The Vetting Process

The Herald-Leader’s Austin Horn on the VP candidate vetting process:

This is the most national exposure the 46-year-old Democrat has received. For a politician as ambitious as Beshear, it is an undoubtedly an exciting time. But it could also prove incredibly painful. Joe Lieberman, who was former vice president Al Gore’s running mate in the 2000 presidential election, compared it to “a colonoscopy without a painkiller.” This time, it’s a rushed procedure. Compared to the months that former Republican President Donald Trump took to pick Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate or the time that President Joe Biden had to pick Harris, the Harris team has less than two weeks to make their choice. This process is not even a week old, as Biden stepped aside Sunday and backed Harris, who now has more than enough delegates committed to secure the nomination.

This process can be quite consequential:

The last iteration was marked by extreme caution. The committee members, according to Martin and Burns’ book, were tremendously impressed by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-IL. The senator had survived an RPG hit to her helicopter while serving in Iraq, losing the majority of both legs; her story, her demeanor and her background as a woman of color with serious military service under her belt made her feel like the right fit at one time. But the fact of her being born outside the U.S. — despite her meeting the constitutional requirements to serve as a “natural-born citizen” — made the Biden team balk. She was born in Thailand to an American father, similarly to former GOP presidential nominee John McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father was stationed in the U.S. Navy. “Tammy, you’re great,” Biden told her, per the book. “But there’s this one thing…”

There’s some game theory here; some of the contenders may think that they have skeletons that can be hidden, but of course if they can’t the contender in effect commits political suicide on the national stage. It’s worth observing, of course, that VP selections rarely if ever change the course of an election; even true disasters like Tom Eagleton and Sarah Palin only had a marginal impact on the drubbings that McGovern and McCain received. But better vetting would probably have kept Geraldine Ferraro, Dan Quayle, and Sarah Palin off of their respective tickets. In hindsight the Quayle pick is the most puzzling; Bush did not need to swing for the fences, but he did need someone who was capable of basic speech and who could a) have stepped into the Presidency, and b) been a plausible candidate in 1996. Dan Quayle could very much not do those things. Ferraro and Palin were gambles by desperate campaigns; the former was an effective politician and campaigner but carried way too much weird NYC financial baggage, and the latter was simply a catastrophe.

Also FWIW, while Vance has had a pleasantly (for us) rocky first couple of weeks as Trump’s VP selection, it’s probably too early to write him off entirely.