GOP running mate
Could dogged devotion earn guv a VP spot?
Speculation grows on Utah's young leader completing a McCain ticket

By Thomas Burr and Matt Canham
The Salt Lake Tribune
03/02/2008

WASHINGTON - In Utah political circles, Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. seemed to be hitching his future on a John McCain presidency with an eye toward a big-time ambassadorship or high-level Cabinet post.

Not even the most starry-eyed of the Utah GOP had the audacity to hope for a McCain-Huntsman presidential ticket.

But now that McCain is the presumptive nominee, Huntsman is appearing on several short lists as a possible running mate. The Washington Post, The Associated Press and the Atlantic, among others, have floated Huntsman as a possibility for rounding out the GOP ticket.

Huntsman laughs off the speculation, as do a bevy of political odds-makers. But some others warn against dismissing the Utah governor so quickly.

"The truth is that no one, perhaps not even John McCain himself, knows the answer to the question of who will be the vice presidential candidate," said Stan Barnes, an Arizona political consultant and friend of McCain.

But the speculation - and there are loads of it - points to a youthful governor liked by conservatives who already has an established friendship with McCain. This narrows the list to a handful of leaders, including the governors of Florida, Minnesota and Utah.

"Governor Huntsman is qualified on a number of fronts," Barnes said. "He is someone that John McCain admires and has affection for. That kind of qualification is subjective and one that only John McCain himself can judge."

Huntsman has backed McCain throughout the contest, even as Republicans in his home state mocked him for not supporting Romney, who received 90 percent of Utah's Republican primary votes. On the day The New York Times ran a much-criticized story about McCain's close relationship with a female lobbyist, McCain called Huntsman to talk.

The Utah governor has also stumped for McCain in Florida and other states and the two have forged a friendship in the heat of the battle. The ties have spurred speculation that if McCain wins the White House, Huntsman may be tagging along in some capacity.

McCain isn't likely to name a running mate for months, giving ample time for commentators to bat around possible picks and discuss who would make the best fit and why. Who would rally support among conservatives? Who would help McCain raise money? How important is picking someone from another region?


No harm: Washington political analyst Jennifer Duffy boils it down this way. She said vice presidential candidates above all else must follow the oath taken by medical students nationwide - do no harm.

"And I don't think Huntsman does any harm," said Duffy, who works for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

She argues Huntsman's youth would assuage concerns about McCain's age. He would be 72 when he took the oath of office, while Huntsman would be 48. Duffy also said Huntsman is a solid conservative who can help McCain rally the right wing.

But Huntsman does have a few weaknesses as a vice presidential selection.

As Mitt Romney's presidential race showed, some voters are hesitant to support a Mormon. So Huntsman's faith might be a disadvantage, though Duffy doubts that it would be a major liability.

Dan Coen, the author of a book on vice presidents called Second String and publisher of the Web magazine vicepresidents.com, said McCain needs to pick an experienced person with a national presence. Huntsman is in the final year of his first term and is little known outside Republican circles.

"I think there is virtually no chance," Coen says. "He needs someone folks are comfortable with right off the bat."

Not Huntsman: Dave HanÂsen, a political adviser to top Utah Republicans, puts it even more bluntly: "It is not going to be Jon Huntsman Jr. as vice president. That really doesn't make a lot of sense."

He says the geography simply doesn't work. Utah borders Arizona and a ticket of two Western politicians does nothing to help in other regions. And, as Hansen points out, McCain hardly needs to worry about winning Utah, which hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

"If they have to worry about holding Utah, then they lost all of the other 49 states," Hansen said.

He compliments Huntsman's political skills and lengthy résumé, which includes a stint as Singapore's ambassador and deputy U.S. trade representative. But Hansen believes Huntsman is better suited to be an ambassador to China or India, or maybe McCain would name him Commerce secretary.

Huntsman - while not ruling out that he would take the position if offered - says the speculation is simply a Washington parlor game.

Plenty of options: McCain has other possibilities that carry many of the same advantages that Huntsman would bring, but don't carry similar weaknesses.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, for example, is a conservative whose endorsement helped hand McCain a victory in the Sunshine State. And in a general election, carrying Florida is a boon to any candidate.

Likewise, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is a rising GOP star from a swing state, and the Republican National Convention will be held in St. Paul. And a cadre of other potential vice presidential candidates exists: Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, among others.

With the Democrats fielding a ticket featuring either a black man or a woman, some in the GOP are tossing out the idea of matching McCain, a white man, with a woman, possibly Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Conventional political wisdom points to the idea of matching McCain with a Southern, conservative governor, such as South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford or Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Mark Halperin, a Time magazine political analyst and author of "The Undecided Voters' Guide to the Next President," says lots of names will be floated to fill a vacuum of actual news about potential running mates in the most wide-open presidential race in memory.

"You're going to see a lot of names like Huntsman's float up in the air, but they won't have any connections to who will actually be considered by McCain."

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_8425412

 

 

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Vice presidential pick could matter this time

By Colbert King
The Washington Post
Feb 12, 2008

We still have a ways to go before the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations are officially decided. But it's not too soon to start thinking about the selection of running mates.

'Tis fair to say the vice presidency hasn't gained many fans in its more than 200 years of existence. Dan Coen, in his delightful and informative book Second String: Trivia, Facts and Lists about the Vice Presidency and Its Vice Presidents spelled out the reasons succinctly: "It has been held by men whose greatness was diminished by the restrictions of office, by those who were able to rise to greatness despite the office, and by men who the office has turned into curiosities of history."

Yet this could be a breakthrough - or bust - year for the vice presidency, now that the contests have boiled down to Republican John McCain and Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. One of them will enter the White House next January.

Each president must have, as the Constitution requires, a second in command to ensure a continuation of leadership and to serve as Senate president.

McCain, Clinton and Obama each have shortcomings that the proper running mate might help overcome.
Take John McCain.

