Comments on: No one seems to like the idea of Hillary as VP. What about Cheney?

By: The Local Crank

The Local Crank — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:26:51 +0000

“Don’t you all find it puzzling that so many here say Cheney/Bush should be impeached (as do 89% of those who’ve answered the MSNBC poll to date), and yet so few say they’ll risk a single primary vote on Dennis Kucinich?”

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest it has something to do with the fact that Kucinich is such an overwheening flake that he thanks RON frickin’ PAUL (the candidate of neo-Nazis, 9-11 conspiracy theorists, gold standard woolly-heads, and Confederate apologists) would make a jim dandy running mate.

By: John

John — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:26:37 +0000

In terms of other options than “the candidate picks”, this is a relatively recent innovation. During the 50s and earlier, the Conventions chose a VP. I think going back to this would actually be a good PR move for either party. It would generate excitement about the convention that doesn’t otherwise work, and probably would generate press good will, as well. The problem, I think, is vetting – someone could get through who might embarrass the candidate. But It’d be fun.

That the VP is elected alongside the president, and can’t be chosen separately, is determined by the electoral college. Since people are voting for one set of electors to choose both president and VP, they’re going to be voting for both together.

By: reason

reason — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:26:28 +0000

matt #28
Don’t read it then!
Painful for whom? How?
More importantly does your comment somehow improve this state of affairs and enlighten others? Hell I didn’t know that this blog had become an agony column!

By: va

va — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 05:33:46 +0000

If there’s nothing compelling Cheney to leave office, is there any especial reason the public would have to know that he has remained VP? Would he just show up, say, when the new Democratic president has unfortunately kicked the bucket after a few weeks on the job, put down his briefcase and declare, well, here I am! Or would he in fact have to occupy offices and such? I’m going with “doesn’t need to occupy offices” on the grounds that the vice presidency is vested in one “person.”

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 02:48:47 +0000

This comment thread is painful.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 01:43:14 +0000

Don’t you all find it puzzling that so many here say Cheney/Bush should be impeached (as do 89% of those who’ve answered the MSNBC poll to date), and yet so few say they’ll risk a single primary vote on Dennis Kucinich? As far as I know, none of the other candidates has signed onto HR 333. I say, before I put my vote where my heart is, let each candidate do so. Oh, wait—Kucinich already has.

By: Idiot/Savant

Idiot/Savant — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:23:15 +0000

More seriously, I never thought about it much, but what do people think about the fact that Presidential candidates get to pick their running-mates, in effect?

These things happen in an elective monarchy.

By: MSS

MSS — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:16:08 +0000

John, if in asking us how we felt about “a truly independent ballot” for VP you meant in a hypothetical world where the Pres and VP were actually elected by the people, the idea of independent elections is not a new one.

That would be the current Philippine system. It was also the case in Brazil’s 1945-64 democracy. And Paraguay recently held a VP-only election to fill a vacancy.

By: shpx.ohfu

shpx.ohfu — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:20:46 +0000

I would't mess with Dick. His powers extend down to the subatomic level.

By: PS

PS — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:32:25 +0000

“… no means exist for forcing Cheney from office, should he choose to stay on.”

I disagree with that. The guy looks like a reanimated corpse (my diagnosis based on extensive video). I think he can, and probably should, be declared legally dead.

By: mds

mds — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:00:03 +0000

It’s still a shame, on top of all the other shames, that Cheney was just competent enough to remember to move his residency out of Dallas in 2000 before running into the problem of the constitution preventing electoral delegates for voting for president & vp from the same state. That little potential oversight would have saved us so much trouble.

Assuming the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, didn’t strike down the requirement “just this once,” using a deliberately mendacious reading of the Equal Protection Clause advanced by Justices who don’t usually think the Equal Protection Clause should even apply to black Americans. And, well, that’s obviously a rather big assumption.

By: Glen Tomkins

Glen Tomkins — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:01:14 +0000

Emergency back-up president

That’s what the VP is. Sure, he presides over the Senate, and gets a vote to break ties in that august body, but his real job is to sit around ready in case the president buys the farm, or goes crazy (well, crazy in some socially unacceptable manner), or is removed on impeachment.

The Founders didn’t envision parties, much less a two-party system, so yes, you’re absolutely right, the office as they wrote the rules could easily be filled quite independently of the presidential choice, since the Founders didn’t envision any party linkage existing to join the two as a team. But, of course we do have two parties, very much at each others throats. It would seem imprudent to fill a job which essentially consists of sitting around waiting for something bad to happen to the president, with someone who might be the least inclined to try to arrange for bad things to happen to the president. Thus it makes great good sense to have the presidential candidate choose the VP candidate, and have them run as a team. The two parties both defer at their conventions to their presidential candidates’ choice of VP, and all the states have “team voting” in their rules for how they designate their electoral college votes. It is from this party habit, and these state laws, not the Constitution, that we derive the VP as a presidential designee.

By: joseph duemer

joseph duemer — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 14:34:42 +0000

“. . . no means exist for forcing Cheney from office, should he choose to stay on.”

How about a couple of federal marshals with tasers?

By: Danielle Day

Danielle Day — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 13:50:19 +0000

One of the many, many things destroyed in the fire in Cheney’s West Wing office (remember?), along with tapes, documents, emails and DVDs, was the Constitution.

By: abb1

abb1 — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 13:39:09 +0000

The Vice-President is one being who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a mutual indwelling of three branches. He has two distinct natures, one fully divine and the other fully human, united in a hypostatic union.

It’s in The Constitution. My copy, anyway.