Karl Rove's thoughts on the quality of vice presidential nominees

By Richard K. Barry

A lot of people, me among them, like to vilify Karl Rove. After all, he had a large hand in getting George W. Bush elected president. If that's not a major mark against you, I don't know what is. He's also a nasty piece of work when it comes to doing whatever it takes to get his people elected. Mostly we vilify the man because he deserves it.

Much of what he has to say is partisan crap. You have to take it with a grain of salt, but, in politics, everything has to be taken with a gain of salt. It's a partisan exercise. Facts are never just facts. They are always intended to made a case with the electorate that your candidate is best. That's just the way it is.

But if you don't think Karl Rove knows his business, you are not paying attention.

He had a very interesting article in the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago arguing, basically, that a running mate has rarely in the modern era helped win a presidential election. That being the case, a nominee should give political considerations less weight and issues of governance more.

Here's a bit of what Rove had to say:

Running mates haven't decided an election in more than a half-century. For example, research by Bernard Grofman and Reuben Kline, political scientists at the University of California, Irvine, suggests that the net impact of the vice-presidential picks in 2008 was roughly one-half of one point and is generally less than one percentage point. Presidential elections are rarely that close.

What about running mates helping to carry their home states? Political scientists Christopher Devine of Ohio State and Kyle Kopko of Elizabeth College argue the home-state advantage is often modest and almost never dispositive. Rarely does a presidential election come down to one state, as it did in 2000 (Florida) or 2004 (Ohio). In neither of those instances did either party field someone from those states.

A running mate's principal political impact is on behalf of the presidential candidate's themes or issues. The vice-presidential candidate helps reinforce what the presidential candidate is emphasizing. But if the top banana on the ballot isn't getting it done, the running mate won't be able to on his or her own.

His final point is that a nominee's job is "to select his best partner in the White House and a person the country would have confidence in if something terrible happened to him."

I can't vouch for the research he cites. It's certainly intriguing. I suppose there might be circumstances in a very close race in which a running mate would matter. Still, my gut tells me the research is mostly right.

Perhaps one of the more interesting things Rove writes is that "choosing a running mate reveals much about the presidential candidate himself. Though still only a candidate, this is his first presidential decision."

To Rove's credit, it's an interesting piece. Too bad his closing contention, "proof of his argument," is that Dick Cheney was the right choice for George W. Bush, despite the fact that Rove said he didn't think so at the time. I don't think Darth Vader ruling America would have been a good thing, but that's me.

Anyway, Rove never mentions Sarah Palin critically, but I have to think that this disaster wasn't that far from his mind when he wrote this. Despite the fact that John McCain was probably never going to win, it should give us pause. An older man with health issues chose the most unqualified running mate imaginable on the off chance it might help him at the polls. I don't think Romney is going to make the same mistake. Let's hope no one ever does again.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)