Nothing that he said on Thursday to the Conservative Political Action Conference will convince true believers that he's really one of them. At this point, McCain is headed for the general election with a shaky Republican base. What's more, a lot of voters are going to question the wisdom of casting a ballot for a candidate who would become the oldest president in history to take the oath of office. McCain has to make up for those deficiencies if he expects to win in the fall.

Enter a running mate.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, age 51, could fit the bill. He's in tight with the GOP's social conservatives and evangelicals. That might take care of McCain's right flank. South Carolina's Lindsey Graham could also help McCain where he's hurting with Republicans.

But this year, the Democratic Party will field a ticket that will be integrated by race or sex, or maybe both. There may be something a little off with a McCain-Huckabee or McCain-Graham picture, if you know what I mean. A ticket of John McCain and Kay Bailey Hutchison, however, would be quite another matter.

The first and only female Texan to serve in the U.S. Senate, Hutchison brings the kind of conservative credentials on taxes, defense and foreign policy that McCain's Republican critics ought to love. Gun lovers adore her - as much as Washington D.C. residents resent her attempts to kill our sensible gun-control laws. She votes consistently pro-life and has earned a 0 percent rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America, though she has said Roe v. Wade was correctly decided. She's plugged in with the party faithful, good on the stump and as savvy as they come.

This will be one of McCain's toughest calls.

Hillary Clinton has a challenge, too. Who in his or her right mind would want to serve as Clinton's vice president, knowing that her husband, Bill, would be roaming around the White House, dropping in on Cabinet meetings, greeting foreign guests and chatting up the staff?

True, the job itself has no formal responsibilities beyond ensuring succession and acting as Senate president. (Vice President John Adams said the vice presidency is "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.") But Al Gore, Walter Mondale and Dick Cheney, as Coen notes in his book, redefined the office and elevated its stature.

Could that happen in a Clinton White House? Can a mule whistle?

Fear is, Billary would regard the vice president the same way that Harry Truman said history recognized that office: "about as useful as a cow's fifth teat."

So who would sign on, if asked?

To make up for derailing Obama, Billary would probably turn to a black centrist substitute such as Harold Ford, chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council and a former Tennessee congressman. He'd probably take it.

And if Obama's the nominee?

He's got some shoring up to do, especially in national security and foreign policy. Just as Lyndon Johnson's Southern strength and Washington savvy helped overcome some of John F. Kennedy's disadvantages, Obama would do well to select a running mate with a little seasoning - and a little gray hair wouldn't hurt, either.

He's got a large and stellar field to draw from among senior senators, governors and House members. And unlike Clinton, Obama is free to select a vice president who can truly partner with the president on key issues without worrying about second-guessing from an omnipresent spouse who has been there, done that and thinks he knows it all.

 

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Crossing the Potomac Primary
by MarketTrustee
Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 08:49:23 AM PST
( - promoted by peeder)

http://www.politicalfleshfeast.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2000

Jennn Fusion at vicepresidents.com, a "management consulting" operation cited by AP, dares to do what no oracle has done before. Catapult the notion that Obama's rainbow coalition needs to exercise the Latino swing vote before Clinton gets to Texas, March 4. "In Search of Obama's Latino VEEP" taps into "social rights" narrative extolled by the Rev. Sam Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. Latinos are mobilizing to replace a "historically black" political agenda with an immediate struggle for economic security and religious freedom. Fusion's wish list of "personable, high profile Latino" running mates grabs at every seat at Obama's table -- immigration, civil rights, affordable housing, finance, labor, and "traditional" faith in families.

The way Rodriguez tells it though, the "black-brown" divide may be the single biggest obstacle to Obama capturing the demographic for which he presumes to speak. 18,000 churches nationwide. As he ruefully reminded Bill Moyers, despite Obama's Four State Sweep, the Clintons' machine represents the "golden era of the Hispanic middle-class."

"I also understand," said Rodriguez, "that there are those in the establishment, in the white establishment, that would love to really focus on the divide between black and brown. I was present when a white politician, in a round table discussion, looked at black evangelical leaders and said, "They are taking away your jobs." They, the Latinos. These immigrants are taking away your jobs. They're taking away your subsidies. They're actually harming your family. They're taking away dollars that should go to educating your kids. Now I heard that. I was there, present, when that rhetoric was presented. So there is an attempt out there to create a wedge. If the African-Americans and the Latino population would ever come together and work in our cities, in our urban areas, we would really bring about a transformational messiology, we would transform our cities. We would transform our nation. Those two-- that partnership is unbelievably powerful, if it would ever emerge. And I'm committed to the emergence of that partnership."

It's somewhat difficult to imagine a more propitious occasion than the so-called Potomac Primary when observers can guage how deep the "social rights" movement runs through one nation. One side of the river is a formidable and reliable Democratic Party bloc of Obamamaniacs. On the other is, well, Virginia, the vale of rural, conservatism, where Webb and even The Latino Coalition endorsed George Allen.

The Latino Coalition is not affiliated with Democratic Latino Organization of Virginia. No, it's political traction is much deeper than that: The National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, the Inter-American Coalition of Physicians and Surgeons, the Hispanic Business Roundtable, the Columbian American Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, the Hispanic War Veterans of America, the US-Mexico Chamber of Commerce, and the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. TLC apparently eats corporations for breakfast. In endorsing Allen chairman Hector Barreto of McLean, VA [Fairfax County] stated, "He has been a strong friend and ally of our community and deserves our support." President Robert Deposada condemned Webb for calling "affirmative actions, 'state sponsored racism" then shifting "his position to support this program only for blacks. This is the kind of opportunistic and unprincipled leadership that has made so many voters disenchanted with our political process."

One hopes Obama can get with the program. The Texas primary will leave him five short months, too few super delegates, and too many uncommitted delegates to make amends.

