The Unity-Ticket Mirage

I think the most important point to be made in response to Jonah's suggestion that McCain pick a Democrat as his veep is that crossing party lines to pick a nominee is only really plausible for a nominee who's working from a position of enormous strength, which McCain decidedly isn't. There are two reasons for this: First, because only a strong nominee can afford to absorb the backlash from his base that picking a member of the opposition party would inevitably invite, and second, because only a strong nominee can persuade a prominent member of the opposition party to stake his career on a risky unity ticket. This is why, as I've argued before, a McCain-Lieberman ticket would only make sense in a world where a successfully-prosecuted Iraq War had left the GOP poised to enjoy an FDR-style majority for a few election cycles; it's also why, as one of Jonah's correspondents notes, the ideal time for a Republican to pick a moderate Democrat as his running mate would have been the Reagan '80s, not the post-Bush Oughts. It's not that there aren't any moderate-to-conservative Democrats anymore: In a (very) different world, you could imagine a unity ticket joining McCain with figures ranging from Evan Bayh to Bob Casey, Jr. to (ahem) Jim Webb. It's that none of them have any reason to hitch their fortunes to a fading GOP brand. And the only guy who does, Joe Lieberman, seems unlikely to bring enough post-partisan cred to the ticket to make up for the revolt he would doubtless inspire on the right.

But yes, I know, there's always the dream of Michael Bloomberg ...

Comments

Jonah, this is reality calling, uh you may have heard that the war is incredibly unpopular right now (see 2006 midterms) so your advice to John "loves the war even more than Bush" McCain is to pick Joe "pariah in his own party" Lieberman? One of the only poeple who might even be more associated with supporting the war than McCain himself?

Dude give us some of what your smokin'

Posted by eric k | May 23, 2008 12:46 PM

eric k,

Exactly - I was just going to say the same thing. As Ross said, Jim Webb would be one thing, but Lieberman's one claim to "conservatism" is his support for a disastrous war that almost everyone in America now recognizes as such. The level of disconnection from reality at which some pundits operate never cease to amaze.

Posted by John | May 23, 2008 12:53 PM

McCain has enough problems with the conservative base of the party. Picking someone, like say Lieberman, who is so far outside the GOP mainstream on so many issues, makes absolutely no sense. It would lead to rioting at the convention.

Posted by Chris S. | May 23, 2008 1:24 PM

I am going to dissent here. I think McCain's stuck with the war no matter what. He's hitched his candidacy to the surge, and he can't escape that by picking an anti-war running mate.

What he can do, however, is try to convince independents and Democrats that they should vote for him. And his best shot is probably with those Democrats and independents who are most sympathetic to hawkish foreign policy but who are suspicious about the GOP due to social issues. Picking a pro-choice running mate is thus a great idea.

Plus, in the youtube era, the Republican Party cannot sustain itself tied to the religious right. Actually, the events of this week are a sign of that. The fact is, the religious right agenda includes far more controversial claims about sex and gender than even the position that all or nearly all abortions should be illegal. And now, liberals have an easily usable format for pointing this out to voters and tying Republicans to those positions.

Posted by Dilan Esper | May 23, 2008 2:45 PM

Bob Casey Jr.? Guy's a moron.

Posted by Asher | May 23, 2008 3:17 PM

What he can do, however, is try to convince independents and Democrats that they should vote for him. And his best shot is probably with those Democrats and independents who are most sympathetic to hawkish foreign policy but who are suspicious about the GOP due to social issues. Picking a pro-choice running mate is thus a great idea.

I was right with you until the bolded word. The upscale economic conservatives with socially liberal views are a pretty tiny slice of the electorate. I guess he could continue to try to win the votes of the mainstream media with a left turn on social issues, but that's about it.

The apostasy that makes obvious sense, to me, is economic apostasy. The groundwork is laid - McCain can dust off those Jim Webb-like speeches from 1999-2002 that stake out the economic center in national greatness terms and say that he needs to be true to himself in this race. Turn on Bush's economics, steal Clinton's lines about work and wealth, and you've got a real campaign. Maybe he could steal Ross' book, too.

I think the perfect running mate for such a campaign would be Mike Huckabee, a ridiculously talented natural politician who polls the best of all possible VP choices, who has also laid the groundwork for full-on economic apostasy.

This won't happen, but I strongly believe it would work.

Posted by DivGuy | May 23, 2008 5:25 PM

McCain could nominate Hillary! He'd lose the GOP base, for sure. But he'd pick up lots of angry Dems and independents. How's that for a nightmare scenario?

