A proposal: make the second-place presidential candidate the running mate.
So, I actually think there would be some merit to the Democrats adopting a VP (nominee) selection process similar to the original constitutional process:
In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall choose from them by Ballot the Vice-President. US Const Art II, Sec 1, Cl 3 [later changed by Amendment XII]
Yes, I realize that in this case that would mean Hillary Clinton (Probably. It could be decided differently at the convention -- which is NOT Clintonesque because there is no preexisting procedure that I am subverting; I just made this up). But as I think about Obama's possible choices, I keep coming back to the fact that the number one qualification for this position is supposed to be that the person could be President. That's a pretty non-trivial qualification. And should we really trust the nominee, in all cases, to be the person to make that choice?
I realize that we still get to vote on the matter in the fall, but under normal circumstances, i.e., both candidates having picked their own running mate and relatively little likelihood of death, resignation, or removal, people are just going to vote for the top of the ticket and give relatively little thought to imagining the running mate as president. (We are, after all, Predictably Irrational.) But shouldn't we elect someone who some larger group of people has decided is presidential?
I may not be too thrilled with Clinton today, but she sure did get a lot of people to vote for her. There's no doubt she's qualified to be president. Somebody like Brian Schweitzer or Ted Strickland may sound pretty good for other, more political, reasons, but are they really going to get the same scrutiny (as regards their fitness to be President) that any of the actual primary candidates did? I don't think so.
Things being as they are, I don't think Obama should unilaterally hamstring himself and actually pick Clinton, but I would advocate for this rule change for the future. (Update: italicized portion added.)
n.b.: Even better would probably be an amendment providing for a special election in the event of a President leaving office. So the VP spot would be just for the interim period. But amending the Constitution is too hard. We're due to change the party nomination rules anyway.
cross posted at yazilikaya
[UPDATE: Flames it is, then. Boy, y'all really don't like this idea. Many have pointed out the problem of having two alphas infighting (which led to the demise of the constitutional clause in the first place). That's true and I don't have a good solution for it. I still think we're not picking VPs based on their fitness to be president though, and I think that's a problem.]
[UPDATE 2: You're all gone now, but still I feel the need to respond:
- Clarification: If you read what I wrote, I'm not actually advocating for Hillary under the current rules. Sorry for the misleading title.
- In response to the very valid arguments that a president-in-waiting is no longer a good idea or the model for our veeps, I would resurrect my final note: special elections. Then the VP is a partner and an interim president in the event of disaster. It would line the Constitution up with our current conception of the position.
- Thanks for the all the input!]