Luis Gutierrez, a congressman and early Obama supporter, echoed the dismay of the corporate media when Clinton collected California's chips on Super Tuesday.

"That is a failure of running a national campaign," he said. "The person that we came to know that is on the cover of Newsweek and national magazines many times does not get to the household table where people are dealing with how you pay the mortgage. At least 4 out of 10 Latinos do not get their opinion of public officials from English-speaking media."

Hmm. "Hispanos y mujeres prefieren a Hillary Clinton, mientras jóvenes y afroamericanos a Barack Obama: Elecciones en la región de Washington DC," says weekly Washington Hispanic.

Obama's team is making an effort to counter this perception. They won endorsements La Opinion, Hoy Chicago and the Mexican American Political Association. And BarackObama.com recently updated navigation with a Spanish-language hub and a People/Latinos blog.

Obama plays safe, replicating his Gen X profile in every state, as if Clinton's base were a foregone conclusion to his nomination. Fusion hints, moving back-office to the front by acquiring "national" establishment's credibility and loyalty now rather than later will ease his pains.

But Latino turnout in Virginia this Tuesday is off the Beltway radar. There are a few reasons for the black out on expectations. Race commentators favor Obama to win Maryland and the District, 137 delegates combined, given a comfortable margin by African American voters. Clinton probably will not pick up any of these. And she looks dead to Virginians, according to an RCP average of four Virginia opinion polls. Anyway, the Virginia primary is open and valued at mere 101 delegates. This isn't enough wind for Clinton to slake the inevitabity of the Obama and McCain nominations.

Clinton's 24 point spread has gone upside down since the Washington Post October poll. So she and Obama spent the weekend hustling northern Virginia (NOVA). In the last two election cycles wide NOVA margins have been crucial to Democratic statewide elections but weak predictors of presidential results. 32% of the state's population live along the "Dulles Technology Corridor," a strip created expressly for defense spending. The toll road cuts through Arlington, Fairfax, Loudon, and Prince William counties and fabled ethnic "diversity" which is 66% white, 11% Hispanic, 11% African American, 9% Asian, 3% other. Immigrants comprise the minority populations, and they have been besieged by the kind of racist calculus that deeply discounts "macaca" moments.

Super Tuesday concluded a four-day protest organized by VACOLAO (Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations) and Mexicanos Sin Fronteras at the capitol in Richmond. Since the mid-terms --when corporate media couldn't be bothered to count Latinos in its exit polls-- legislators have unloaded over 100 bills to profile, exclude, and criminalize Spanish-speaking persons who may or may not be undocumented residents. La lucha segue en NOVA.

Local media heads have been quick to circulate selected RCP data points and attribute Obama's steaming 17 point lead to a "steady statewide gains by Democrats since 2001." (Mason-Dixon). Certainly, only 10% of all Insider Advantage respondents polled were registered Republican 23% independent. And of the 501 telephoned, all 20 Hispanics surveyed were women.

 

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Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama -- "It will never happen."

http://discuss.epluribusmedia.net/dan_coen_it_will_never_happen

The following commentary was submitted to ePluribus Media with permission to reprint. It is by Dan Coen, the "foremost expert on U.S. Vice Presidents" who has been interviewed by media such as NBC Nightly News, BBC Radio, and NPR. He is the author of "Second String: Trivia, Facts and Lists about the Vice Presidency and its Vice Presidents" and the Publisher and Managing Editor of VicePresidents.com, an online news magazine dedicated to the like.

:: ::

So many interviews about whether Hillary and Obama will be an item in November, 2008. Let me lay to rest the questioning by providing the answer: It will NEVER happen.

Here's why.

1. Barack Obama does not need Hillary Clinton's backage. Does he really want Bill and Hillary and their gang to take over his campaign for President?

2. Hillary Clinton does not want to be upstaged. Obama communicates better, looks better and gets more out of a crowd. Ask John Kerry. No fun having a younger and more electric VEEP.

3. The Dems' want to WIN in 2008. The country may not be ready to vote for this radical a ticket. Or, maybe it is. But the Dems' don't want to guess and hope for the best.

4. They do not complement one another. Both are Senators. The ticket needs somebody with executive experience. Both lean toward the left. The ticket needs somebody in the middle. Both stall on the foreign policy front, much better on the domestic front. The ticket needs a credible entity to help with Iraq.

Plenty of terrific choices ahead for either Hillary or Obama. We don't see them selecting each other!

Dan Coen, VicePresidents1@yahoo.com

 

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Long list before short list for veep

By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer Sun Feb 10, 1:29 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Yes, yes, yes, it's much too early to start thinking about running mates.

Too bad. People are doing it anyway.

And even though they won't admit it, odds are that Sens. John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are giving it at least some thought.

So, too, are people who turn up their noses at the suggestion they might be a good fit, yet secretly harbor ambitions of getting the nod.

Veepstakes speculation — always an undercurrent with a presidential election afoot — intensified this past week after Mitt Romney dropped out of the race, helping to clear McCain's path to the Republican nomination.

Already, there is a "choose Mike Huckabee" movement, an "anyone-but-Huckabee" counter-boomlet, and plenty of other names in the mix, including a slew of governors, senators and others singled out for their potential attractions related to factors such as age, geography, policies, experience and personal chemistry.

And although the Democratic nominee remains a huge question mark, there is plenty of talk about a Clinton-Obama unity ticket, or an Obama-Clinton unity ticket, as the case may be.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg still is only flirting with the idea of running as an independent, but already names of potential running mates for him are dangling, Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, for one.

Joel Goldstein, a professor at St. Louis University School of Law and an expert on vice presidents, said the choice of a running mate is more complex than it used to be. With the more expansive role played by vice presidents Al Gore and Dick Cheney, "you can't pick somebody simply because they're going to carry Ohio or Florida," Goldstein said. "It's going to backfire."

