Republican Party Picks for Vice President -- Why are They so Bad?

Why does the republican party often give us such disastrous picks for Vice President? Ike gave us Nixon, twice. As President, Nixon twice chose Spiro Agnew. George H. W. Bush, who was a reasonable choice for VP picked by Reagan to reassure us, returned the favor by twice choosing Dan Quayle. In 1996, Bob Dole, who had been picked as a VP candidate earlier by Jerry Ford, picked Jack Kemp, the former football quarterback and proponent of fringe economic policy views. George W. Bush has twice given us Dick Cheney. Now John McCain has picked Sarah Palin. There is nothing that Democrats have done that compares to Nixon, Agnew, Quayle, Kemp, Cheney and Palin.

These are the Democrat VP candidates, since 1952

1952 - Alabama Senator John Sparkman
1956 - Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver
1960 - Texas Senator Lyndon B. Johnson
1964 - Minnesota Senator Hubert Humphrey
1968 - Maine Senator Edmund Muskie
1972 - Former Ambassador Sargent Shriver
1976 - Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale
1980 - Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale
1984 - New York Congresswoman Geraldine A. Ferraro
1988 - Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen
1992 - Tennessee Senator Al Gore
1996 - Tennessee Senator Al Gore
2000 - Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman
2004 - North Carolina Senator John Edwards
2008 - Delaware Senator Joe Biden

These are the Republican VP candidates, since 1952

1952 - California Senator Richard Nixon
1956 - California Senator Richard Nixon
1960 - Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.
1964 - New York Congressman William E. Miller
1968 - Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew
1972 - Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew
1976 - Kansas Senator Bob Dole
1980 - Former CIA Director George H. W. Bush
1984 - Former CIA Director George H. W. Bush
1988 - Indiana Senator Dan Quayle
1992 - Indiana Senator Dan Quayle
1996 - Former Housing Secretary Jack Kemp
2000 - Former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney
2004 - Former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney
2008 - Alaska Governor Sarah Palin

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Comments

[tuttlemsm]

12:54 PM on 09/29/2008

Not to be too pedantic, but in your list I think you ought to list sitting Vice Presidents as such, e.g., :

1980 -- Vice President Walter Mondale
1996 -- Vice President Al Gore

1992 -- Vice President Dan Quayle
2004 -- Vice President Dick Cheney

The point this reinforces is that when Democrats have good, reasonable vice-presidents, they re-nominate them. Likewise, Republicans always re-nominate their terrible vice-presidents, no matter how appalling they are.

[pgo]

10:35 AM on 09/29/2008

Be awake, Democrats! When Republicans have winning Presidential and Vice Presidential tickets they have a perceived-as-qualified candidate and a 'peoples choice' candidate. We Democrats always make the mistake of thinking that the peoples choice candidate is SO unqualified that the Republicans will surely lose. THIS IS A BIG MISTAKE. HIstory shows that it is the exact opposite. The more outrageous the peoples choice is, the more LIKELY it is that they will win. The SOLE purpose of the peoples choice end of the ticket is to reassure voters that the Republicans are not smarter than the voters and, will not "look down at them".

2008: Qualified: McCain.......Peoples Choice: Palin (Creationist, hockey mom soap opera family)

2004: Qualified: Cheney.......Peoples Choice: Bush (Fractured syntax, pretend good old boy, thumbs nose at world)

2000: Qualified: Cheney.......Peoples Choice: Bush (Never traveled abroad, like to have a beer, bankrupted everything he touched)

1988: Qualified: Bush (sr).....Peoples Choice: Quale (Vapid and empty, Deer in the Headlights, looked pretty)

1980 Qualified: Bush (sr).....Peoples Choice: Reagan (movie actor in Bedtime for Bonzo could read one-liners..Well, there you go again.)

1968: Qualified: Nixon....Peoples Choice: Agnew (took bribes and went to jail, Scorned anti-war movement)

[Quinctia]

01:47 AM on 09/29/2008

I don't know if I'd necessarily consider Nixon a bad VP pick. Even though his presidency was tainted, he did get elected decisively to two terms. You can blame Eisenhower for picking him as a mate, but it was the country's fault for electing him to executive power. (And considering the climate at the time and that he did get us out of Vietnam, I don't really blame them.)

[knighthowl]

03:03 AM on 09/29/2008

I will have some difficulty maintaining my control. You say Nixon did get us out of Vietnam. I was there. I was there while Nixon was President. Do you know that he claimed to have a plan to get us out when he ran in 1968? Do you know some 30,000 Americans had died between then and 1972 when we were still there? Do you know that when he finally achieved "peace with honor" it was the same agreement he could have had in 1968? Nixon will have a special place in Hell at least one ring lower than GWBush.

[fpie]

12:33 PM on 09/28/2008

Assasination insurance. Without Cheney Bush would be dodging bullets all day but with Cheney anyone who hates Bush hates Cheney more.

[CFAmick]

12:03 PM on 09/28/2008

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Cheney is capable of doing stuff, so as far as the Republicans are concerned, he was a good choice for VP, as was Bush Sr.

[Quaoar]

11:35 AM on 09/28/2008

Nixon and some of the others actually look like good picks when compared to Palin.

[fbwap]

10:43 AM on 09/28/2008

If you intend to do things as president that might get you impeached, thrown out, or force you to resign, then one defensive strategy would be to pick a vice president so obnoxious that congress would not impeach you. I am sure that there have been conversations like this in congress. "Let's impeach Bush........but that would leave Cheny in charge..........nevermind."

[Dynamohum]

12:16 PM on 09/28/2008

Not if they impeach both Bush and Cheney. Then Pelosi is next in line. Temporarily there would be nothing wrong with that, so why oh why didn't they do impeachment over a year ago? Seriously.

[LeftRight]

03:58 PM on 09/28/2008

Because Pelosi wanted to stay the Speaker of the House. If they had impeached both bush and cheney, then she would have been FORCED to resign her office as Speaker of the House. In fact, she would have had to resign from the House of Representatives ENTIRELY. How much more difficult would it be to come back in to that job after having gotten out of it to become the first female veep?