If we are going to do our traditional “guess the vice-president” game, we’d better hurry, since, reportedly, Mitt Romney will announce his choice before the Republican convention.
It seems to me that the conventional wisdom that the vice president doesn’t matter is wrong on several levels. The person who holds that office has assumed the presidency quite often, not just when the president dies in office but as the heir apparent as the next party nominee. In light of that, the casual way presidential nominees have tended to pick their running-mates seems to me to be unconscionable. And if the office itself is “not worth a warm bucket of spit,” as one statesman described it, that is due, in part, to few of the office holders taking advantage of its potential. The president of the Senate–that is, the person who presides over the deliberations and who can break a tie vote–could be a powerful position, especially when the body is closely divided as will probably be the case after this election. I think, at the very least, that the conventions should nominate and elect the vice presidential candidates.
Back to our game: In addition to guessing who Romney’s running-mate will be, I’d like to hear who you would like it to be. That is, who would make you feel better about voting for the Romney ticket?
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