed in nomination along with various other candidates (Edwards has delegates and his name may be placed in nomination but he will undoubtedly decline and release his delegates, who will presumably vote for Kerry). Then the Cavalcade of States begins. Each state and territory is called in alphabetical order to cast the votes of their delegates. This is the cue for the state party chairperson to take a minute or two of TV time to extol the wonders of his or her state (“The home of former President so-and-so, first in the nation to do such-and-such, proud to have this or that famous landmark or politically significant happening, etc.”) before announcing the results of the state delegate vote. Traditionally the party want the candidate’s home state to be the one that puts the nominee over the top, so often states will pass (but not before making the speech). When the delegate total for Kerry passes the critical number, there will be an inordinate number of balloons and a ton of confetti dropped upon the convention floor, with the playing of joyful music and the cheering of the deleriously happy conventioneers. There will be much commentary from pundits on the significance of each minute event, including the quantity and quality of the balloon drop (I’m not kidding; the Republicans especially seem to be fiercely competitive about the balloon drop) and the effect it will have on the candidate’s post-convention “bounce” in the polls.
Now, at conventions past, it has happened that no candidate has enough delegates to secure the nomination. Should this happen, the delegates I believe are freed to vote for whomever they want and the back-room dealings begin amongst the party bosses. Neither party wants to risk the appearance of disunity that going to a second ballot would present the world so it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see a major party convention go past the first ballot again.
For the VP nomination, technically the state delegates can vote for whomever they want but there’s no way the convention is going to pick someone other than the person the nominee selects. What we’ll probably see at the Democratic convention is the selection of Edwards by acclimation.
Conventions used to have some relevance to selecting the nominees but they serve at this point as a party for the delegates, a chance to pay off some political debts by giving people the chance to speak on TV, to introduce a new crop of party people to a national audience and a chance for the nominee to give his first major address as the official nominee.
