There has been lots of speculation about who John Kerry will pick as his vice presidential candidate. The reason there's a lot of speculation, and nothing definitive is (1) the decision is all in Kerry's head (and maybe some people close to him), but more importantly ... (2) it is impossible to statistically identify the impact of vice-presidential choices on elections since the data we require don't exist.
Thus everyone can find analogies to support their argument, but no conclusive data.
With the exception of George Clinton and Rufus King who were the VP nominees in both 1804 and 1808 we have no other data on repeat candidates for the vice presidency which would allow us to control across time for the differences in presidential candidate quality.
This isn't to say that it would be theoretically impossible to estimate the impact of the VP nominees on presidential elections. Politically, however, if you are a losing VP candidate your career goes to one of four places (1) back to the Senate (2) failed attempts to be President, or your party's nominee (3) appointed to offices when your party finally wins the Presidency again, and (4) private law practice.
However,let's look at the failed VP candidates before we conclude that the VP pick is that important.
| VP nominee | What happened after losing |
| John Sparkman (1952) | long-term AL Senator |
| Estes Kefauver (1956) | TN Senator until death in 1963 |
| Henry Cabot Lodge (1960) | Various ambassadorial posts, including Vietnam under Kennedy Johnson |
| William Miller (1964) | Law practice |
| Edmund Muskie (1968) | ME Senator, then in Carter's Cabinet |
| Thomas Eagleton (1972) | Lawyer |
| Bob Dole (1976) | KS Senator, Presidential nominee 1996, Viagra and Pepsi advertisements after retirement from Senate |
| Walter Mondale (1980) | Presidential nominee 1984 (lost), late replacement Senate candidate 2002 (lost) |
| Geraldine Ferraro (1984) | Democratic appointee to UN Human Rights Commission and other appointments |
| Lloyd Bentsen (1988) | Clinton's Treasury Secretary |
| Dan Quayle (1992) | Ran for Republican nomination, lost |
| Jack Kemp (1996) | Philanthropic and think-tank memberships |
| Joe Lieberman (2000) | Ran for Democratic nomination 2004 and lost. CT Senator |
So, we have 4 [Democrats] remaining in the Senate, 2 nominees who went onto gain their parties presidential nomination and lose pretty badly, and the remainder who bowed out of elective public office. Not exactly a stellar record.
Posted by robe0419 at June 23, 2004 7:04 PM