So Begins the Vice-Presidential Mating Dance
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By TODD S. PURDUM
The New York Times
February 14, 2004
WASHINGTON — Senator John Edwards used to say he didn't want it, but now he's not so sure. Gov. Jennifer Granholm of Michigan couldn't take it, because she is Canadian-born. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico has already begun asking people if he should accept it, suggesting he thinks it could be his.
It is the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket, and Gen. Wesley K. Clark is said by some Democrats to covet it so much that he no sooner folded his own tent than he endorsed his party's front-runner, Senator John Kerry, in Wisconsin on Friday. Afterward, the general told amused Kerry aides, "You were my pick," implying that had he not run, he would have backed Mr. Kerry all along.
It may barely be Valentine's Day, but the vice-presidential mating dance has begun.
Vice President John Nance Garner famously said the job wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit, or something cruder, and Mr. Kerry has not even nailed down his own nomination. But that has not stopped leading Democrats from beginning the process of quiet jockeying, modest flattery, careful calculation and studied indifference that they hope might make them someone's running mate someday.
"If anybody tells you they wouldn't be interested in being vice president," said Senator John B. Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, a potential swing state, "they're not telling you the truth."
Four years ago, Mr. Richardson, then Bill Clinton's energy secretary, made no secret of his availability to become the first Latino nominee of either party. This time around, he has appeared by turns with the leading presidential contenders when they visited New Mexico. After Mr. Kerry won Virginia and Tennessee this week, Mr. Richardson called The New York Times unbidden to say, "The time has come to rally around Senator Kerry."
Mr. Kerry, of all people, should know the drill. He was one of three finalists — including Mr. Edwards and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman — considered by Al Gore in 2000 and confessed he had begun drafting notes for a convention acceptance speech before Mr. Gore chose Mr. Lieberman. "I'd be a liar if I didn't say to you there's a little disappointment," Mr. Kerry, who had campaigned energetically for Mr. Gore, told The Boston Globe at the time.
The radio host Don Imus summed up the political reality in a conversation with Mr. Edwards on Thursday morning, saying, "You know, and I know, and everybody knows, you would be willing to take this in a heartbeat, so at what point would you be willing to say that?"
Mr. Edwards just laughed and replied, "I'm not going to say that on your show."
The Democratic National Convention, which would have to ratify any choice, is still more than five months away, and Mr. Kerry himself told Mr. Imus on Friday, "I am a superstitious person, and I think you go one step at a time," then added, "Until I secure the delegates, I am not getting ahead of myself."
Mr. Kerry has good reason to be cautious. Just a month ago, few in his party thought he would be the nominee, and General Clark, who had once suggested that Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont, had "dangled" the vice-presidential slot in a meeting last summer, snapped at the mere possibility of being someone else's vice president, saying, "I'm not going to be Howard Dean's Dick Cheney."
Two weeks ago, when Mr. Richardson introduced Mr. Edwards at a rally in New Mexico as "the next president," Mr. Edwards responded in a teasing vein. "I intend to beat George Bush," he said, looking at Mr. Richardson, "but you know, there might be something bigger in this man's future, what do you think?" As Mr. Richardson smiled wanly, Mr. Edwards added, "And very well maybe sooner than later."
Now everything looks different.
Mr. Kerry's aides insist he is not thinking about running mates. But the party's handicappers are, and it has not been lost on them that Mr. Kerry recently mocked Mr. Edwards's claims that he could run well in the South, commenting to an aide in remarks not intended to be picked up by microphones, that Mr. Edwards "can't win his own state" of North Carolina in the fall. Mr. Edwards's recent primary defeats in Tennessee and Virginia could be seen as buttressing Mr. Kerry's views.
The last time a vice-presidential nominee was seen as helping carry a vital state was in 1960, when Lyndon B. Johnson may have put John F. Kennedy over the top in Texas. In 1988, Senator Lloyd Bentsen, then the most popular politician in Texas, could not give Michael S. Dukakis similar comfort against the first George Bush.
Still, the debates over regional balance go on.
Could Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, who ended his own campaign after a fourth-place finish in Iowa, help carry his bellwether state? Some top Democratic officials think so.
Could Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana help Mr. Kerry carry neighboring Ohio? Could Senator Bob Graham, the popular former governor of Florida, or his fellow Senator Bill Nelson, help deliver the state that decided the election four years ago? Could newer, female governors, like Janet Napolitano of Arizona or Kathleen Sibelius of Kansas, bring support in Western states?
"Every one of these potentials, assuming that they're reasonably serious people, now have two things under way," said one veteran Democratic aide who has seen the vice presidential search process from the inside. "One is that they have some kind of historical analysis of `What is the office, what are its powers, how has it changed and how does that align with who I am or who I could claim to be.'
"And the second thing going on is if these people are halfway alert is they are doing a side-by-side of their histories, statements, issue positions and votes with John Kerry, just to see how they fit."
The semipublic vice-presidential auditions conducted by Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Walter F. Mondale in 1984 eventually led to a backlash that shrouded the process in greater secrecy since 1992, when Mr. Gore was picked by Bill Clinton.
Mark Gearan, the president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges who helped handle the process then, said: "It can be helpful to some people to be on the mentioned list, and go through the speculation. But a lot of times, in home states, it may not be. You're mentioned, you look like you have Potomac fever and then you don't get picked. This period is very critical, to allow for the careful research and complete look at all the dimensions someone might bring to a ticket."
The Clinton-Gore combo was widely seen as clicking from the start, despite its defiance of conventional wisdom in picking two Southerners. Some party strategists think Mr. Kerry should choose a running mate as soon as possible, to build support for the Democratic cause.
"The Republicans have a huge financial advantage early on and are loaded for Brahmin," said Jenny Backus, who is not aligned with any campaign. "Kerry has done a great job batting down the labels the G.O.P. wants to stick on him, but he will need some help soon in firing back. Putting together a ticket early helps the Democrats raise money faster and earlier and gives us the ability to fight the media war on more than one front. It also puts a body in front of Kerry to take some of the incoming."
But other Democrats say Mr. Kerry should take his time, hone his own message and test how various candidates might do in polls in their states and regions.
One Kerry adviser said all such talk was premature. "We're as close to being what we say we are as any campaign I've ever seen," he said. "We're really focused on what we say we're doing: winning delegates. I don't know of any talk about the vice presidency."
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