The Vice Presidential Picks Matter More Than Ever Before in This Year’s Election
Published 01/28/24 06:00 AM ET|Updated 01/28/24 09:14 AM ET
Joe Concha
"It's easy being vice president — you don't have to do anything. It's like being the grandpa and not the parent. Yeah, that's it!”
That was Joe Biden speaking in 2010, when he served as Barack Obama's vice president. And he was generally correct. Thomas R. Marshall, who served as Woodrow Wilson's VP, once said the office is comparable to "a man in a cataleptic fit; he cannot speak; he cannot move; he suffers no pain; he is perfectly conscious of all that goes on, but has no part in it.”
In other words, the vice presidency is largely symbolic.
But in election years, we always seem to hear about how the choice of a particular person to join a ticket will perhaps help carry a key swing state or make the ticket more appealing to a particular gender, race or demographic. Kamala Harris was primarily chosen to appeal to Black voters and women; Biden was chosen to shore up Obama’s foreign policy experience, and Dick Cheney was chosen by George W. Bush for the same reason.
But this year, the VP choice actually has significance.
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https://themessenger.com/opinion/vice-president-kamala-harris-donald-trump-2024-running-mate
