> (imagine, back then we considered 64 years old to be an old candidate!)
Only because he was up against a 46 year old generational political talent :)
And it feels a bit icky to defend Senator Lieberman with everything that went down late in his career, but (!) he has an honorable record on Civil Rights, going all the way back to the "Freedom Riders" from the early 60s and like any DLC democrat rescued the party from sinking further after the 84 and 88 debacles with sensible course corrections.
It's not that Lieberman never did anything good. But there are lots of people who did the right thing in the 1960's who later became malign forces in American life-- for instance, Charlton Heston was at those same marches.
And while the DLC project wasn't dishonorable, Lieberman himself was. I used the example of his murderous foreign policy views, but in addition to those, he was also a key advocate of corporatism within the Democratic Party, where the party would sell out working people to carter to people who made big donations. Indeed, that was a key reason he voted against the public option- he had prostituted himself to insurance companies and could not allow them to face a public competitor.
He was a profoundly evil person. Indeed, he was the very worst kind of evil person, because he was also a sanctimonious holier than thou expositor of morality. The idea that we should listen for moral guidance to a guy who cheered on a mass homicide in Iraq is too much for me to take. He was a disgusting stain on the Democratic Party.
Small nitpick, but I'm not sure I'd rule out Gore as a Swing State VP. Tennessee is deep red now, but it voted for Johnson in 64, Carter in 76. Carter and Mkndale lost in 80 and 84, but did better there than they did nationally. It then went for Clinton in 92 and 96, before finally becoming a "red" state in 2000.
Gore is the closest case and you have something of an argument, but FWIW, it's pretty clear from the history that Clinton conceived of Gore as a governing choice rather than a swing state choice, and indeed most of the professional Veep Pundits criticized the choice because he failed to "balance the ticket". In any event, Clinton won easily and did not need Tennessee.
I don't think the TPS concept does any real work in a landslide election. How could it? If you adjust the election results so the trailing candidate did better, the increases would not be evenly distributed among states.
Tipper Gore's campaign against rock and roll did serious damage to Al Gore with young voters. Then the Lieberman choice was some sort of Platonic archetype for un-exciting, please-shoot-me vice presidential picks.
I think it's even worse than that. Tim Kaine is the Platonic archetype of unexciting. (Mike Pence, I would argue, is the Republican version of it, although to be fair he did a consequential good deed for the country in January 2021.)
Lieberman is a lot worse than unexciting. He's basically a set of human traits I find evil and despicable, all wrapped up in one person. It's bad enough to be a murderous religious zealot and a total corporate whore, but to do it while being full of sanctimony and lecturing the rest of us about your superiority is almost too much to bear. Just a complete cancer on American politics, and how Gore didn't recognize him for what he was I will never understand.
From the stand point of "the VP is not going to win you a state, and has minimal impact on the overall ticket" yes, I agree. But the VP choice is the first major decision a candidate makes, and it does impact how voters see you: from that standpoint it matters. Picks like Biden (2008), Gore (1992), Bush (1980) and Johnson (1960) helped the candidate win the election. VP picks also help candidates in intraparty fights. Kamala Harris is the nominee right now entirely because Biden needed to calm the waters within his own party, and he needed his base to win that election. Biden HIMSELF became President because Obama wanted to show the electorate who he was: and it worked.
I also don't agree with your criticism of Lincoln. Lincoln could not have known how the election in 1864 would play out, and when he made the choice his own party was split (the Radical Republicans had their own convention that year), and War Democrats wanted an accommodation to support him. Andrew Johnson was basically the only choice available to him. If War Democrats had broken harder with Lincoln (and he loses), history could have been radically different. In order for a President to even have MADE a governing mistake: they have to win. Choosing Johnson was not done to just 'reward' him but to ensure they won the White House.
I also think your choice of Lieberman is absurd. He was also a political choice, and that was because Al Gore wanted to separate himself from Bill Clinton, who's own awful morals was something to run away from. Joe Lieberman, for all his problems, was chosen partially because he was vocally critical of Clinton for his affairs, a reasonable position at the time.
If you want to criticize a VP selection that mattered: the better case is actually Kamala Harris herself. She was chosen almost entirely for her identity, and while she may win this election most consider her among the weakest possible candidates for the party in 2024. This decision was made entirely for political reasons and to 'galvanize the base' instead of for rational reasons. It may cost Democrats dearly.
