We sometimes see this “Worst Vice Presidential Pick” list, which trends about in one of two directions: picks that dragged down or didn’t pick up the ticket, or one who would make for a bad president.  For the former, we end up with John Edwards, for the latter we end up with Sarah Palin … as well as, I suppose John Edwards.  The worst pick in terms of dooming the campaign, even though the candidate had no chance anyway… Eagleton.  McGovern manage a better one, he might have won a few states.  The best pick, obviously, Lyndon Johnson.

Palin ends up a positive pick, as she did perk up the McCain nomination — despite what her detractors say.  It’s a depressing case of No Nothingness.  We will wait to see if Paul Ryan balances go to “positive” — like Palin, crowds have been noted as cheering him and ignoring the top of the ticket; unlike Palin — he didn’t propel Romney forward in the polls.  It may be that he cemented the Romney vote but it took the debate for Romney to get any traction with Independents.

Down through history, historians tend to ignore the vice presidents who proved or disproved the big role for the pick: next president.  Here we scratch our head at Andrew Johnson.  He was helpful in leading Abraham Lincoln to re-election.  And he was one of our worst presidents.  Of the three vice presidents for Franklin Roosevelt — you do have to give the nod to Harry Truman and shake your head a bit at John Garner and Henry Wallace.  Another way of thinking of things is picks that set up future presidents.  In that way, Eisenhower’s pick of Nixon looks dreary.  After that, you do get the feeling Alben Barkley would be as good a place-sitter as Gerald Ford.

Today we have the “Irrelevant Debate”.  It’s Joseph Biden versus Paul Ryan.  The old crusty politico and the current young “idea man” turk.  Supposedly we’re waiting for funny gaffe things from the former, and — I don’t know what you can say about the latter.  Looking back at the history of vice presidential debates, we have… let’s see.

Mondale versus Dole 1976.  Dole charged that WW2 was a Democrat War.
Bush versus Ferraro 1984.  Bush was grating.
Bentsen versus Quayle 1988.  I don’t want to quote that damned Kennedy line.
Quayle versus Gore versus Stockdale 1992.  Nobody remembers Gore and Quayle going at it, but apparently it was rock em sock em.  Everyone remembers Stockdale.
Gore versus Kemp 1996.  I got nothing.
Lieberman versus Cheney 2000.  You do get the feeling Lieberman didn’t care.
Edwards versus Cheney 2004.  Cheney is Evil; Edwards was an Empty Suit.
Biden versus Palin 2008.  The thing about this one was it was the only debate prep in history where the foil was playing up a bad performance in order to force Biden to be able to stifle anything and everything in case an epic bad performance happened.

Too bad we don’t have other veep debates to look at.  Or maybe it isn’t.  The Democratic Dixie ticket splinters of old would really tear into the Democratic Party forward charge into civil rights, and the Republicans probably just always had a hack lying around somewhere…

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