History says Obama needs experienced VP

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Who has presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois chosen as his running mate?

Is it Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware or Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius?

Or is it some surprise dark horse?

The conventional wisdom states that a vice-presidential pick really isn’t that important.

There’s a lot of evidence to support that view: A pick who proves embarrassing (like Sen. Dan Quayle, Indiana Republican, did for Vice President George H.W. Bush in 1988) or feckless (like Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, New York Democrat, for former Vice President Walter Mondale in 1984) can weigh down a presidential candidate but not necessarily kill the campaign.

In fact, Mr. Bush coasted to victory in 1988 against Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, even though Mr. Dukakis had one of the most impressive and effective vice-presidential candidates in recent memory - Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, Texas Democrat.

What’s more, Mr. Mondale in 1984 was a dead duck against President Reagan, anyway. It wouldn’t have mattered if he had chosen Bruce Springsteen as his running mate: He was going down, no matter what.

But there have been a number of occasions in American political history when choosing the right running mate did decisively tip the scales:

cFranklin Roosevelt would never have won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1932 had he not cut a deal with House Speaker John Nance Garner of Texas. Garner’s support proved crucial in putting FDR over the top at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

Running at the height of the Great Depression, FDR probably would have beaten President Herbert Hoover handsomely anyway. But he had no standing or credibility in his own right among the vast agrarian, homeland wing of the Democratic Party in the South, Midwest and California.

“Cactus Jack” Garner - backed by former Treasury Secretary William Gibbs McAdoo and the then-unmatched media power of William Randolph Hearst’s INS wire service and a national chain of newspapers - was able to rally that support for FDR in an irresistible tidal wave. Garner went on to serve two terms as one of the most powerful vice presidents in U.S. history.

cIn 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts had no trouble in winning the Democratic presidential nomination in his own right. He didn’t need the support of Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson of Texas for that.

But he desperately needed Johnson’s clout to carry Texas for him in one of the most nail-biting finishes in U.S. history. If JFK hadn’t put LBJ on the ticket, he likely would have lost. And from civil rights to the Apollo man-on-the-moon program, Johnson proved to be a powerful vice president who pushed his favored causes with Congress and got things done.

cVice President Dick Cheney has been widely reviled by the left for his purported exercise of exceptional power during President Bush’s two terms in office. Mr. Bush might not even have squeaked into the White House at all if it hadn’t been for Mr. Cheney.

The election ended up hinging on a tiny margin of a few hundred votes that decided the Electoral College clout of the state of Florida, with the fourth-largest population in the Union, would go to Mr. Bush. Several other states were decided in favor of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney by almost as narrow a margin.

Mr. Cheney could boast an exceptional amount of experience, especially as President George H.W. Bush’s secretary of defense from 1989 to 1993. His resume reassured a lot of centrist voters that George W. Bush would be an acceptable choice even though he had no national experience at the time.

Most of all, a running mate can help or hinder a presidential contender, especially one relatively new on the national scene, by suggesting to the public whether the fresh face has sound judgment.

Thus, President George H.W. Bush could shrug off the embarrassment of Mr. Quayle’s gaffes in the 1988 campaign because his own record on the national scene was already long and impressive.

The elder Mr. Bush already had served with distinction as ambassador to the United Nations, director of the Central Intelligence Agency and vice president. Similarly, when controversy erupted over the purported financial improprieties of Sen. Richard M. Nixon of California in the 1952 campaign, it was water off a duck’s back for the Republican nominee, former five-star General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had been supreme allied commander in the European theater of operations during World War II, U.S. Army chief of staff and the founding head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

On the other side of the fence, the disastrous Geraldine Ferraro pick proved the coup de grace to Mr. Mondale’s already doomed candidacy in 1984. South Dakota Sen. George McGovern’s embarrassing pick of Missouri Sen. Thomas Eagleton as his Democratic running mate in 1972 also didn’t change history, but it too proved to be the final nail in the coffin for Mr. McGovern’s political hopes against President Nixon.

Mr. Obama, like his hero JFK in 1960, doesn’t need to pick a powerful figure in the party to assure his nomination. But like FDR in 1932 or Texas Gov. George W. Bush in 2000, he needs an impressive choice that will reassure centrist voters worried about his lack of experience.

Who has he chosen? We shall soon see.