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REPUBLICANS

Given McCain's age — at 72 on Inauguration Day, he would be the oldest first-term president — there could be more focus than usual on his choice for vice president.

McCain batted away questions Friday about what he'll be looking for, saying it would be inappropriate to go there with Huckabee still in the race.

Even so, he offered some clues to his thinking. A regional strategy — picking a Southerner, for example, to help carry states in the South — doesn't work like it did in the past, he said.

McCain even laid out a job description of sorts: "The fundamental principle behind any selection of a running mate would be whether that person is fully prepared to take over and shares your values, your principles, your philosophy and your priorities," he said.

Under one theory, McCain should use his veep choice to shore up support among wary conservatives.

"That's the high-profile, easy way" to get right with conservatives, said David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union. "If you said, 'I can't change because I'm too old to change and I'm too ornery and I don't want to be nice to you but I'll select as my running mate someone you really love,' then they'll all say 'OK, we'll put up with the ornery old guy.'"

That thinking would appear to rule out a moderate like Rudy Giuliani, who supports abortion rights, and seem to point to someone like Huckabee, an ordained minister popular with social conservatives.

But economic conservatives complain that Huckabee's tenure as governor of Arkansas was marked by tax increases and liberal policies on immigration and law enforcement.

"Clearly, an economic liberal like Mike Huckabee will be unacceptable to a majority of Republicans," said Pat Toomey, president of the anti-tax Club for Growth.

Huckabee, asked Saturday about prospects for a McCain-Huckabee ticket, joked that it's already been done.

"My wife's maiden name was McCain," he explained. "Almost 34 years ago, the Huckabee-McCain ticket became one. It's worked very well all these years."

Romney, once McCain's strongest rival for the nomination, hasn't attracted much speculation as a potential running mate, principally because there appears to be no chemistry — and much acrimony — between the two men.

The ranks of Republican governors offer McCain, a four-term senator, a long list of choices that could add executive experience to the ticket. Among them: Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty, Florida's Charlie Crist, Mississippi's Haley Barbour, South Carolina's Mark Sanford. There are senators, too, on the long list that will gradually become a short list, including John Thune of South Dakota and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

One who's not likely to get the nod: former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, a former rival for the nomination who would be 66 on Inauguration Day. In combination with McCain, that adds up to a 138 years.

The tricky thing for anyone hoping to snag McCain's vice presidential slot is to audition without looking like it.

"That is almost a disqualification," said GOP consultant Rich Galen. "Surely Crist in Florida has gotten as close as anybody to overplaying his hand." Crist delivered a timely endorsement to McCain that helped him win the hotly contested Florida primary, and has campaigned around the country with McCain.

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DEMOCRATS

Still battling delegate for delegate, Clinton and Obama need to keep their focus right now on securing the nomination.

Others, though, have more time to ponder the ramifications of the two candidates teaming up — in either order.

Many see that as the unstoppable "dream unity ticket," says Goldstein.

Republican Galen, however, thinks it would be more of a nightmare scenario.

A President Obama, he says, wouldn't want Bill Clinton roaming around "reminding everybody of how he would have done it."

A President Clinton, he says, wouldn't want to be overshadowed by the star appeal of Obama.

If the Democratic candidates decide to look elsewhere for a running mate, one strategy is select someone who reinforces their own qualities.

Obama, for example, could pick a Washington outsider to supersize his change message, for example a governor like Arizona's Janet Napolitano or Kansas' Kathleen Sebelius.

Dan Coen, a Los Angeles management consultant who runs the Web site vicepresidents.com, said Bill Clinton executed this strategy flawlessly in selecting Gore, another young Southerner. Coen, who also wrote a book about vice presidential trivia, calls this the "ticket brand" strategy.

"It's important to pick a candidate who complements you so well that it really excites the country," Coen said.

The counter strategy is to select someone with offsetting qualities, in Obama's case a senior statesman such as Joe Biden or Chris Dodd, two longtime senators who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for themselves this year. In Clinton's case, that could be Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, seen as more of a moderate than her.

Other names floated for Clinton: Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who made his own run for the Democratic nomination four years ago.

John Edwards, who had a difficult time as John Kerry's running mate in 2004, says his name is off the table.

"I'm finished with that," Edwards said last year, when he was still seeking the nomination for himself.

Democrat, Republican or something in between, anyone thinking about making a play for the vice president's job might want to ponder McCain's own thoughts on the position.

Asked last year whether he would consider being a vice presidential candidate, McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said:

"You know, I spent all those years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, kept in the dark, fed scraps — why the heck would I want to do that all over again?"

___

Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Will Lester contributed to this report.

Link to article

 

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The real race is for vice president
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Brian O'Neill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Warning to readers: It will be hard to care about the next president once you realize the vice president is key to everything.

I just got off the phone with Dan Coen, the head of vicepresidents.com, a man and a Web magazine consumed with "the people in the shadow, the second string, the runners up.'' From him, I learned that Bob Dole has been the key to the past three decades of American political history.

You think he's kidding?

Back in 1976, Mr. Dole was President Gerald Ford's running mate. Mr. Ford himself had been an unelected vice president, taking over when Spiro Agnew disgraced the office and split. At the time, Mr. Ford assured his wife, "Betty, don't worry, vice presidents don't do anything. I'll be there for a couple of years, then we'll go back home, retire ..."

Then President Richard Nixon resigned and coptered out of Washington, making Mr. Ford president. He chose Mr. Dole as his campaign sidekick, and Mr. Dole famously summed up the lure of the vice presidency this way: "It's inside work and there's no heavy lifting.''

The Ford/Dole ticket lost to Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. If Mr. Ford had won, Mr. Dole would have been the front-runner for the GOP nomination in 1980, and Ronald Reagan might never have gotten to the White House.

