Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (left) and running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, celebrate after accepting the Republican presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in 2016.
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Over the past year, the process by which the two major parties select their presidential candidates has unfolded with little to no suspense. Yet the outcome of every presidential election, not to mention the drama and omens of this one, captures the attention of voters and the media.
But it's only in recent weeks that many of us have turned our attention to the process for selecting the party's running mate, for a simple reason: There is no such process — at least, none that the public can observe.
There are dozens of primaries and caucuses, and hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on desperate campaigns to win the “top candidates” while, in contrast, spending relatively little or nothing on the other half of the candidates.
That's because the bottom half is simply chosen by the top half: presidential candidates choose their “running mate,” but there is rarely any meaningful resistance to it at the party conventions where the nominees are formally announced (and thus secure the right to vote in each state).
Sometimes the winner and runner-up of a primary can become running mates — as happened in 2004 when Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry chose fellow Sen. John Edwards as his running mate — but when a candidate has a choice, it's more likely to be chosen from among rivals who finished farther down in the primary.
That's what happened when Barack Obama picked Joe Biden in 2008. Two senators won, from Illinois and Delaware. But in choosing Biden, Obama ignored New York Senator Hillary Clinton, who fought a long and hard battle for the nomination and nearly tied Obama in the primary vote count.
Eight years later, Clinton herself did much the same thing, defeating Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the choice of about 40 percent of the convention's delegates, in favor of Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, who had not participated in the primary.
When former President Donald Trump first ran for president in 2016, he completely ignored his primary rivals and instead approached Mike Pence, who was then the governor of Indiana.
We've let the dog at the top bark for so long that we barely notice it anymore. This year will be the same, but more people may notice, because the only decider on the Republican side is Trump, and as we all acknowledge, he's someone who brings a certain show business flair to politics.
The Showman Appears
Trump knows that his running mate choice is the only truly tense aspect of the race at this stage — and he certainly knows how to capitalize on it.
It's possible, though unlikely, that Trump could sprint to Milwaukee next month and bring the four finalists (or more) up on stage for a prime-time convention presentation, where they'd probably each have a chance to speak. And, one can imagine, there'd be added tension and dramatic lighting, and Trump might even end up putting his hand (figuratively or not) on the shoulder of his chosen candidate.
This may seem excessive, even insane, hijacking a historic event with theatrical reality-show staging. Until Bill Clinton's midweek appearance in New York in 1992, it was considered bad etiquette for a candidate to even show up to the convention hall on the final night to give his acceptance speech. Candidates didn't show up to conventions at all until Franklin Roosevelt flew to Chicago to accept his first nomination in 1932.
But this won't be your average or old-fashioned convention. This will be the Trump show. Think back to the first day of the Trump convention in Cleveland in 2016, and think of the lighting and music that was used to bring Trump onto the stage on opening night. apprenticeHosting a show like “Game Show” in Milwaukee doesn't seem so unrealistic.
Criteria and Influence of Vice Presidential Candidates
In our system, the Vice President is primarily For effectDespite all the rhetoric about someone being the “most qualified person” “right there”;
The very existence of the vice presidency often seems like an addendum added on by the Founding Fathers, a flaw in the system that has mostly been addressed by relying on luck.
Why are Americans so uninterested in who holds the second highest position in the federal government?
The answer has to do with power, because the vice president of the United States is the number two in office who succeeds whoever dies and has almost no real power under other circumstances. That's why John Adams, the first president to hold a vice presidency, called it “the most inconsequential office that man has ever invented, or the imagination has ever conjured.”
Subsequent occupants of that relatively unsung job usually matter only if they later become president or if they bring about some measurable or visible change in outcomes in the year they were appointed.
The latter example is quite rare: John F. Kennedy would not have won the Electoral College in 1960 without Texas, and he would have had a hard time winning the state without Texas native Lyndon Johnson as his running mate, who actually won the national popular vote by only about 100,000 votes.
