re: #69 HappyWarrior

I’ll point out something about Kaine. He’s often described as pro-life on abortion. He’s got a very pro-choice voting record as a Senator and he never interfered with legal abortion here as Virginia’s governor. I will admit that he’s not as liberal as Warren is but honestly, VP really doesn’t have much to do with ideology and the platform this year is quite progressive.

The thing is, though, a sitting VP is (almost) always the automatic frontrunner when the sitting president is termed out (or possibly declines to seek a second term). The fact that Cheney and Biden have chosen not to run following two terms as VP is actually out of the ordinary (granted, in a very limited sample size).

Nixon runs in 1960 as a sitting VP; Humphrey ran in ‘68 as Johnson’s successor; Mondale ran in 1984 after serving as Carter’s VP; GHW Bush followed Reagan; Gore followed Clinton in 2000.

That’s why party activists care about who the VP nominee is: it serves as a signal of where the party may be going in the future.