"No Reagan, no Bush, no Bush II,'' Mr. Coen explained. "It's six degrees of Bob Dole. He has changed the world over and over.''

Mr. Dole's role doesn't end there. He ran for president in 1996 and lost to President Bill Clinton. If Mr. Dole had won, he'd have been president in 2000 and there would have been no race between Al Gore and George W. Bush, no Florida recount, no worry about hanging chads or Supreme Court refs.

"It's all about Dole,'' says Mr. Coen.

So while the rest of the world dissects the presidential race, vicepresidents.com has stories like "Finding the Ying to Huckabee's Yang'' and "Will Hillary Choose Evan Bayh?"

It's an unusually open year. It's the first race since 1952 that has neither an incumbent president nor vice president seeking the presidential nomination, and the first time since 1976 that neither a Bush nor a Dole seeks the presidency or vice presidency. (That's assuming Jeb Bush or Elizabeth Dole isn't chosen as a vice presidential candidate. There always seems to be at least one handy.)

This Web magazine highlights the more obscure hopefuls, like U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., a distant relative of Aaron Burr, the only vice president before Dick Cheney to shoot someone while in office. (In 1804, Burr left Alexander Hamilton colder than a 10-dollar bill about where the Lincoln Tunnel exhaust fans are now in Weehawken, N.J. But I digress.)

It's tough to pick a favorite veep when choosing among 46 nondescript guys but, if pressed, Mr. Coen goes with Abraham Lincoln's first vice president, Hannibal Hamlin. Not only does Hamlin have "the greatest name in the world,'' he was a heartbeat away from the presidency during the Civil War "and nobody knows it.'' Hamlin was succeeded by Andrew Johnson for Lincoln's second term, so Johnson became president when Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

"I think there are hundreds of people in both parties who think they're going to be chosen [as vice president] any day now,'' Mr. Coen said. "Chris Dodd is sitting by his phone. Fred Thompson has figured out he's not going to get the nod [for president] and he and his wife are jockeying to get that vice presidential nomination."

Douglas MacKinnon, who spent years working for Mr. Dole following the 1996 campaign, says the vice presidency is all about delivering a big swing state such as Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania or Florida: "At a certain point they'll pick the brother of Satan if they think it will get them in the White House."

Mr. Coen largely agrees, but also believes in "branding.'' President Clinton chose Mr. Gore, another young Southerner, and that "was such a great brand, just cool, and they won.'' If U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is the Democratic nominee, the party might go with a Midwestern tag team. "Maybe it's Evan Bayh,'' the 52-year-old U.S. senator from neighboring Indiana.

The veep race doesn't really take off until March, Mr. Coen says. We'll just have to bide our time thinking about the presidential nominees until then.
Brian O'Neill can be reached at boneill@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1947.
First published on January 10, 2008 at 12:00 am

 

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Kate Zdrojewski
Tel: 888-835-5326
Email: vicepresidents1@yahoo.com


VICEPRESIDENTS.COM SHEDS LIGHT ON EVERYONE IN THE SHADOW, BRINGING YOU THE NEWS ON THE PEOPLE THAT NEVER MAKE THE NEWS
Mr. Vice President, Finally a Website Just For You

LOS ANGELES, CA - November 14, 2007 -- Once upon a time, John Nance Garner said, "This job isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit." Well, the team at VicePresidents.com is out to prove our 32nd U.S. Vice President wrong.

A web-magazine devoted to the world of the second string, VicePresidents.com has done the unthinkable. Driven by Dan Coen and his innovative troupe of writers, VicePresidents.com brings #2's of all shapes and sizes out of the shadow and onto your homepage.

"We're stuck on #2's and U.S. Vice Presidents are clearly the ultimate #2's," says Dan Coen, the webmag's Publisher and resident Vice Presidents expert. "However, our goal is to shed light on all the movers and shakers that are underserved by mainstream media."

"With wit and humor, of course," added Dan.

VicePresidents.com revels in the fact that subjects of its sharp-witted content are relatively unknown. Its readers, known as "The Wingmen", peruse the clever columns and interactive forums where their insights and feedback run the show. The webmag's eccentric editors spread humor by exposing the unexposed, singing praises, and throwing jabs at everyone from Vice Presidential candidates to ex-Brady-Buncher Barry Watson's soaring career.

With the 2008 election quickly approaching, the webmag's concept-being a reliable source of Vice Presidential information and a destination devoted to the world of the second string--will earn VicePresidents.com recognition from everyone from news-heads and political fanatics, to scholars and Wingmen craving the news that never makes the news.

About VicePresidents.com:
VicePresidents.com is a web magazine dedicated to people who are proud to be in the shadow. While our focus is on the ultimate #2's in our society, the U.S. Vice Presidents, we're also stuck on #2's of all shapes and sizes. We take a shining to secondary figures or those who have found themselves banished from the front page.
VicePresidents.com is spearheaded by Dan Coen, a foremost expert on U.S. Vice Presidents. Contact Dan for an interview about the vice presidency, U.S. vice presidents in 2008, or to get a glimpse into the shadow world of the #2's.


Contact Dan:
888-835-5326
vicepresidents1@yahoo.com


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links:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/071114/20071114005992.html?.v=1

http://www.forbes.com/businesswire/feeds/businesswire/2007/11/14/businesswire20071114005992r1.html

 

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June 18. 2007 12:36PM

 

Ranking the VP hopefuls

As I pointed out on Sunday, Charlie Crist is getting a lot of buzz these days as a potential national candidate.

But Dan Coen, the expert on vice presidents I quoted, told me that although Crist is climbing into the list of potential running mates, he's still not the state's best VP possibility.

Coen mused that if he was creating a list of most likely Floridians to be VP, it would start with Jeb Bush. Yea, there's a major Bush-fatigue issue out there these days, but Coen said Bush is universally known, is a great fundraiser and brings social conservative credentials.