Posted by jwg | May 23, 2008 7:37 PM

There isn't a VP choice that will make a rat's turd-hair difference in this race. I don't think there's been a VP pick in my lifetime - post 1961 - who has made any appreciable difference in the general election.

That said, I still hope McCain nominates a 200 pound sack of shit with a cowboy hat perched on top of it. It would be the ultimate tribute to the Bushpig "base" and all it stands for.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | May 24, 2008 12:09 AM

Reagan's choice of Bush in 1980 maybe have been significant: it reunited a badly split GOP and ensured that the mainstream GOP would stay on board rather than bolting (with the few liberal Republicans) to Anderson. That was not a distant possibility since Reagan's rejection of Gerald Ford's co-presidency idea had provoked more than a little concern in the party that Reagan meant to throw the Old Time Republicans overboard completely.

Posted by JonF | May 24, 2008 12:56 AM

Moe, LBJ made a difference. But I think that's the last one. JonF, you may have a point, but I think Reagan could reassured the skittish Rockefeller Republicans in other ways. And, uh, it wasn't close election.

I think that McCain should pick Cynthia McKinney. Now that'd be Mavericky.

Posted by JoshA | May 24, 2008 2:06 AM

It's "Aughts," not "Oughts."

Posted by Bill | May 24, 2008 8:35 AM

JoshA tells me: "Moe, LBJ made a difference. But I think that's the last one."

Yeah, I think I had that covered when I said "post 1961." I didn't pull the date out of a hat.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | May 25, 2008 12:21 AM

There isn't a VP choice that will make a rat's turd-hair difference in this race. I don't think there's been a VP pick in my lifetime - post 1961 - who has made any appreciable difference in the general election.

To the overall result? Possibly true, although JonF makes a good case for Bush. In terms of individual states, I think you can point to several that had an effect. Muskie almost certainly helped Humphrey win his home state of Maine, and probably helped in the election generally (although not enough to make a difference); Agnew, conversely, almost certainly hurt Nixon, although, again, not enough to cost him the election. In 1976, Dole and his "Democrat Wars" comment hurt Ford, although I'm not sure he made a difference in any states. Carter's choice of Mondale probably helped Carter rally the liberal side of the party, where he was regarded suspiciously.

Mondale's choice of Ferraro didn't cost him the election, which he would have lost anyway, but it didn't do him any favors. (Similarly, the Eagleton fiasco for McGovern probably didn't cost him the election, but did make the disaster worse)

Bentsen likely helped Dukakis a bit, though not enough to have much real impact. Gore probably helped Clinton carry Tennessee twice (it was relatively close both years), and Quayle's continued presence on the ticket may have saved Indiana for Bush in 1992 (it was also surprisingly close).

VP picks can, I think, be important in two ways. Firstly, there's a media narrative associated with them which can help or hurt a candidate. In elections since 1960, Miller, Agnew, Eagleton, Dole, Ferraro, and Quayle, at least, were bad choices that probably hurt the ticket in this way. The same is quite likely true of Kemp and Lieberman, and perhaps of Edwards, as well. On the other hand, Humphrey, Muskie, Mondale, Bush, Bentsen, and Gore were good choices who created strong tickets that helped the party.

Secondly, they can help the candidate in their home state. This isn't necessarily a matter of just helping the candidate carry their home state. It can be just as important to nail down a probable state, I think, and allow the campaign to focus resources elsewhere. Minnesota, for instance, became a strongly Democratic state in the 1960s and continued as such for some time. But it's kind of difficult to tell exactly how strongly Democratic it was, given that a Minnesotan was on the ticket in 5 of the 8 elections between 1960 and 1988 (5 of the 6 between 1964 and 1984). But Kennedy barely won it in 1960. In 1976, with a presidential candidate who generally did worse outside the south than Kennedy, but with a popular running mate from Minnesota, Carter won the state by double digits. In 1980, he almost certainly should credit his much narrower victory in Minnesota to Mondale. It's quite likely Carter would have won Minnesota in 1976 anyway. But he'd have probably had to fight for it, which might have distracted attention away from the crucial states of Ohio and Wisconsin (and probably Mondale helped Carter a bit in both of those states, as well).

I don't think Mondale was uniquely qualified to win the election for Carter, but he was certainly a helpful choice in several respects, which is about the best you can hope for.

Posted by John | May 26, 2008 11:33 AM