The day after Iowa, I opined that a Kerry/Edwards ticket would be invincible. I have listened to all the pundits and seen all the various combinations for the Democratic ticket dissected.
Let me attempt to speak for the middle of the road, average intellegence, shoot from the hip voter that I am not (vocabulary notwithstanding):
I have watched a bizarre contingent of myopic Democrats and sly Republicans campaign for Hillary Clinton as the VP. Talk about a dumb idea -- never mind the polarizing effect, there is something really distasteful about the possibility of a politician swearing she will not abandon her Senate term, then finding some tepid rationalization to do just that.
Gephardt -- no way. Let me give you the short answer to "Why not Gephardt?" He has no eyebrows. I know, I know -- what kind of a reason is that? It's the reason I have always known Dick Gephardt would never be elected President. It's the reason we haven't had a bald President since Eisenhower. It's the reason Bill Bradley and his jowly neck fat never stood a chance. If Dennis Kucinich looked like John Edwards, he would not have been a national joke, he would have been listened to and probably would have been a contender. As it was, he looked and sounded like a crazed sock puppet and so, along with his "radical" ideas, was marginalized.
Sorry, but the election will be televised. Americans are nothing if not predictable in their disdain for the physically unattractive. Dick Gephardt has no eyebrows. No dice for Mr. Gephardt.
Howard Dean? Nope. Why? The problems that pushed Dean out of contention in the primaries would rise again were he the VP candidate.
Bob Graham is too old. Governor Richardson has sworn too many times he wants to remain Governor. Ann Richards is too old and too female. (I would be VERY surprised if the DNC and Kerry decided THIS is the time to push the envelope with a minority or female VP candidate. Sad, but true -- there will be no Liebermanesque VP this time around. We missed our chance in 2000.) Mark Warner -- I can't opine about him, I know virtually nothing about him. Same for that woman from Louisiana -- though she falls into the female category and thus is automatically disqualified in this hypothetical.
As far as I can tell from polls and pundits, most people have their minds made up from the start -- they will vote either for Kerry or for Bush, regardless of the VP on the ticket. So what we're really talking about is the so-called "swing voter." What the hell kind of person is a swing voter, anyway? Someone who DOESN'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN KERRY AND BUSH??? OKAY, then we're basically dealing with IDIOTS, here, right? The kind of people who decide who they will vote for based on, oh, I dunno, the colour of the candidate's tie -- or the visual appeal of the VP? I know I'm oversimplifying in a pallid attempt to get inside the "mind" of the undecided voter (sorry, I just cannot bring myself to respect someone who doesn't know the difference between the two candidates at this point. In fact, if I had more time and more space and I didn't think you were already really bored reading this, I might go off on a tangent about the myth of the swing voter in 2004 -- but never mind that now).
So -- which VP candidate will bring in the undecideds?
Say it with me, people. John Edwards is the best VP choice.
That said, I will, of course, get behind any choice. But after several weeks of intense participation in this process and after the best possible attempt at opening my mind to other possibilities, I have come to believe what I believed the day after Iowa: John Edwards is the best choice for VP (pragmatically speaking, naturally.)