Exposure: North And South

Aug 31, 2008 · 4 minute read

Aside from Dick Cheney’s drastic break with the past, the Office of The Vice-President traditionally doesn’t amount to much more than somebody sitting around waiting for the end of their term or for the President to suddenly drop dead. Sure, they get dragged out every now and then to give a speech, to go on the attack when the President either will not or cannot, but in general, they have very little power except for their tie-breaking vote in the Senate. The classic example is LBJ, who went from being the House Leader of the Senate in 1960 to VP in 1961. Initially thought that he would be about to continue his hold over the Democratic Party from his new office, but the Senate essentially laughed in his face, sending him back to sit on his hands until an assassin brought him the Presidency.

(incidentally: LBJ - the greatest liberal President of the 20th century? Perhaps…)

In addition, the slot means extremely little on the election ticket itself either. George Bush got elected with Dan Quayle by his side, after all. In recent memory, the only time that the choice has been a big impact was in 1972. George McGovern had just won the primary campaign for the Democratic nomination. This culminated in a vicious floor-fight at the convention itself (for those of you thinking that this current primary was cut-throat, the 1972 campaign would shock you. Clinton vs. Obama is tiddlywinks in comparison) where the McGovernites carried the day with a brilliant series of carefully-chosen floor votes that guaranteed that their delegates would be enough to give them victory (see Fear & Loathing On The Campaign Trail 1972 for a full explanation). Unfortunately, whilst they had the prize, some of the party was so disgusted with the idea of the anti-war McGovern being their pick that they openly talked about supporting Nixon instead. McGovern badly needed to pick a Vice-President that would unite the party together.

So he called Ed Muskie and Hubert Humphrey, the two heavyweight candidates that he had just beaten. They turned him down. He begged Ted Kennedy to join the ticket, but no Kennedy was going to accept anything less than top billing. The decision had to be made quickly. Running out of time, McGovern offered the slot to Thomas Eagleton, a senator from Missouri. A safe choice; a disappointment perhaps to the New Left, but his links with unions would help shore up the Democrats’ faltering support amongst blue-collar workers.

He didn’t last a month. By the end of July (he was selected on July 14th), the papers were full of reports of hospitalisations for physical and nervous exhaustion during the 1960s that he had neglected to tell the McGovern team about. To make matters worse, he had also received electo-shock treatment during these periods, leading many to think that he was too unstable to be second-in-command. McGovern initially stood firm in his support for Eagleton, but by the second week in August, after continual press mockery, he dropped him from the ticket, fatally injuring his support amongst his base, and went down to Nixon in one of the worst electoral defeats in American history.

This may mean nothing, of course. But Sarah Palin appears to have been selected in a similar manner of haste; a desperate attempt to steal the news cycle away from the greatest speech American politics has seen in a generation. And that worked, but at what cost? The experience angle of attack against Obama has been taken off the table, McCain’s age is now brought into sharp focus, and the idea that she may peel off disgruntled Hillary voters is deeply condescending considering that they only thing her and Palin seem to have in common is that they both have ovaries. In addition, whilst she’s not as mired in corruption as most of the Alaskan GOP, she appears to have a few troubles of her own (there’s also rumours of Eagleton-level scandal floating around the Internet, but I refuse to believe that the McCain team would be that stupid to not have debunked those even in the limited vetting time they had available). This after a Democratic Convention that fell in lockstep with Obama, delivered a consistent message, and even made John Kerry look like an interesting and funny person.

I could be wrong, of course. This could be the game-changing event that turns things in favour of McCain; Palin may be able to make Biden come across as a bully in the VP debate. But even the media, the biggest McCain-apologists around, seem mystified and even a little annoyed at this choice. If he loses them, the Republicans may be in for a rout come November…