Veep!

Saturday, June 27, 2020

Joe Biden is keeping hanging all of America, and the world, as everybody anticipates who might become his vice-president. For sure, we can bet that the savvy politician who’s held that VP job has settled on his choice. Thanks to among other things the #metoo movement, he’s promised to choose a woman and won’t likely depart from that decision. Meanwhile, another swelling movement, Black Lives Matter, has the watching world betting that Biden’s female choice will be an African American.

It’s all effective, the anticipation, lists of probable candidates, and a mystery that has maintained as newsworthy Biden’s campaign. The furor also keeps us aware of several capable, prominent women.

We’re being taught that the founding fathers, while writing the Constitution in 1877, were wary of anything resembling a monarchy. They worried that a president may become too powerful if a vice president had any Senate role greater than serving as tiebreaker. Until 1940, vice presidents weren’t chosen by presidential candidates, but instead by Electoral College voting. This changed in 1940 when President Roosevelt agreed to run again only if he pre-selected the vice president, wanting as his running mate Henry Wallace.

Now we’re hearing how greatly Mrs. Trump influenced her husband’s decision to select as his VP Mike Pence. She recognized that Pence, the controlled opposite of President Trump, has a tight hold on the very conservative religious base that supports Trump’s Presidency. About Melania Trump, there more to learn and maybe admire. She hesitated to step into the First Lady’s role unless her prenuptial agreement with Trump were renegotiated to provide more advantage to herself.

Another event that forever altered the choosing of vice presidents was McCain’s quick and unfortunate decision to select Sarah Palin. He’d met with her only briefly before deciding she’d energize his campaign, and so she did. But her political inexperience and childlike answers to tough questions turned her into a laughingstock. The negative national response to Palin brought failure to McCain’s campaign. That experience altered the care in which potential vice presidents since have been vetted.

While we wait, anticipate, and perhaps root for our favs while Biden’s campaign takes slowly and carefully every step before announcing his choice. Concurrently, we’re identifying much more about politics, watching close-up the astonishing power-jostlings and largely inadequate leaders. Worst, all this is playing out during a time of great need nationally and internationally for leadership that’s educated, capable, and seriously able to earn public appreciation.

Dear Friends: In this horse race we place our bets, hoping for best-able winners. Diana