Well, I guess it depends on the alternative. I agree that Romney would be better off with a positive, reformist message. One of the reasons that the campaign has revolved so much around the latest Obama smears is that there is a hole where Romney’s positive message should be. So we have the Obama camp accusing Romney of killing the wives of steelworkers and the Romney camp saying that Obama is trying to distract from the lousy economy. Well, pretty much everyone already knows the economy is lousy. There is no distracting anybody from that. The more relevant question is whether Romney and Romney policies are an acceptable alternative. A real Romney message would make the Obama attacks look small, but Romney’s clichés about “free enterprise of markets against the European socialism of Obama” just don’t fill the message gap.
Picking Ryan and refocusing the campaign’s attention on the general policy reforms in the Ryan budget (especially premium support Medicare) would certainly fill the message gap. But I’m not sure that picking Ryan is the only (or the best) way to go about it. I think Virginia governor Bob McDonnell or Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal would be better choices for a more reformist-oriented campaign for the following reasons:
1. They can defend particular reformist ideas without having to defend the specifics of past proposals. There is a lot to be said for the Romney approach to Medicare reform. There is no good reason why McDonnell or Jindal couldn’t defend the proposal 90% as well as Ryan while not having to answer for the deeper Medicare cuts in Ryan’s first budget or the seeming middle-class tax increase in Ryan’s Roadmap. Premium support Medicare is complicated and scary enough without having the public trying to figure out if they are hearing about Romney’s premium support plan or Ryan’s first premium support plan or his second plan or who-knows-what.
2. McDonnell and Jindal are spending cutting, budget balancing, executives who maintained core government services. They are walking advertisements that limited government can be effective government. They can plausibly say that they cut spending and things turned out okay while Obama has produced trillion dollar deficits, spread government money around to cronies. Which result sounds better to you?
3. Kate is right that any VP candidate is going to have weaknesses. But which weaknesses would hurt Romney more? The most obvious line of attack against McDonnell is abortion and the Virginia fetal ultrasound bill. What does it tell us if someone switches from Romney to Obama because they hate Virginia’s noninvasive fetal ultrasound bill in order to vote for the guy who supports partial birth abortion? It either tells us that the Romney campaign badly bungled the explanation for McDonnell’s position and the counterattack, or it tells us that the voter was always going to vote Democrat. We already have a party for radical pro-abortion voters, and it isn’t the one Romney is a member of. What kind of voter switches because they fear that the original Ryan Medicare plan cut Medicare more deeply than President Obama’s, and that Ryan’s earlier plan seemed to combine a tax cut on high earners with a middle-class tax increase? That seems to me to be harder to talk your way out of.
This all depends on the idea that Romney wants to get away from the hollow “positive” message that he has been running on since Iowa. I want that, but I’m not sure Romney wants that. The worst thing Romney can do is pick a candidate who best fits a reformist campaign and try to fit him (or her) into the Romney campaign we have seen so far. That gives you the worst of both worlds. If Romney just want someone to regurgitate the talking points that Romney’s consultants come up with, then they should pick Tim Pawlenty.
August 9th, 2012 | 2:05 pm
At the risk of being repetitive, a recapitulation of Gerald Ford’s criteria:
1. Is the candidate among those able to assume the Presidency on this day?
2. Are the candidate’s views congruent with the Presidential candidates?
3. Is the candidate a good campaigner?
Answers:
1.Answer: no; he has no executive experience and no history of employment outside of electoral and non-electoral politics.
2. Answer: who knows? Mr. Romney regards issues as instrumental.
3. Answer: not sure. Members of the House of Representatives have a history with less madcap campaigns and have been subject to less severe scrutiny. The precedent of Geraldine Ferraro should concern one.
—
Suggest a possible source of candidates: former Republican cabinet secretaries and bureau chiefs who also have some background in electoral politics. They have run for office, been through a background check mangle, have executive experience, have held federal office, and have interacted with our wretched national legislature. Gale Norton, Spencer Abraham, Dirk Kempthorne, etc. What are the pros and cons (and are any the least bit interested)?
August 9th, 2012 | 3:29 pm
A.D., are any the least bit interesting?