I also disagree with both of your alternate histories. If Al Gore had won in 2000, there is a decent chance that he wins re-election in 2004, but it would not have mattered what Democrat had been the nominee in 2008: a Republican would have won after the crash in 2007. Tim Kaine's selection would also have been comparatively meaningless, and generally fine. Kaine is not a thrilling VP, but he's certainly serviceable. I do think in an alternate 2024 (where Hillary wins in 2016): Kaine may have been the front runner for the nomination, but he'd likely be facing a rational Republican who defeated Hillary in 2016 because of Covid, so I would not be that concerned.
Oh, and while you may dislike Lieberman: he's hardly an awful politician. He won several difficult elections in Connecticut and then proceeded to win re-election as an independent. That's pretty impressive overall.
" Picks like Biden (2008), Gore (1992), Bush (1980) and Johnson (1960) helped the candidate win the election. "
I don't buy this because for this to be true, HW Bush's pick of Quayle should have caused him to lose the election. In fact, he continued to open his lead bigger and bigger with Quayle on the ticket.
"I also don't agree with your criticism of Lincoln. Lincoln could not have known how the election in 1864 would play out, and when he made the choice his own party was split (the Radical Republicans had their own convention that year), and War Democrats wanted an accommodation to support him."
You literally give them any accommodation BUT that. That's entirely my point about Vice Presidents- the substantive stakes of the selection are so huge that you can NEVER give them away as part of any political deal. The notion that there is literally no possible way Lincoln could have ever been reelected without Johnson is clearly false, so you just don't do it. You can't put someone who is going to undue post-war reconstruction a heartbeat away from the presidency. Lincoln did and he deserves massive blame and criticism for what resulted.
"I also think your choice of Lieberman is absurd. He was also a political choice, and that was because Al Gore wanted to separate himself from Bill Clinton, who's own awful morals was something to run away from. Joe Lieberman, for all his problems, was chosen partially because he was vocally critical of Clinton for his affairs, a reasonable position at the time."
At this point, you are just arguing that somehow Vice Presidential selections win you elections. Which is, as I demonstrated six ways to Sunday, absurd.
Also, even if we assumed Gore had to pick a "moral" Vice President-- he didn't! He picked literally the most craven and immoral and evil person in all of Democratic politics!
"She was chosen almost entirely for her identity"
This is racist. She had a great record as a prosecutor in California plus had grilled Trump nominees on the Judiciary Committee. There were excellent non-identity reasons to choose her.
"Oh, and while you may dislike Lieberman: he's hardly an awful politician. He won several difficult elections in Connecticut and then proceeded to win re-election as an independent. That's pretty impressive overall."
Richard Nixon was excellent at winning elections too. The point wasn't that Lieberman could win elections-- the point was that he was a profoundly evil man, maybe at the time the lowest character in American politics since Nixon.
No, a VP selection is not going to be the single overriding factor in an election. This isn't a binary "it will, or will not" cost you an election argument. The VP pick is part of a greater whole, and matters along with other factors.
"Also, even if we assumed Gore had to pick a "moral" Vice President-- he didn't! He picked literally the most craven and immoral and evil person in all of Democratic politics!"
...
"Richard Nixon was excellent at winning elections too. The point wasn't that Lieberman could win elections-- the point was that he was a profoundly evil man, maybe at the time the lowest character in American politics since Nixon."
This is hyperbolic.
"This is racist. She had a great record as a prosecutor in California plus had grilled Trump nominees on the Judiciary Committee. There were excellent non-identity reasons to choose her."
No it's not. Biden started the entire process by saying he would choose a woman, and during his selection they explicitly stated they should pick an African-American woman to the point that candidates like Amy Klobuchar said Biden should pick a woman of color. Kamala Harris (who was and is qualified to be both President and Vice-President) was the most qualified person who fit that description. We also have reporting that Biden was not leaning towards choosing Kamala Harris, but the NY Times in particular reported that diversity on the ticket was important to Biden:
So pretending that Kamala Harris' identity was NOT a major factor as to why Biden picked her is ridiculous. Which is not to say she wasn't (and isn't) qualified: but that identity considerations were clearly at the forefront of the VP selection in 2020. I would add: the same is true of Joe Biden in 2008; this is nothing new.
Nobody would argue (and certainly I did not) that the VP selection is the single most important part of winning an election. It is one of many factors that should be considered and is important for both electability reasons, governing reasons, and intra-party political reasons. Could Lincoln have won in 1864 had he kept Hannibal Hamlin? Perhaps, but given how precarious his political position was when he made the decision: it's entirely understandable why he made it. The same is true of Al Gore in 2000, AND Joe Biden in 2020, AND Barack Obama in 2008.
