Once you have picked your Veep candidate to fire up a listless base

The next phase is to then compare him to the Veep of the other guy and, in sundry ways, say of Other Team Veep, “Get a load of him! What a maroon! Yay our Team!”

This was, for instance, the function of the famous “I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. You are no Jack Kennedy” smackdown between whatshisface and Dan Quayle back in ’88 (the only line people remember out of the whole Veep debate, though,as is obvious, whatshisface failed to make the impression necessary to win).

Happily, Joe Biden makes this process extremely easy for Team Romney:

Obama campaign: 'We have no problem with those comments'... ROMNEY camp: 'New low'... VIDEO: Biden Imitates Sign Language Lady... Giuliani Wonders Whether Biden Has 'Mental Capacity' for Presidency... VP says 'We can win North Carolina' -- while campaigning in Virginia...