Talk Elections

excluding james stockdale, who has been the weakest  VP choice in recent history (post 1952)?

id say jack kemp.  he really didnt add anything, save annoying football metaphors.  he wasnt picked to deliver a state.  dole didnt need someone to bring 'experience' to the ticket.  i suppose the reasoning of the kemp choice was to get the supply-siders lined up behind the dole candidacy.  sure, the supply siders viewed dole as suspect, but im certain they would have voted for him over clinton without kemp being on the ticket.

as a republican, i can still remember how bad i felt when dole selected kemp.

Kemp?  What about Quayle?

Dan Quayle. Had he not been born rich, he probably could have worked his way up to dishwasher, garbage collector, or dustman.

Perhaps a potatoe farmer ;)

im sure many folks will say quayle, but give him some credit, he was actually elected VP.  ive never seen any evidence that he HURT bush's electoral chances.

dole was running a long shot campaign, he needed a home run (or at least a triple) with his VP choice, instead he struck out.

Geraldine Ferraro

what was Kemp's home state

new york was where he served in congress from.  i think he moved to california after serving in the bush administration.

He certainly didn't help in New York--I think Clinton won every single congressional district in New York state in '96.

Lieberman was a very poor choice politically.  Quayle was a horrible choice to actually be the veep.  Kemp was also a poor selection.  Cheney was the scariest.  Dubya would be wise to dump him.  I still think he will dump him around the time of the convention, claiming health reasons.

Ferraro.  She just wasn't ready for prime-time yet.  Same with Quayle.

im surprised that only one person mentioned eagleton.  perhaps people overlook him because mcgovern himself was a weak candidate.

im not sure if i agree witht eh spiro agnew assessment.  he did turn out to be a failure while he was in office.  as governor of maryland, however, he had a very moderate, pro civil rights record.  it was only while he was VP that he turned into a right wing nut, for lack of a better term.

Ferraro, Quayle, Kemp, Lieberman all bad!
George Bush was last good choice.

You left out Gore.  He was a decent choice because Clinton was at the head of the ticket, although he'd be a horrible choice for a Kerry type at the top of the ticket, politically anyway.  I do agree that Bush Sr. was a good choice.

Kemp's home state was still New York at the time of the 1996 election.

I don't think that Liebermann was a poor chioce.  HELL  I would have rather have seen him at the top of the ticket in 2000.  Cheney was not a horrible chioce.  The media kept complaining that Bush nedded 'gravitas' (funny, my Poli Sci professor Dr. Kozac has been studying politics for 35 years, he's been to 8 conventions, was a congressional fellow, personaly knows Dick Cheney, Sen. Fred Harris and several other, co-authored a book with Ken Duberstien (Reagan's chief of staff) and taught at the National War College (he taught Wes Clark), West Point and the Air Force Achademy (he was a Col. in the Air force) and he said that he had never even heard of 'gravitas before the 2000 election) so Cheney was almost a nessesity.  I think that it would be a bad idea ot keep him on for '04 however.

Back up the train a moment, Kemp was the best Vice-Presidential choice EVER.  The ticket should have been reversed and should have been a Kemp-Dole ticket but with Liddy as the VP.  Jack Kemp is one of the few white Republicans who can get a decent audience with African-Americans.  He is one of my favorite politicians and one whom I most admire and respect.  There would be no better President or Vice-President than Jack Kemp.

Ferraro, Quayle, Kemp, and Stockdale all bad.

Ferraro or Quayle.

You're right. I forgot Gore. He was good one.

So many names, so many names...I guess I agree with all the above, basically. What about Lloyd Bentsen in 1988? I don't know much about the guy, other than that he failed MISERABLY in his presidential bid in 1976 and did NOT deliver Texas to Dukakis! :D ;)

I think the worst to VP choices would probably be the two who cost the ticket the election.

Bob Dole probably cost Ford the election because mondale beat him soundly in the debate (at least that is what i heard). People were kinda uncomfortable with him being the number two guy during a time when the republican party was so scandal filled (Agnew and Nixon had to resign FOR COMPLETELY DIFFERENT REASONS).

A slightly better choice but still bad would be Lieberman. If Gore had picked Graham of Florida, we would be currently picking a republican challenger to president gore.  I personally think that the 'confederate flag flyers' that Dean talked about probably couldn't swallow a Jewish man as Vice-President and most of them who might have though about voting for Gore did not. And if just 1000 of such souls voting for Gore in Florida would make him president.

The guy who's name begins with an 'E', the original McGovern pick, was prettu bad....even though McGovern would probably have lost anyway... ;)

There are worse men picked to be vice president; men that should never be president. However when the man at the top doesn't have a chance it doesn't matter, to a degree, who he picks as his running mate. No one cares who Nader's running mate was in 2000 or who it will be in 2004 since there is no chance that Nader will become president. But Ford and Gore as stand alone men had over a 50% of election. So it context their choice of a running mate who is much much worse because the running mate hurt them enough to cause them to lose.

