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Apture for Politics
Use Apture to express complex issues, reference key moments of testimony in videos, historical source materials, government documents, and even bills and resolutions.
With Apture you can:
- Link to the specific moment of a video
- View a full Bill, Senate Resolution, or other government document on the same page
- Reference a specific moment of a political speech
- Add podcast commentary in MP3 format
The VP Dilemma
The presidential election, of course, is not a national election in the classic sense because the president is elected not by a national popular vote but rather by an electoral college made up of electors from each state. If the president were elected by national vote, Al Gore would be the present lame duck in the White House instead of George W. Bush. Thus, it is a local election - more specifically a state-by-state election. The key, of course, is to win states, and the "conventional wisdom" is to name a running mate who can win a particular state or states, usually the state of his or her residence.
A close look at recent elections shows this approach is largely unfounded. In 2004, John Edwards could not win his home state of North Carolina into the Democratic Party's column for John Kerry. Four years earlier, Connecticut did go for the Democratic ticket with that state's Senator Joseph Lieberman as the vice presidential nominee. But Gore was likely to win the Nutmeg State anyway, and Lieberman was selected largely to win Florida with its large Jewish retiree vote... and we all know how that worked out.
Working backwards in time, Jack Kemp certainly did not win his home state of New York for Bob Dole in 1996. Kemp, therefore, did no better than New Yorker Geraldine Ferarro who could not carry the state for Walter Mondale in 1984. It is true that Dan Quayle carried his state of Indiana in the losing Republican effort in 1992, but no one can remember the last time Indiana ever went Democratic. Thus, Quayle's value in the election is suspect. Finally, Texas did not go with the Democrat's 1988 offering of Michael Dukakis despite having Texan Lloyd Bensten as his running mate.
The scorecard is dismal. Of the last six presidential elections, the vice presidential candidate for the losing party could not carry his or her own state four times in 1984, 1988, 1996 and 2004. The "success" of Quayle in 1992 has to be written off because Indiana would most certainly vote Republican even if a Hoosier was not put up by the party as the vice presidential nominee. Finally, in 2000 Lieberman could not deliver the state he was placed on the ticket to carry. Indeed, Lieberman's failure in Florida was a critical blow to the Democratic ticket.
The lesson, then, for candidates McCain and Obama is that it is not likely that their vice presidential candidates will help carry a particular state, and they should look to other qualities in choosing their running mates.