Here's his list:

1. Jeb Bush

2. Bob Graham: Former U.S. Senator who briefly ran for president in 2004. He's been out of office a little too long, but he brings foreign policy credentials to a possible presidential ticket.

3. Charlie Crist: Hard to argue with 70 percent approval ratings in the nation's fourth biggest state.

4. Billy Donovan: Drama with Orlando Magic may have hurt him (OK, Coen was kidding about this one).

5. Bill Nelson: A Democrat who can win Florida, but his national profile just isn't much.

Coen runs a web site that has more VP trivia than you can imagine, including a power ranking of national VP hopefuls. (Jeb's No. 7 on that list)
Here's the site: http://www.vicepresidents.com

 

link: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20070618/BLOG01/70618012

 

 

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B-Sides: Cheney not first sitting VP to shoot somebody

Mark Bennett
The Tribune-Star

— Movie spy Austin Powers once asked, “Who does No. 2 work for?”
Of course, he was dunking one of Dr. Evil’s thugs into a toilet at the time, demanding to know who employed the henchman known as “No. 2.” The guy in the next stall — oblivious to the circumstances — could only mistakenly assume all the noise and Austin’s question centered around gastro-intestinal issues.
Many Americans, in the course of our nation’s 230 years, have probably pondered the same question for far different reasons …
“Who does No. 2 [the vice president of the United States] work for?”
Well, the VP under LBJ (aka HHH, or Hubert Horatio Humphrey) once said, “The president has only 190 million bosses. The vice president has 190 million and one.” The U.S. population has grown since the 1960s, when Humphrey served, so today’s vice presidents must answer to 295 million and one bosses. That’s a pretty big management team.
With the potential for a massive to-do list, don’t our No. 2s deserve a Vice Presidents Day, just like this Monday’s Presidents Day? After all, 96 percent of our VPs have not shot people while in office.
“They’re all pretty solid guys,” said Dan Coen, one of the foremost experts on the 46 men who’ve held the nation’s second-highest office.
Coen tried to illuminate those “solid guys” for the average American in his 2004 book “Second String: Trivia, Facts and Lists About the Vice Presidency and its Vice Presidents.” He also runs an Internet Web site called vicepresidents.com. It’s six years old and non-partisan. And even though it’s packed with trivia, biographies, essays, analysis, historical fun facts and statistics about the people who served as vice presidents as well as those who tried to serve as vice presidents, vicepresidents.com can be kind of a lonely place in cyberspace.
“Unless Dick Cheney shoots somebody or there’s an election, we’re not a busy Web site,” Coen said Tuesday.
While he was speaking by telephone from his office in Los Angeles, Coen’s cell phone was ringing. That’s because Dick Cheney did shoot somebody in a quail hunting accident Saturday afternoon in Texas, hospitalizing 78-year-old Austin lawyer Harry Whittington. Coen already had fielded 20 calls from the press, including mine.
So exactly why does a guy who runs a management consulting business in California and who graduated from San Jose State University with a mass communications degree know so much about the Avis of our government’s executive branch?
“I’ve been a student of history, just like a lot of people,” Coen said.
But do most history buffs know that Cheney isn’t the only sitting VP to shoot somebody? Aaron Burr — the No. 2 guy under Thomas Jefferson — shot and fatally wounded his political archrival, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, in a pistol duel July 11, 1804.
“The most fascinating thing is that Burr was never convicted,” Coen said.
Burr and Hamilton “were both pretty crazy guys,” Coen explained.
But Burr was a quirk among vice presidents. Well, except maybe for William King — President Franklin Pierce’s VP — who was “rumored to dress up in women’s clothing,” Coen said.
For the most part, they’ve been solid, quiet types. “And the one commonality among all of them is they’re all politically experienced,” Coen said.
That includes the current guy with 295,001 bosses, Dick Cheney. “In our time period, he’s the most quiet and hidden,” Coen said.
But Cheney is unique, his unintended shotgun blast notwithstanding. He carries political clout within the Bush administration, unlike most of the past VPs.
“Who saw Al Gore as vice president?” said Chris Olsen, chair of the Indiana State University history department and an associate professor. “He was invisible for eight years because [President Bill] Clinton was such a dominating figure.”
And unlike other vice presidents, Cheney comes from the same wing of his party as his president. Usually, presidential candidates pick a dissimilar vice president to balance the ticket and broaden their voter base, rather than choosing someone most qualified to be “a heartbeat from the presidency.” That’s how a John Tyler, a Southerner, ended up as the No. 2 guy on the Whig Party ticket under William Henry Harrison. Most of the Whigs barely acknowledged Tyler, Olsen explained. And yet after they won the election, Harrison wound up dying a month after taking office and Tyler became No. 1.
Tyler is one of nine VPs to assume the presidency because of death or resignation. That tidbit is on vicepresidents.com.
And did you know the only state to produce more VPs than Indiana’s five is New York with 11? Or that the only 20th-century vice president who failed to win his party’s presidential nomination was a Hoosier, Dan Quayle?
Quick … who’s George Clinton. Like me, you probably said, the Godfather of Funk and leader of Parliament, Funkadelic and the P-Funk All-Stars. But actually, another George Clinton was Thomas Jefferson’s second VP. (He dumped Burr, who Jefferson only got paired with because before 1804 the runner-up in Electoral College votes became vice president.)
Come to think of it, funkmaster George Clinton would make an excellent VP candidate in 2008. Imagine, Hillary and George Clinton on the same ticket, with their campaign theme song, “Do Fries Go With That Shake?” A Vice Presidents Day wouldn’t seem so dull then.
Mark Bennett can be reached at mark.bennett@tribstar.com or 1-800-783-8742, Option 6, Ext. 377.

Copyright © 1999-2006 cnhi, inc.

link: http://www.tribstar.com/local/local_story_046231351.html/resources_printstory

 

 

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Dick Cheney or John Edwards?

