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The speculation about Condoleezza Rice becoming John McCain's running mate reflects a poor understanding of American Vice Presidency. Our Constitution provides one active role for the Vice President and two conditional roles. The active role is largely ceremonial. As the first Vice President famously noted, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."
The truly non-ceremonial functions of the Vice President of the United States are potential in nature: (1) succeed the President if (s)he becomes incapacitated; and (2) cast the deciding vote in the event that the Senate is tied. The first function has been exercised multiple times; most, unfortunately, in the aftermath of a President's demise. The second function occurs relatively frequently because the total number of Senators is Constitutionally even.
Now to the point of this post. In view of the rigid limitations on a Vice President's participatory functions, it is largely irrelevant to consider the Presidential qualifications of any candidate for Vice-Presidential nomination. The Vice President is primarily the President's backup, not his joint executor. As such, rather than seeking to complement the President, the Vice President would be ideally the President's clone.
The only consideration for choosing a Vice-Presidential nominee should be his or her impact on the electability of the Presidential nominee. So instead of balancing any perceived flaws in the Presidential nominee's portfolio, the Party's cigar smokers need be more pragmatic: choose the candidate who is likely to deliver the maximum net number of votes for the ticket. Period.
The speculation about Condoleezza Rice becoming John McCain's running mate reflects a poor understanding of American Vice Presidency. Our Constitution provides one active role for the Vice President and two conditional roles. The active role is largely ceremonial. As the first Vice President famously noted, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."The truly non-ceremonial functions of the Vice President of the United States are potential in nature: (1) succeed the President if (s)he becomes incapacitated; and (2) cast the deciding vote in the event that the Senate is tied. The first function has been exercised multiple times; most, unfortunately, in the aftermath of a President's demise. The second function occurs relatively frequently because the total number of Senators is Constitutionally even.
Now to the point of this post. In view of the rigid limitations on a Vice President's participatory functions, it is largely irrelevant to consider the Presidential qualifications of any candidate for Vice-Presidential nomination. The Vice President is primarily the President's backup, not his joint executor. As such, rather than seeking to complement the President, the Vice President would be ideally the President's clone.
The only consideration for choosing a Vice-Presidential nominee should be his or her impact on the electability of the Presidential nominee. So instead of balancing any perceived flaws in the Presidential nominee's portfolio, the Party's cigar smokers need be more pragmatic: choose the candidate who is likely to deliver the maximum net number of votes for the ticket. Period.
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