So to bring this to Kamala Harris' decision in 2024: I think she should pick the VP which provides her the best chance of winning the election. Is this likely to be the reason why she won or lost? Of course not, elections are multifaceted things with numerous issues at play. The VP selection is not the most important part of this, but it's not meaningless either. If choosing Josh Shapiro over Tom Waltz gives her a slightly better chance to win: she should pick Shapiro. Personally, I'm skeptical we know that much about any of these candidates we 'know' are going to be the next Obama (or Bill Clinton).
So it's easy to say "well, the Vice Presidency is part of a greater whole in American politics and has some electoral significance". The great thing about a statement like that is it sounds great without having any actual evidence behind it.
Meanwhile, we've seen that in fact the third worst Vice Presidential selection in my lifetime (amazingly, Sarah Palin and Joe Lieberman were both even worse), a man who was completely politically toxic in every way, an embarrassment to the Republican ticket in 1988-- got elected Vice President. While all those "brilliant" folks like Kerry and Hillary Clinton with their ticket balancing, swing state Veep candidates lost their elections.
I mean, you can say whatever you want. But at some point you're just pulling stuff out of your behind here.
As for Lieberman, you called me hyperbolic but you offered no evidence that the man had any shred of goodness in him. He was scum. The worst kind of scum-- sanctimonious scum.
On Harris you missed the reason why your statement was racist. You said "She was chosen almost entirely for her identity". That statement is false, and racist. She was chosen very much because she was an incredibly skilled and talented politician who had done a great job as a prosecutor and then climbed the political ladder as a rising star who performed very admirably taking the fight to Trump nominees in the Senate.
Now, was she also a Black woman? Sure she was. But you didn't say "she was a highly qualified, extremely impressive and intelligent politician who also benefitted from her race and gender". You said she was chosen almost entirely for her identity, as if her high intelligence and great accomplishments had nothing to do with it. And that's... racist.
The rest of your response is pure assertion, unsupported by any data or argument whatsoever.
> (imagine, back then we considered 64 years old to be an old candidate!)
Only because he was up against a 46 year old generational political talent :)
And it feels a bit icky to defend Senator Lieberman with everything that went down late in his career, but (!) he has an honorable record on Civil Rights, going all the way back to the "Freedom Riders" from the early 60s and like any DLC democrat rescued the party from sinking further after the 84 and 88 debacles with sensible course corrections.
It's not that Lieberman never did anything good. But there are lots of people who did the right thing in the 1960's who later became malign forces in American life-- for instance, Charlton Heston was at those same marches.
And while the DLC project wasn't dishonorable, Lieberman himself was. I used the example of his murderous foreign policy views, but in addition to those, he was also a key advocate of corporatism within the Democratic Party, where the party would sell out working people to carter to people who made big donations. Indeed, that was a key reason he voted against the public option- he had prostituted himself to insurance companies and could not allow them to face a public competitor.
He was a profoundly evil person. Indeed, he was the very worst kind of evil person, because he was also a sanctimonious holier than thou expositor of morality. The idea that we should listen for moral guidance to a guy who cheered on a mass homicide in Iraq is too much for me to take. He was a disgusting stain on the Democratic Party.
I will update my priors :)
Small nitpick, but I'm not sure I'd rule out Gore as a Swing State VP. Tennessee is deep red now, but it voted for Johnson in 64, Carter in 76. Carter and Mkndale lost in 80 and 84, but did better there than they did nationally. It then went for Clinton in 92 and 96, before finally becoming a "red" state in 2000.
Gore is the closest case and you have something of an argument, but FWIW, it's pretty clear from the history that Clinton conceived of Gore as a governing choice rather than a swing state choice, and indeed most of the professional Veep Pundits criticized the choice because he failed to "balance the ticket". In any event, Clinton won easily and did not need Tennessee.
I basically agree, but interestingly TN was actually the tipping-pount state in 1992
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping-point_state?wprov=sfla1
I don't think the TPS concept does any real work in a landslide election. How could it? If you adjust the election results so the trailing candidate did better, the increases would not be evenly distributed among states.
Tipper Gore's campaign against rock and roll did serious damage to Al Gore with young voters. Then the Lieberman choice was some sort of Platonic archetype for un-exciting, please-shoot-me vice presidential picks.
