We can pretend that Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential pick matters, but it doesn’t. In fact, it may matter even less than usual. Very few voters like or trust Clinton, so instead the campaign is turning into referendum on Donald Trump.
But as a tactical matter, who Clinton picks will influence a couple of news cycles this week, and then there will be the VP debate. So let’s game this out anyway. Who should she pick? (Stipulating that on Earth-2, the non-scandalized David Petraeus is the natural choice.)
1) Deval Patrick. I realize he’s not on the short list, but he should be. Patrick is one of three pols who I’m convinced, had he run this cycle, would have beat Clinton like a drum. He’s smart, dynamic, and charismatic. Clinton has positioned herself as running for Barack Obama’s third term—why not have the guy who was David Axelrod’s Obama Beta release on the ticket?
2) Cory Booker. Ditto Patrick, with bigger upside and downside potential. Why the upside? Because he’s only 47, he’s incredibly charming, and he has the rare ability to come across as an Ivy-League intellect with a regular-guy disposition. I don’t think you can imagine how well the snow-shoveling will play at the national level. It’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-level stuff.
So where’s the downside? He’s still learning at the national level, and if Booker gacks it in the bright lights and looks lightweight or unserious, it’s trouble.
Here’s the thing, though: Clinton has the luxury of several paths to victory. One of them is African-American turnout. If African-Americans come to the polls in November the way they did in 2012, then the race is probably over. Period. If you’re Clinton, why not put another chip down on that number?
3) Elizabeth Warren. It would be the Al Gore double-down pick. By picking Warren, Clinton would essentially be saying, “You like having a tough, super-liberal woman on the ticket? Have two of ’em.” Of course, Warren is more trusted and more likable than Clinton. She’s also a better campaigner. Best of all, she’s demonstrated a real knack for lighting into Trump.
Trump doesn’t like it when women challenge him—you may have noticed that during the primaries—which raises the possibility that using Warren as an attack dog could goad Trump into making some serious unforced error at some point. But Team Clinton can probably bank on a number of unforced Trump errors anyway.
Warren will also energize the party and bring in the left-wing, fence-sitting Sanders supporters who have been slower in rallying to Clinton. But she also carries a demographic risk: If you’re interested in mobilizing African-American and Hispanic voters, maybe two white women of a certain age and income bracket aren’t going to do the trick. Plus, Trump seems to be alienating married, white suburban women—who typically vote Republican—all on his own. No need to reinforce the Grrrl Power pitch to them with Warren.
But here’s the really big upside of a Warren pick: Unlike every other pol on the list—unlike nominee, even—Warren gives Clinton an argument for why she wants to be president. Picking her would be like importing a vision and rationale for the candidacy.
That type of transplant rarely works, of course. But, all things being equal, it’s better for a campaign to have a rationale than to not have one.
4) Sherrod Brown. Another of Clinton’s pathways to the White House is to simply win Ohio. And with John Kasich on the sideline, adding Sherrod Brown makes this marginally easier. It’s a conventional, old-school kind of VP pick that hasn’t panned out in a generation.
Which means it’s perfectly suited to Clinton!
5) Tim Kaine. Here is a thing you should know: Virginia governors are fool’s gold. Every Virginia governor since Doug Wilder has been looked at for a national ticket. None of them have panned out. Some of them flamed out spectacularly: George Allen, Jim Gilmore, Bob McDonnell.
Tim Kaine may be the best of the lot, and, at best, he’s a generic Dem with no special appeal. He’s a classic do-no-harm pick. The only kind of sense he makes for Clinton is this: Every public poll of Virginia has had Clinton over Trump, but not by huge margins. If Clinton is worried about Virginia, Kaine might make her feel better. But the truth is, if she’s in trouble there, she’s going to be in trouble in lots of places. And Kaine won’t make much of a difference.
6) Julian Castro. If Marco Rubio had won the Republican nomination, Castro would have been the odds-on favorite. But he didn’t. And Trump is a better turnout machine for Hispanic voters than Castro ever would have been.
7) Tom Vilsack. I know. You’re thinking, Wait a minute, he’s still in politics? He is! After serving two terms as governor of Iowa, he’s been Obama’s secretary of Agriculture, which has traditionally been a launching pad . . . to . . . zzzzzzzzzzz. Oh, sorry. Nodded off there for a second. You too? Weird.
Why in the world would Clinton pick Vilsack? Even this piece trying to mount an argument can’t come up with anything other than, He’s close to the Clintons and they like each other.
There is no conceivable rationale for putting Vilsack on the ticket. Obama won Iowa by six points, so if Clinton needs help there, she’s toast anyway. He’s not an ideological choice. Or an identity pick. He brings no special background or experience to the ticket. The very best case you could make is that Obama picked Joe Biden—Joe Biden!—and that turned out pretty well for him.
But Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama. It’s unclear whether or not she’s fully internalized this truth.
So that’s the scorecard. Clinton should pick Cory Booker. But since she’s a terribly inept candidate and political tactician, she’ll probably end up with Kaine or Vilsack. Which, in the end, will be likely to have a net-zero effect on whether or not America decides to throw in with Donald Trump’s HULK SMASH-style authoritarian-nationalism.
You thought Cleveland was bad? Just wait until we get to Philadelphia.
