Recent VP History

I saw a Facebook poll on John McCain the other day:

If he wins the Republican nomination, whom should John McCain pick as his running mate?

Someone Else - 60%
Mike Huckabee - 28%
Joe Lieberman - 7%
Tim Pawlenty - 2%
Charlie Crist - 2%

21,110 responses

An unscientific look at the suggestions posted by some of the "someone else" responders posted unrealistic names like Jesus, Hitler, Satan, and the like. The less irritating people of the Facebook universe posted names like Rudy Giuliani, and, most commonly, Mitt Romney.

The vast majority of people seem to think that the VP nominee has to come from people who sought the nomination in their own right. But it's just not true. I'd like to go down the list of VP selections going back to 1976.

1976 (Dems) - Walter Mondale: Essentially the entire Democratic party ran for president in 1976. Mondale was one of the earlier candidates to drop out, but I think he counts.
1976 (GOP) - Bob Dole: Did not challenge the sitting president.
1980 (GOP) - George H.W. Bush: He was a primary rival for Reagan.
1984 (Dems) - Geraldine Ferraro: As a third-term Congresswoman, she did not campaign for president at all, though at the time, many people saw her as a potential future candidate. Two losses in Senate elections pretty much ended her hopes.
1988 (GOP) - Dan Quayle: Undistinguished career as a senator. He was chosen to invigorate a somewhat-stale candidacy; his youth and good looks were seen as assets. He later became ridiculed for lacking intelligence. He had not sought the presidency in 1988.
1988 (Dems) - Lloyd Bentsen: Had run for president way back in 1976, but he was not considered a candidate for the presidency in 1988. Chosen as a Southern balance for the ticket.
1992 (Dems) - Al Gore: Gore ran for president in 1988, but he was not in the running in 1992.
1996 (GOP) - Jack Kemp: Kemp ran back in 1988, but he was not a candidate in 1996. He was chosen for his libertarian credentials; Dole was somewhat criticized on taxes.
2000 (GOP) - Dick Cheney: As I mentioned before, Cheney was part of the Bush campaign and headed a committee to sift through potential VP nominees for Bush. Bush later asked Cheney to be the nominee. He had not run for president.
2000 (Dems) - Joe Lieberman: Picked partially for being a "trailblazer," Lieberman was a solid moderate Democrat from the Northeast. He had not sought the presidency.
2004 (Dems) - John Edwards: He was an opponent of Kerry's for the nomination.

So, breaking it down since 1976, we have the following:

Primary rivals - 3
Others - 8

Now, we can't rely exclusively on the past to predict the future, of course, but in the recent past of "running mate" selection, more often than not, non-competing figures end up getting the spot. If you want to massage the data a bit, only once since 1980 has the VP also been a primary rival (Edwards). With that in mind, coupled with the nature of the campaigns and the respective weaknesses of the Republican presidential candidates this year, I think that Romney and Huckabee are both less likely than someone that didn't seek the nomination. Pawlenty and Crist are more realistic.

For that matter, the same goes for the Democrats. I think that an Obama-Hillary ticket is extremely unlikely, considering his whole focus on how Clinton cannot bring change. A Hillary-Obama ticket is not out of the question, though it depends on how much spite the Clinton campaign would have after such a hard-fought campaign.

With that said, I think it remains MORE likely for one of the early fringe candidates to get the spot on the Dems' ticket than Hillary getting a slot on the ticket. I think Obama-Biden is quite a strong possibility.