According to the latest news, future president Joe Biden will be announcing his VP pick during the upcoming week.  (At the latest, it would be the following week with the virtual convention scheduled to start on August 17.)  As I noted two months ago, there are two things that go on behind the scenes which make guessing the name a fool’s errand — skeletons in the closet and personal compatibility.  Simply put, even if we knew what Joe Biden wanted in a candidate, we would not know what the vetting of the potential candidate revealed and among the three or four candidates who meet the wish list of qualities and survive vetting we would not know which one will “click” with Vice-President Biden.   But the third factor — political considerations — is something that we can talk about.

There are three aspects to political considerations:  1) the status quo (what the current state of play is in the race); 2) a guess about November (regardless of where things are now, what states will be in play in November); and 3) what are your goals for the next four years (how will the pick help your administration).  On the third consideration, it is always possible to pick a running mate that you will keep mostly on the sidelines (see Dan Quayle), but most recent presidents have wanted somebody who would be able to handle some of the heavy lifting after the election.

The reality is that most VP picks have limited impact on the political equation.  They may make a marginal difference in their home state, but, as long as they are generally qualified, they tend to disappear into the background over the campaign with people ultimately voting based on the presidential candidate.  But the VP pick does say something about the judgment of the presidential campaign and their vision for their administration.  So here are the basic questions that the campaign has to answer. Continue Reading...