Picking the Veep
Politics offers constant lessons in decision making. The current lesson that catches my eye is the growing public speculation on who McCain and Obama will choose respectively as their running mates. This is where a quick primer in decision making may be handy.
Start with: What is the problem you’re trying to solve?
This usually gets lost in the rush to debate choices. In the case of Veeps, it could be . . .
- How do I shore up support with the far edge of my party (left or right)?
- How do I assure the center, people who are uncomfortable with hard core partisanship, that I’m really one of them?
- How do I win a critical battleground state?
- How do I assure specific interest groups I’m really one of them?
- How do I assure the populace at large that voting for me is safe, given my age or experience (either extreme)?
- How do I reward a competitor for fair play and good judgment?
- How do I punish a competitor for unfair play and bad judgment?
When you look at it that way, you can see that those are very different problem statements, that would lead to very different choices. And it’s also true that a Vice Presidential pick isn’t the best or only way to address those questions. I raise the point for two reasons:
- As I said before, a definition of the problem often gets lost in the choices, particularly when there appear to be only one choice per problem statement.
- Pundits delight in assigning the full wait of every strategic problem to a single choice, like picking a Veep, when there is obviously more to it than that. Same with what you do.
According to the Wash Post, here are the logical McCain choices . . .
5 Mitt Romney: Rewards a competitor and fund raiser.
4 Charlie Crist: Crist put him over the top in Florida and sealed the deal. Rewards a contributor and helps with a battle ground state.
3 Rob Portman: Smart guy, native son from Ohio, the BIG swing state.
2 John Thune: Fools moderates into thinking he is one; conservatives know the truth. Younger than McCain, but then, who isn’t?
1 Tim Pawlenty: Moderates and Conservatives like him; another swing state play (Minnesota).
And on the other side . . .
5 Sam Nunn: Provides huge assurance on the defense, gray hair, experienced dimension.
4 Tim Kaine: Covers the God vote; Virginia native son, another battleground state
3 Hillary Clinton: Rewards or punishes, depending.
2 Ted Strickland: Olive branch to the Clintons
1 Kathleen Sebelius: A woman who has won in ultra-Red Kansas.
The fact that you don’t see multiple choices for each of the questions I’ve posed is probably more a function of public relations than it is of consideration. I’m sure someone has looked at a far longer list than these with each perceived weakness in mind.
I’m the last guy to listen to on this sort of thing, but I really wonder about the native son angle. Maybe people really do say to themselves, “Well thank the Lord there’s someone from Ohio on the ticket,” but I kind of doubt it. Conversely, I think that there are people who would respond very favorably to some adult supervision on the Obama ticket and someone with some youthful vigor on the McCain ticket (beyond that, McCain is stuck; he can’t pick someone who pleases the moderates and the conservatives, both of whom are suspicious of him).
A big wild card is the answer to another question, “What is the role of the Vice President in my administration?” Good, bad or indifferent, I don’t think that anybody in the body politic thought that Dick Cheney was running for co-president in 1999, but that is indeed what he became. Knowing that, and knowing how hard core Cheney played his role, I suspect that some people would have voted differently. In the same way, I might think differently about a Sam Nunn candidacy, just to pick an example, if I thought he was going to be a strong, semi-Cheney, or someone who cuts ribbons and kisses babbies.
Tags: VicePresident, McCain, Obama, Sebelius, Stricland, Clinton, Kaine, Nunn, Pawlenty, Thune, Portman, Crist, Romney, Decision Making