Interview the EXPERT About Vice Presidents During the Political Campaign

With the political campaign in full swing, this may be the best time to interview the EXPERT about Vice Presidents.

Dan Coen is author of the new book about Vice Presidents titled SECOND STRING. He is also Managing Director of VicePresidents.com, the leading web magazine that studies every aspect of the Vice Presidency and its Vice Presidents.

Dan Coen is an engaging, entertaining and knowledgeable political commentator. He is a seasoned guest with terrific insights on the political process, with a focus on Vice Presidents. Radio, TV and print outlets rely on Mr. Coen for direct analysis and commentary.

To schedule an interview with Dan Coen, email VicePresidents1@Yahoo.com, call toll free 888-835-5326 or go to www.VicePresidents.com. Mr. Coen is based out of Los Angeles.

 

ABOUT VICEPRESIDENTS.COM

VicePresidents.com is the only web-magazine dedicated to the Vice Presidency and the leading authority on the Vice Presidency and its Vice Presidents. The magazine is packed with historical analysis, web-blogs, interactive surveys, history, facts, trivia and lists about the office of the Vice Presidency. For more information, or to schedule a media interview with Dan Coen, go to www.VicePresidents.com or email VicePresidents1@Yahoo.com. Or, call toll free 888-835-5326.

ABOUT SECOND STRING

"SECOND STRING: Trivia, Facts and Lists About the Vice Presidency and Its Vice Presidents" is a fun and lively look at America's second most important office. This book is PACKED with hundreds of pages of trivia, facts, lists, quotes and history on the office of the Vice President. This is the only book of its kind ever created about the Vice Presidency and its Vice Presidents. Available at book sellers everywhere, Amazon.com and VicePresidents.com.

Copyright © 2007, MarketWire
Copyright © 2007, NewsBlaze, Daily News

link: http://newsblaze.com/story/2004072522170300001.mwir/newsblaze/RETAIL01/Retail.html

 

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Notes from the second fiddle

By JOHN BARRY
Published July 19, 2004

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Presidents get their own libraries. Vice presidents wind up in a little paperback book called Second String: Trivia, Facts and Lists About the Vice Presidency and Its Vice Presidents. It's written and self-published by Dan Coen, available for $24.95 on VicePresidents.com, and may cause John Edwards to reconsider his recent decision. One of its more amusing components is famous vice presidential quotations.

* * *

"Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected vice president of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again." Thomas Marshall, who served under Woodrow Wilson

* * *

"Some newspapers dispose of their garbage by printing it." Spiro Agnew, who served under Richard Nixon

* * *

"One useless man is a disgrace, two a law firm, three or more a Congress." John Adams, who served under George Washington

* * *

The vice presidency is "not worth a warm bucket of spit." John Nance Garner, who served under Franklin Roosevelt

* * *

"If you've seen one slum you've seen them all." Spiro Agnew

* * *

"I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than vice president." Theodore Roosevelt, who served under William McKinley

* * *

"This is a hell of a job. I can only do two things: One is to sit up here and listen to you birds talk. . . . The other is to look at newspapers every morning to see how the president's health is." Charles Dawes, who served under Calvin Coolidge

* * *

"Look at all the vice presidents in history. Where are they? They were about as useful as a cow's fifth teat." Harry S. Truman, who served under Franklin Roosevelt

* * *

"I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead." Daniel Webster, on not accepting the vice presidency

[Last modified July 16, 2004, 10:43:14]

 

link: http://www.sptimes.com/2004/07/19/Floridian/Notes_from_the_second.shtml

 

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Golden age of the second banana

U.S. vice presidency rises from anonymity to become one of world's most powerful jobs

Marc Sandalow, Washington Bureau Chief

Sunday, July 4, 2004

(07-04) 04:00 PST Washington -- Nothing is as macho on the campaign trail as expressing disdain for the job of vice president.

"I spent several years in a North Vietnam prison camp, in the dark, fed with scraps,'' Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., tells audiences when the topic comes up. "Do you think I want to do that all over again as vice president?''

"I would not accept at gunpoint,'' said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, reaching for new words to dispel rumors of his interest in the nomination.

Yet as Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry considers options for a running mate -- a choice he may make in the next few days -- he finds a long list of contenders not only willing but privately clamoring for the job.

For all the ridicule and disrespect given to the No. 2 slot, the vice presidency has evolved into one of the world's most powerful and influential posts. Even if voters are not swayed by the bottom half of the ticket, history shows whomever Kerry selects is likely to emerge as a force in national politics, and a strong contender to someday become president.

"Every vice president from John Adams on has bad-mouthed the office -- yet no one has refused it,'' said Timothy Walch, director of the Herbert Hoover presidential library.

Three weeks before the opening of the Democratic National Convention, there has been far more speculation than information about Kerry's choice. The National Journal's Hotline, an online newsletter that tracks political coverage, has kept a tally of the potential running mates named by major media outlets. As of Saturday, the list stood at 71.

In recent days, there have been indications from Kerry's staff that the choice could be made as early as this week, prompting journalists covering the campaign to search frantically for clues in the candidate's schedule that might reveal his selection.

The focus has been on three: Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri and Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa. There has been considerable talk about many others, from retired Gen. Wesley Clark, Florida Sen. Bob Graham and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to Republicans such as McCain -- who has said he won't do it -- and Bill Cohen, the former senator from Maine who served as President Bill Clinton's secretary of defense.

There is no polling evidence to establish that the vice president makes a big difference in the election's outcome, though it might be decisive in a contest as close as the 2000 election. Yet there is plenty of evidence that the vice presidency is worth much more than it was in 1848, when Daniel Webster protested that he was not interested in the job because "I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead.''

For much of the nation's history, the post was a political wasteland, important only in the rare case of a presidential death. However, since Richard Nixon was elected to the office in 1952 -- when the vice president didn't even have an office on the White House grounds -- the position has grown steadily in influence.