In 1972, Democratic candidate George McGovern, a senator from South Dakota and leading critic of the Vietnam War, could hardly have unseated incumbent President Richard Nixon that fall, but his slim chances were seriously damaged when his running mate, Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, dropped out of the race following revelations that he had used electroshock therapy to treat depression.
Some vice presidential candidates had mixed results. Sarah Palin, then governor of Alaska, was the first woman to run for the Republican Party on a national election. She lit up the 2008 convention, drew big crowds that fall, and often outperformed presidential candidate Arizona Sen. John McCain. But ultimately, Palin's lack of experience and problems with media interviews likely cost her the support of swing voters.
There was also a lot of excitement in 1984 when New York Democratic Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman to win a major party's national nomination. But again, the excitement seemed to die down as summer stretched into fall, and a popular incumbent, in this case Republican Ronald Reagan, proved too hard to beat. That year, Democrats lost 49 states, just as they had in 1972.
Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and Democratic vice presidential nominee, Sen. Kamala Harris, wear protective masks while holding hands next to Sen. Jill Biden, left, outside the Chase Center during the 2020 Democratic National Convention in Wilmington, Delaware.
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Who could it be? And when?
Trump has narrowed the field down to six or 12 or eight candidates, depending on which news you believe. He says he has a “pretty good idea” who the winner will be. But he also said he'll wait until the convention to make an announcement, telling television host Phil McGraw, “I think that's pretty normal.”
Well, yes and no. The No. 2 candidate is usually known at least a few news cycles before the convention. It's almost a tradition for non-incumbent presidential candidates to use “one big question” to generate interest at an otherwise stressful party gathering. But it's considered necessary to prep the media and delegates at least a little before the event.
That was the case with current Vice President Kamala Harris in 2020 and Trump's number two, Pence, in 2016, both of whom were announced days before their national campaign debuts. Trump, like Pence, was seen as courting elements within the party who had supported Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (who had not yet endorsed Trump at the convention).
Biden announced his nomination of Harris just as the party began its virtual conventions during the COVID-19 summer in August 2020. Biden's nomination came amid the party's peace, even though months earlier Biden had pledged to nominate a woman as his nominee and signaled strong support for women of color.
While there has always been speculation about swapping running mates in reelection campaigns, there has been no serious effort to unseat Pence and Harris this reelection cycle (though Pence has said he will not vote for Trump this fall after feuding with Trump over the certification of the 2020 election results and halting his own efforts to seek the 2024 nomination).
The last time a sitting vice president was replaced in a national election after his term ended was in 1944. (Franklin Roosevelt, who was up for election to a fourth term that fall, had a liberal vice president at the time, Henry Wallace. Concerned about Roosevelt's poor health, conservative southern senators plotted to remove him from office and replace him with Senator Harry Truman of Missouri.)
In the 80 years and 20 presidential election cycles since then, a significant number of vice presidents have become their party's new top candidate, either while still in office, such as in 1960 (Richard Nixon), 1968 (Hubert Humphrey), 1988 (George H. W. Bush), or 2000 (Al Gore), or while in office, the vice president has taken over the presidency midway through and run for office as the incumbent's candidate, such as in 1964 (Johnson) and 1976 (Gerald Ford).
Some vice presidents have left office to become private citizens and then successfully campaigned for their party's presidential nomination, as Joe Biden did in 2020. Walter Mondale did the same in 1984, and Nixon did in 1968.
Overall, 15 of the 45 presidents have served as vice presidents. Nine assumed the top position directly upon the death or resignation of their predecessor, and of those nine, four served only one term.
Among those who occupied the Oval Office in the 20th century were some of the most memorable White House leaders of the era, including Truman, Johnson and Theodore Roosevelt.
So however minor or momentous the choice of vice president may seem, it is surely one of the most consequential decisions ever made in the history of American politics.
Which is why it is all the more surprising that such a decision should be left to the deliberation and mental gymnastics of a single politician.
