Barack Obama and the VP Nominee

So who will Barack Obama pick as his choice for vice-president?

Does it matter? After all, the vice-president is really only responsible for one important function; voting to break ties in the Senate. After an initial burst of news, the vast majority of dialogue will quickly revert to the candidates themselves. Barack Obama generates headlines by the minute, and his support comes more from his soaring rhetoric and personality than for policy minutiae, qualities which lend themselves to his certain overshadowing of any candidate he might pick. Many vice-presidents have gone four or even eight years without making any significant policy decisions.

Others, however, have been an instrumental part of their boss’s team (one need look no further than the last eight years to see perhaps the most influential vice president in history). Young and in perfect health, full of energy and lofty (if vague) ideas, it is unlikely, although not impossible, that any vice president in an Obama administration will have significant influence in making policy decisions, as Dick Cheney and, to a lesser extent, Al Gore enjoyed.

Despite all this, it does matter; his choice of running mate will indicate the region or policy area where Mr. Obama feels he needs a little boost, and help frame the issues which the campaign wishes to disucss. So what qualities does Mr. Obama possess that will narrow down his choices, and what might he be looking for in a running mate?

Love him or hate him, Barack Obama is a mold-breaking politician. The most mentioned theme running through his campaign is his race. As a black man running for president in the United States, he has had both challenges and opportunities that no previous white nominee has experienced. By running on a message of unity and emphasizing a focus on healing divisions, he has sought to portray himself as a post-racial candidate, one who can bridge the black-white divide and act as the embodiment of America’s final atonement for its racially charged past, leading the country into a glorious future of unity and understanding. Although this is a strong message, and one his many supporters frequently point out, it has not stopped racially based fear and mistrust. Thanks in part to the Clintons’ tireless attempt to portray him as a “black candidate,” and helped immeasurably by Jeremiah Wright, the primary polls showed an increasing number of white voters who said that race was a factor in their decision, and an increasing number of those who did not vote for Mr. Obama. This was especially true in states in which both black and white voters were living in large numbers and intermingling; hardly meshing with his theme of unity and a post-racial America.

His speaking ability and message of hope has inspired many, but it never caught on in heavily blue-collar areas the way it did with young voters or those who worked in white-collar America. Partly due to the lack of specifics beneath his hopeful rhetoric, and exacerbated by some ill-advised statements he made about blue-collar people “clinging to guns and religion,” he was increasingly portrayed as an elitist who was out-of-touch with everyday American concerns during the primaries. John McCain has continued to emphasize this, running ads proclaiming that Mr. Obama is the “biggest celebrity in the world,” and his recent vacation in Hawaii has not helped matters.

A companion to the idea that Mr. Obama is an out-of-touch celebrity elitist is the inescapable fact that beneath his soaring rhetoric lays a politician with remarkably few accomplishments or convictions. He has been a national politician for less than a single term. He has virtually no foreign policy experience (outside of undergraduate school), and his time in the Senate has passed with relatively few laws that he can claim to have had any part in helping to craft. He has no executive experience, and has never been in charge of anything noteworthy. If not for an amazing speech in 2004, it is highly unlikely he would have even ran for president, never mind inspiring the millions that now extol his virtues.

When thinking of who to pick for his running mate, what must Barack Obama consider? Generally, candidates are looking for certain qualities in a vice-presidential nominee. They can balance the ticket, providing reassuring experience and accomplishments in an area where the candidate is weak. Mr. Obama can thus attempt to offset his most glaring policy weakness, his lack of foreign policy experience in the middle of a war. People such as Delaware Senator Joe Biden or New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson would appear to be good choices if that is his main focus. Or perhaps he is most worried about his inability to connect with white working class voters. Joe Biden still works here, but an all minority ticket with Bill Richardson might be too much of a test of America’s tolerance, as might one with a woman such as Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius. He may want someone with executive experience, such as Virginia Governor Tim Kaine. The last reason to pick a candidate is to win a certain state. The names mentioned most often for this reason are Mr. Kaine and Indiana Senator Evan Bayh, another white man, who would appear to give the Democrats a good chance to win Indiana. Governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania would also work based on this reasoning, but he appears an unlikely choice based on his propensity to speak a little too freely, and his tendency to criticize everyone.

There appears to be a final three who would be up to the job and meet the most important criteria; namely being a white man without major baggage. Messrs. Biden, Kaine, and Bayh would each bring something different to the ticket. Joe Biden, a former presidential candidate in his own right, has a long and impressive foreign policy resume, and would take care of Obama’s biggest policy weakness. He has spent the last few days in Georgia, prominently backing that country (at least with words) in its conflict with Russia. On the surface, he seems to be the strongest candidate, one who can appeal to a vast majority of voters, and who is well-respected for his knowledge and experience on both sides of the aisle. Look closer though, and his weaknesses appear. He was laughed out of his first presidential campaign after stealing large swathes of speeches from a British politician; last year he offended many by proclaiming that Mr. Obama was the first clean-cut black man to run for president. Mr. Obama could go with one of the other two, who are both calming presences and more prone to boring speeches than off-the-cuff gaffes. It could depend on which state (Virginia or Indiana) could be put over the top by his choice. The risk to choosing Mr. Kaine, who is pro-life, is that women who supported Hillary Clinton may view it as the one slap in the face too many, and the love-in Mr. Obama has planned for the convention in Denver, which is supposed to unify the party behind him and bring the remaining Clintonites into the fold, could turn into an ugly spectacle. Mr. Kaine also has no foreign policy experience, and would not seem to help Mr. Obama too much outside of Virginia. The risk to choosing Mr. Bayh is that his early support for Iraq and his generally centrist policies could anger Obama activists who are already unhappy about their man’s move to the center, although most of them would grudgingly admit that they would vote for Mr. Obama no matter how far he moves out of the hard left. Mr. Bayh would also help to heal the rifts left over from the primaries, as he was a strong supporter of the Clintons and is seen as more of an insider politician, something which carries its own risks.

All in all, it should come down Mr. Bayh or Mr. Biden, and the recent events in Georgia would seem to give the edge to Mr. Biden, although a last second gaffe or some new scandal can always tip the balance (as can an unknown affair or other piece of dirt). No one involved in choosing Mr. Obama’s running mate is likely to forget George McGovern, and the disaster that was Thomas Eagleton and electroshock therapy.