I think it's even worse than that. Tim Kaine is the Platonic archetype of unexciting. (Mike Pence, I would argue, is the Republican version of it, although to be fair he did a consequential good deed for the country in January 2021.)
Lieberman is a lot worse than unexciting. He's basically a set of human traits I find evil and despicable, all wrapped up in one person. It's bad enough to be a murderous religious zealot and a total corporate whore, but to do it while being full of sanctimony and lecturing the rest of us about your superiority is almost too much to bear. Just a complete cancer on American politics, and how Gore didn't recognize him for what he was I will never understand.
From the stand point of "the VP is not going to win you a state, and has minimal impact on the overall ticket" yes, I agree. But the VP choice is the first major decision a candidate makes, and it does impact how voters see you: from that standpoint it matters. Picks like Biden (2008), Gore (1992), Bush (1980) and Johnson (1960) helped the candidate win the election. VP picks also help candidates in intraparty fights. Kamala Harris is the nominee right now entirely because Biden needed to calm the waters within his own party, and he needed his base to win that election. Biden HIMSELF became President because Obama wanted to show the electorate who he was: and it worked.
I also don't agree with your criticism of Lincoln. Lincoln could not have known how the election in 1864 would play out, and when he made the choice his own party was split (the Radical Republicans had their own convention that year), and War Democrats wanted an accommodation to support him. Andrew Johnson was basically the only choice available to him. If War Democrats had broken harder with Lincoln (and he loses), history could have been radically different. In order for a President to even have MADE a governing mistake: they have to win. Choosing Johnson was not done to just 'reward' him but to ensure they won the White House.
I also think your choice of Lieberman is absurd. He was also a political choice, and that was because Al Gore wanted to separate himself from Bill Clinton, who's own awful morals was something to run away from. Joe Lieberman, for all his problems, was chosen partially because he was vocally critical of Clinton for his affairs, a reasonable position at the time.
If you want to criticize a VP selection that mattered: the better case is actually Kamala Harris herself. She was chosen almost entirely for her identity, and while she may win this election most consider her among the weakest possible candidates for the party in 2024. This decision was made entirely for political reasons and to 'galvanize the base' instead of for rational reasons. It may cost Democrats dearly.
I also disagree with both of your alternate histories. If Al Gore had won in 2000, there is a decent chance that he wins re-election in 2004, but it would not have mattered what Democrat had been the nominee in 2008: a Republican would have won after the crash in 2007. Tim Kaine's selection would also have been comparatively meaningless, and generally fine. Kaine is not a thrilling VP, but he's certainly serviceable. I do think in an alternate 2024 (where Hillary wins in 2016): Kaine may have been the front runner for the nomination, but he'd likely be facing a rational Republican who defeated Hillary in 2016 because of Covid, so I would not be that concerned.
Oh, and while you may dislike Lieberman: he's hardly an awful politician. He won several difficult elections in Connecticut and then proceeded to win re-election as an independent. That's pretty impressive overall.
" Picks like Biden (2008), Gore (1992), Bush (1980) and Johnson (1960) helped the candidate win the election. "
I don't buy this because for this to be true, HW Bush's pick of Quayle should have caused him to lose the election. In fact, he continued to open his lead bigger and bigger with Quayle on the ticket.
"I also don't agree with your criticism of Lincoln. Lincoln could not have known how the election in 1864 would play out, and when he made the choice his own party was split (the Radical Republicans had their own convention that year), and War Democrats wanted an accommodation to support him."
You literally give them any accommodation BUT that. That's entirely my point about Vice Presidents- the substantive stakes of the selection are so huge that you can NEVER give them away as part of any political deal. The notion that there is literally no possible way Lincoln could have ever been reelected without Johnson is clearly false, so you just don't do it. You can't put someone who is going to undue post-war reconstruction a heartbeat away from the presidency. Lincoln did and he deserves massive blame and criticism for what resulted.
"I also think your choice of Lieberman is absurd. He was also a political choice, and that was because Al Gore wanted to separate himself from Bill Clinton, who's own awful morals was something to run away from. Joe Lieberman, for all his problems, was chosen partially because he was vocally critical of Clinton for his affairs, a reasonable position at the time."
At this point, you are just arguing that somehow Vice Presidential selections win you elections. Which is, as I demonstrated six ways to Sunday, absurd.
Also, even if we assumed Gore had to pick a "moral" Vice President-- he didn't! He picked literally the most craven and immoral and evil person in all of Democratic politics!
"She was chosen almost entirely for her identity"
This is racist. She had a great record as a prosecutor in California plus had grilled Trump nominees on the Judiciary Committee. There were excellent non-identity reasons to choose her.