Yeah, I realize that, I just felt the need to say something original on this thread... ;)

McGovern's original choice was Tom Eagleton. Yes, he had electroshock therapy for depression when he was younger, but this should not have disqualified him for national office. He wasn't a bad pick at all. He was a moderate, well-respected member of the Senate from Missouri.

New vote for worst VP: Bentsen 1988

Wasn't Bentsen a strong pick?

He was intended to be Dukakis's LBJ, but instead, Dukakis failed to carry a southern state.

He did well in the debates though, although he didn't think he could patch up his campaign.

I don't think I've answered.
Qualye and Stockdale were certainly weak picks, but I will go back to 1864 when Andrew Johnson replaced my great ancestor Hannibal Hamlin. Lincoln did not have to switch VP's, and he certainly shouldn't have bothered picking a Southerner. Johnson was the only president to be outshadowed by congress.

Why did Lincoln put a southern Democrat on his ticket?  Was he nuts?

did dukakis actually expect to pick up texas by adding bentsen?  i find that hard to imagine.

He got rid of Hamlin because he was too black skinned. He should have picked Seward or Fremont.

I think that the following VP candidates since 1952 have been good picks:

Nixon (Eisenhower - 1952, 1956) - Balanced Eisenhower's age and the eastern orientation of Eisenhower supporters

Johnson (Kennedy - 1960) - Gave Kennedy crucial state of Texas

Humphrey (Johnson - 1964) - Classic northern liberal to balance Johnson's southern roots

Mondale (Carter - 1976, 1980) - Good choice for the same reason as Humphrey, though liberalism hurt in 1980

Bush (Reagan - 1980, 1984) - Balanced Reagan's western and more conservative orientation with a (then) traditional Republican.

Bentsen (Dukakis - 1988) - Well respected, but unable to help Dukakis overcome his own lack of political savvy

Gore (Clinton - 1992, 1996) - Brought Washington experience to a ticket with a small-state governor

Kemp (Dole - 1996) - Not enough to overcome Dole's age and lack of issues to run on, but brought a measure of enthusiasm to a tired ticket.

Lieberman (Gore - 2000) - Well-respected Senator, moderate, strong on character issue to counteract sleazy Clinton image.

I think the following VP picks since 1952 have been bad:

Lodge (Nixon - 1960) - Bluebood, poor politician.  Nixon wasn't going to capture Massachusetts anyway.

Agnew (Nixon - 1968, 1972) - Helped in the rim south in 1968, which Nixon needed with Wallace running, but that help came at a high price.

Eagleton/Shriver (McGovern - 1972) - Not sure they belong on this list; nothing could have helped McGovern anyway.

Dole (Ford - 1976) - From Kansas; didn't bring Ford any states that he wouldn't have won anyway.

Ferraro (Mondale - 1984) - Picked only because she was a woman, due to public blackmail by feminist groups.  3-term congresswoman not qualified to be president.  From a NYC borough, which is the kiss of death politically.

Quayle (Bush - 1988, 1992) - I don't think he's a bad guy, but he was not experienced enough to be in the office of VP.

Cheney (Bush - 2000) - I have nothing against Cheney, but he is better for appointive than elective office.  He lacks charisma, and is from a 3-electoral vote state that always goes Republican by lopsided margins, so he brings nothing to the table politically other than a reputation for competence, which is unfortunately not that important to most voters.

Thats a pretty accurate list. The only one I take issue with is Lieberman. In an election so close, picking a VP from a solid Dem state may not have been the best choice-- certainly there were other experienced politicians of strong character.

You may be right.  I do think that Lieberman helped in Florida, and almost put Gore over the top there.  But maybe a moderate candidate from a state that normally goes Republican, or a swing state, would have taken Gore that extra mile.  Still, Lieberman was a better choice than a noxious New York or Massachusetts Democrat would have been.

At the time of the Convention, it looked as if the end of the war might still be far away and as if the Dems would give Lincoln a run for his money. Johnson probably was a great choice as ruinning mate, although he was a failure as a President. I could never help kind of liking the guy...

Regarding Bob Dole, it is important to note that the Ford/Dole ticket lost several counties in Dole's home state of Kansas in 1976 (more than any other Republican Presidentail/VP ticket in Kansas since 1964; see http://www.uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/comparemaps.php?fips=20 ).  Several of those counties were in the western part of the state, where Dole served in the House of Representatives before he was elected Senator, although for a while during Dole's service in the House two districts extended to the Colorado border and it could be most of those counties were not in Dole's district.  1976 was the first election since 1964 where the Democratic ticket was poised to do OK on the Plains, but there there were a lot less red counties on the national county map in neighboring Nebraska (the Dakotas had a lot but they were right next to Mondale's home state).

Ferraro. Representative? Not a good choice.

Weakest VP Choice:

The Republican Party in 1936 nominated Chicago Times Editor Frank Knox for vice president. He was a super Conservative who wanted to destroy the New Deal. He made Governor Alf Landon look radical and made Landon loose in a landslide.

Quayle

curtis LeMay was the scariest.
dole was a bad choice in '76
leiberman at the least lost gore his home state of tn
ugly truth.

Landon would have had his ass handed to him anyway.