In the 1940s, Vice President Harry Truman met so infrequently with President Franklin Roosevelt that he was not even apprised of the progress toward developing the atomic bomb, which he would ultimately order dropped on Japan. By the 1970s, President Gerald Ford had instituted private, weekly lunches with Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. Walter Mondale was the first vice president given a desk near the Oval Office in the White House's West Wing a few years later.

The past two vice presidents have been widely viewed as the most influential in history. Al Gore led Clinton's efforts on global warming, the environment, high technology and streamlining the bureaucracy, and he was the administration's prime link to Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.

Vice President Dick Cheney is undisputedly among President Bush's top advisers, having played a key role in the nation's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and in national security and energy policy. Many Bush detractors -- at odds with the image of the vice presidency as worth little more than a bucket of warm spit, as John Nance Garner, vice president to Franklin Roosevelt, described it in the 1930s -- portray Cheney as the leader who is actually calling the shots.

"There's been an evolutionary process that has gone back to 1952," said Walch, who edited the book "At the President's Side: The Vice Presidency in the Twentieth Century." "Each successive vice president seems to get additional offices and responsibilities.

"Without question, Dick Cheney is the most influential and powerful vice president in history. And the irony is -- it's because he has no ambition to be the president,'' Walch said.

Cheney's lack of presidential ambition makes him an anomaly. Every vice president who has served since Garner made his much-quoted comment has sought the presidency.

In the 11 elections from 1960 to 2000, nine featured a sitting or former vice president as the Democratic or Republican presidential nominee.

Winning the presidency is hard for a sitting vice president, as Gore discovered in 2000. Before George H.W. Bush, who won the presidency in 1988, the last sitting vice president elected president was Martin Van Buren in 1836.

The enormous growth of government and the influence of television are among the reasons the vice presidency has grown in importance, if not stature, experts said.

Thomas Riley Marshall, President Woodrow Wilson's vice president, told the story of a woman who had two sons -- one who ran off to sea and other who became vice president.

"Neither was ever heard of again,'' Marshall said.

That is unlikely in today's media culture, where the vice president is prominently used as a spokesman, fund-raiser, fill-in and sometimes attack dog for the president.

And the hopeful Democrats who will be anxiously awaiting Kerry's phone call in the coming days are well aware that since the republic was founded, 14 of the nation's 46 vice presidents -- almost 1 in 3 -- have gone on to serve as president.

"In the past, they may not have wanted it. It wasn't cool,'' said Dan Coen, author of the book on vice presidents entitled "Second String.''

"Today, if the guy asks you if you want to do it, they jump like a hungry dog at a piece of meat," he said.

Source: Hotline

E-mail Marc Sandalow at msandalow@sfchronicle.com.

link: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/07/04/MNG4T7GMRT1.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

 

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Experts review bad picks for vice president

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Let's hear a cheer for the veeps

February 18, 2003

By JEFF KRAMER
The Orange County Register

 

 

Go ahead - pour yourself that second cup of coffee. Kick back. Your long weekend just got longer. I'm declaring today Vice Presidents Day. It's time No. 2 got its due.

No, my declaration isn't official. That's where you come in. If you do nothing else today, write your Congress Person and demand that we honor the contributions of our second top bananas.

These semi-great figures are familiar to us all. Alben Barkley. Schuyler Colfax. Hannibal Hamlin. You'll recall that Hamlin was Abe Lincoln's lightly regarded VP who spent the Civil War cloistered in the 1860s equivalent of an "undisclosed location" - Maine.

Dan Coen, who runs vicepresidents.com (yes, really) listed Hamlin as his favorite.

"He was vice president for four years and had no impact,'' Coen said. "Then, in the second term, he's kicked out and Andrew Johnson replaces him. And a month later, Lincoln is assassinated. That's the whole vice presidency in a nutshell."

The utter pointlessness of the post was also captured by Richard Nixon's veep, Spiro Agnew, who once quipped, "A little over a week ago, I took a rather unusual step for a vice president. ... I said something."

If only he'd stopped there.

My personal nomination for Greatest Vice President Ever is William Rufus de Vane King, who favored flowing scarves and powdered wigs and was rumored to be James Buchanan's lover. Andrew Johnson, never big on sensitivity training, referred to King as "Miss Nancy."

Interestingly, sort of, King was inaugurated as vice president while in Cuba, but he died of tuberculosis a few weeks after returning to the United States. It would be nearly a century and a half before the first episode of "Will & Grace" aired on NBC.

All I'm saying is that it isn't too much to ask to set aside a day to honor this rich vice presidential heritage. Look what we'd gain:

A four-day weekend.

A healthy, national acknowledgement that you don't always have to be No. 1. Sometimes No. 2 is OK.

A four-day weekend - but I guess I said that already.

Initial reaction to my proposed holiday was mixed when I floated it yesterday in Orange County's second-largest city, Anaheim.

"I don't think vice president is really anything special,'' said Raul Corea, 23, working the parts counter at Pep Boys. "Do you ever look for the second in command in anything?"

Yes, Raul, I do. Presently, I look for him to run the country.

Linda, a Kmart clerk, was more enthusiastic.

"That would be great,'' she said. "But we won't get it off."

Linda, you work for Kmart. Something tells me getting days off won't be a problem.

Also on board with Vice President's Day was Huntington Beach Muffler, which, coincidentally, donated a stainless-steel muffler and tailpipe to my reader-financed van, the Ethics Mobile.

Today only, owner Steve Tustison is offering a 5 percent Vice President's Day discount on any new muffler.

Tell 'em Miss Nancy sent you.

Contact Kramer at (714) 796-6897 or jkramer@ocregister.com.

link: http://www.ocregister.com/accent/kramervision/columns/kramer021803.shtml

 

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