"Oh, and while you may dislike Lieberman: he's hardly an awful politician. He won several difficult elections in Connecticut and then proceeded to win re-election as an independent. That's pretty impressive overall."
Richard Nixon was excellent at winning elections too. The point wasn't that Lieberman could win elections-- the point was that he was a profoundly evil man, maybe at the time the lowest character in American politics since Nixon.
No, a VP selection is not going to be the single overriding factor in an election. This isn't a binary "it will, or will not" cost you an election argument. The VP pick is part of a greater whole, and matters along with other factors.
"Also, even if we assumed Gore had to pick a "moral" Vice President-- he didn't! He picked literally the most craven and immoral and evil person in all of Democratic politics!"
...
"Richard Nixon was excellent at winning elections too. The point wasn't that Lieberman could win elections-- the point was that he was a profoundly evil man, maybe at the time the lowest character in American politics since Nixon."
This is hyperbolic.
"This is racist. She had a great record as a prosecutor in California plus had grilled Trump nominees on the Judiciary Committee. There were excellent non-identity reasons to choose her."
No it's not. Biden started the entire process by saying he would choose a woman, and during his selection they explicitly stated they should pick an African-American woman to the point that candidates like Amy Klobuchar said Biden should pick a woman of color. Kamala Harris (who was and is qualified to be both President and Vice-President) was the most qualified person who fit that description. We also have reporting that Biden was not leaning towards choosing Kamala Harris, but the NY Times in particular reported that diversity on the ticket was important to Biden:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/13/us/politics/biden-harris.html
So pretending that Kamala Harris' identity was NOT a major factor as to why Biden picked her is ridiculous. Which is not to say she wasn't (and isn't) qualified: but that identity considerations were clearly at the forefront of the VP selection in 2020. I would add: the same is true of Joe Biden in 2008; this is nothing new.
Nobody would argue (and certainly I did not) that the VP selection is the single most important part of winning an election. It is one of many factors that should be considered and is important for both electability reasons, governing reasons, and intra-party political reasons. Could Lincoln have won in 1864 had he kept Hannibal Hamlin? Perhaps, but given how precarious his political position was when he made the decision: it's entirely understandable why he made it. The same is true of Al Gore in 2000, AND Joe Biden in 2020, AND Barack Obama in 2008.
So to bring this to Kamala Harris' decision in 2024: I think she should pick the VP which provides her the best chance of winning the election. Is this likely to be the reason why she won or lost? Of course not, elections are multifaceted things with numerous issues at play. The VP selection is not the most important part of this, but it's not meaningless either. If choosing Josh Shapiro over Tom Waltz gives her a slightly better chance to win: she should pick Shapiro. Personally, I'm skeptical we know that much about any of these candidates we 'know' are going to be the next Obama (or Bill Clinton).
So it's easy to say "well, the Vice Presidency is part of a greater whole in American politics and has some electoral significance". The great thing about a statement like that is it sounds great without having any actual evidence behind it.
Meanwhile, we've seen that in fact the third worst Vice Presidential selection in my lifetime (amazingly, Sarah Palin and Joe Lieberman were both even worse), a man who was completely politically toxic in every way, an embarrassment to the Republican ticket in 1988-- got elected Vice President. While all those "brilliant" folks like Kerry and Hillary Clinton with their ticket balancing, swing state Veep candidates lost their elections.
I mean, you can say whatever you want. But at some point you're just pulling stuff out of your behind here.
As for Lieberman, you called me hyperbolic but you offered no evidence that the man had any shred of goodness in him. He was scum. The worst kind of scum-- sanctimonious scum.
On Harris you missed the reason why your statement was racist. You said "She was chosen almost entirely for her identity". That statement is false, and racist. She was chosen very much because she was an incredibly skilled and talented politician who had done a great job as a prosecutor and then climbed the political ladder as a rising star who performed very admirably taking the fight to Trump nominees in the Senate.
Now, was she also a Black woman? Sure she was. But you didn't say "she was a highly qualified, extremely impressive and intelligent politician who also benefitted from her race and gender". You said she was chosen almost entirely for her identity, as if her high intelligence and great accomplishments had nothing to do with it. And that's... racist.
The rest of your response is pure assertion, unsupported by any data or argument whatsoever.
"Supporting the Iraq War which resulted in the US successfully overthrowing a murderous dictator"
This statement says a lot. Nobody should take you seriously.