I’d have answered your questions as follows:
1. Probably. He’s not unaware, unintelligent and he absolutely does his homework, which is why I like him and trust him for the job.
2. Yes, … depending.
3. He’s been speaking around the country on behalf of his economic plans for years now. He’s not like my local congressman; he’s had considerable national exposure.
August 9th, 2012 | 4:22 pm
Kate, he has never run anything. He is a capable wonk passably valuable where he is. The Vice President is an understudy. He could be put to work in various capacities (as a cabinet secretary or agency chief), but Presidents never do this for some obscure reason.
The difficulty with the penultimate paragraph of the original post is that it presumes the identity of the vice presidential candidate is a motivator for ought but a narrow and geographically circumscribed segment of the electorate. Gerald Ford and Bilge Clinton made their selections under the assumption that ticket-balancing was unimportant. George Bush the Younger made his selection under the assumption that pursuit of any sort of electoral advantage was unimportant. George Bush the Elder and Barack Obama made their selections (it appears) informed by the notion that any old warm body would do.
August 9th, 2012 | 4:31 pm
AD, your points about Ryan’s lack of executive and private sector experience are well taken.
Abraham’s electoral record is fine. He won a Senate race in Michigan and is the only Republican to have won a Michigan Senate race since 1972. He lost in the somewhat Democratic-leaning electoral environment of 2000. My memories are vague, but I have a sense that he had a reputation as being neither an especially enthusiastic nor effective campaigner. There is also a chance he would cause Romney coalitional heartburn on the immigration issue.
Jindal had a lower ranking advisory role in the HHS bureaucracy but he has been thorugh the confirmation process. From what I can tell, his Senate confirmation hearing was pro forma. He also has significant state-level executive experience (elected and appointed) as well as experience with Congress from both the legislative and executive ends.
August 9th, 2012 | 4:37 pm
AD, I think we have a constitutional restriction against holding multiple offices.
Never running anything is not a disqualification for the presidency in the minds of voters. Look at the incumbent. At least Ryan has sympathy for the private sector.
August 9th, 2012 | 5:30 pm
AD, I think we have a constitutional restriction against holding multiple offices.
The provision is as follows:
“No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.”
Unless case law has defined the Vice President as a member of the Senate, there is no impediment to the VP holding a cabinet post.
August 9th, 2012 | 5:43 pm
Again, Kate, only a narrow segment of voters are likely to be motivated by the vice presidential candidate. (William Schneider estimated that one might expect a 2% bump in the selection’s home state). The point is not to please voters, but to avoid offense and distraction (see Thos. Eagleton, Geraldine Ferraro, and J.D. Quayle). That last might rule out Gale Norton, whose departure from the Interior Department incorporated some bad optics (at the least). It might rule out Abraham as well, given any vulnerability from his current trade.
The utility of Kempthorne and Abraham is that they are old men near the close of their working lives. The opportunity cost of transferring them to the vice presidency would be rather less severe than it would be in the case of Gov. Jindal and Rep. Walker, who have some serious work to do just where they are. As we speak, Kempthorne appears to be retired and Abraham is running a lobbying and PR business. Both are at an optimal age to assume the Presidency should that be necessary. (For whatever reason, VPs who have had to assume the Presidency have generally been in the VP chair for no more than about six months).
August 10th, 2012 | 12:06 pm
For whatever reason, VPs who have had to assume the Presidency have generally been in the VP chair for no more than about six months.
There probably is no reason. Five out of the nine VPs who succeeded to the Presidency happened to have served approximately six months or less when they were elevated to the Presidency (two of those five are actually just a tad bit over six months). It’s likely just the sort of thing that happens when you have a small sample size. Since three of those five were elevated by assassination (Andrew Johnson, Chester A. Arthur, and Teddy Roosevelt), I suppose one could argue that Presidents are more likely to be assassinated early in their terms. I guess this isn’t implausible (the attention to the President caused by the political campaign might make him a more likely target for assassins), but I wouldn’t swear by it. Anyway, the mean length of time for all nine is about a year.
This doesn’t really have any effect on your argument, but you mentioned it and I got interested enough to look into it and figured I might as well report the results. Not intending to derail or anything.
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