Once again, we must turn to Fafblog for thoughtful political analysis. Giblets considers the various Democratic vice-presidential contenders:
Dick Gephardt. Gephardt would have an amazing pull with loser voters, voters who like losing the House to opposing parties, voters who have a long history of being supported by decrepit and dying labor institutions in failing political campaigns, just people who generally like to lose. He could swing loser states, such as Wyoming or Rhode Island, or put states with a large loser population, such as Nevada or Alabama, into play. The upside to having a Kerry-Gephardt ticket is it would take all those people who go into shock in the voting booth thinkin’ “Oh dear god we nominated Kerry?!” and push them just far enough over the edge with “Oh dear god we nominated Kerry and Gephardt?!” that it would sort of jar them into a feeling of complacent somnambulism that would render them susceptible to voting for Kerry-Gephardt anyway. The downside to this is that such a hypthetical waking sleepstate could also get them to vote for Nader.
This is so, so very true. I’m afraid we must all bow down before the superior nous of Giblets. Gephardt? Gephardt??!! Please, God, don’t let the Democratic party snatch certain defeat from the jaws of potential victory by choosing Dick Gephardt as the VP candidate. Pleasepleaseplease. Anybody but Gephardt. If the DP makes me cast a vote for a Kerry/Gephardt ticket I’m going to…well, crap, just put out like a straight-ticket ho. They could put a can of processed cheese food on the ballot against Bush, and I would vote for it. But I’m not going to enjoy it! And no ticket with Gephardt on it is going to win, ever in a million years! How can this blindingly obvious fact be so clear to Giblets yet obscure to Kerry? Maybe they are just toying with us. Maybe. Then when they pick Vilsack, instead of saying, “who the hell?” we will all just be so grateful they didn’t pick Gephardt that we’ll get all fired up, like, “Hey, that Vilsack, he sure does…have a lot of consonants in his name! Frickin’ awesome!”
{ 25 comments }
carlos 06.28.04 at 4:33 am
But Gephardt ensures a lock on the replicant vote!
dan 06.28.04 at 5:10 am
That better be some well-processed cheese food, and someone better have been planning ahead, because it has to be aged 35 years before it can get on the ballot. That’s the rule for the President in the U.S. Constitution, so far as I can gather, and I believe it also applies to the so-called “veep”, though I didn’t write the thing so you might want to have a look at it for yourself (scroll on down to the second post for the relevant portion).
fafnir 06.28.04 at 5:26 am
I know Dan, that is why we will never have a duck president.
I did some research an yknow there isnt a duck out there who can live to be 35. It is tragic. An entire species excluded from the electoral process! I would vote for a Kerry/duck ticket in a heartbeat! That woud make America believe again.
fafnir 06.28.04 at 5:29 am
Actually that is not just a species, the entire family Anatidae is left out. Such a shame.
Seth Gordon 06.28.04 at 2:40 pm
Observe this map and you can see why a Democratic Senator from Missouri, even a marginally competent one, is a damn tempting choice for a VP pick. But I do hope that Kerry resists the temptation.
bob mcmanus 06.28.04 at 3:26 pm
It may be about organized labor and blacks working the phones and sidewalks in October toward gettng the vote out, turnout. In 2000 there was money available that may not be available now with the new laws. Neither of these groups would be enthused about Edwards, and if you are watching Rove and the RNC, turnout may be everything, the only thing.
You may be imagining undecideds and swings or uncommitteds getting turned off by Gebhardt or turned on by Edwards. These people don’t exist anymore.
You may be imagining Democrats being dispirited by Gebhardt. If this would keep them away from the booth, they can’t be counted on anyway.
Rethink. This election is about who votes, and has nothing to do with why they vote.
Zizka 06.28.04 at 4:00 pm
I am not and never have been a Gephardt advocate. However, as I pointed out on Yglesias, a lot of the animosity against Gephardt comes from a.) people who are biased against boring, snuffy Midwestern types and b.) people who are biased against the Democratic core constitutencies (i.e. labor unions) to whom the Democrats are always accused of pandering.
Now, I take it as axiomatic that political leaders should throw some red meat to their core constituencies, even if it means that they compromise their high purported political ideas. (Don’t get me started on politicians’ high political ideals). Ethanol subsidies may not be a wonderful thing, but they aren’t the Holocaust either.
Second, a purely coastal, hip, metrosexual party would cruise along with a consistent 40% of the national vote. To be more specific, the Democrats entirely depend on having most of the boring states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Missouri voting for them. They can **just barely** do without Missouri and Ohio, but they need **every single one** of the others.
Or –let me rephrase what I said. The core constituency that the Democrats should take for granted is hip metrosexuals. Not boring Midwesterners.
Zizka 06.28.04 at 4:01 pm
I am not and never have been a Gephardt advocate. However, as I pointed out on Yglesias, a lot of the animosity against Gephardt comes from a.) people who are biased against boring, snuffy Midwestern types and b.) people who are biased against the Democratic core constitutencies (i.e. labor unions) to whom the Democrats are always accused of pandering.
Now, I take it as axiomatic that political leaders should throw some red meat to their core constituencies, even if it means that they compromise their high purported political ideas. (Don’t get me started on politicians’ high political ideals). Ethanol subsidies may not be a wonderful thing, but they aren’t the Holocaust either.
Second, a purely coastal, hip, metrosexual party would cruise along with a consistent 40% of the national vote. To be more specific, the Democrats entirely depend on having most of the boring states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Missouri voting for them. They can **just barely** do without Missouri and Ohio, but they need **every single one** of the others.
Or –let me rephrase what I said. The core constituency that the Democrats should take for granted is hip metrosexuals. Not boring Midwesterners.
Zizka 06.28.04 at 4:04 pm
I am not and never have been a Gephardt advocate. However, as I pointed out on Yglesias, a lot of the animosity against Gephardt comes from a.) people who are biased against boring, snuffy Midwestern types and b.) people who are biased against the Democratic core constitutencies (i.e. labor unions) to whom the Democrats are always accused of pandering.
Now, I take it as axiomatic that political leaders should throw some red meat to their core constituencies, even if it means that they compromise their high purported political ideas. (Don’t get me started on politicians’ high political ideals). Ethanol subsidies may not be a wonderful thing, but they aren’t the Holocaust either.
Second, a purely coastal, hip, metrosexual party would cruise along with a consistent 40% of the national vote. To be more specific, the Democrats entirely depend on having most of the boring states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Missouri voting for them. They can **just barely** do without Missouri and Ohio, but they need **every single one** of the others.
Or –let me rephrase what I said. The core constituency that the Democrats should take for granted is hip metrosexuals. Not boring Midwesterners.
Zizka 06.28.04 at 4:07 pm
I take no responsibility for this. Bill Gates and my ISP’s dialup connection (easystreet.com) are solely to blame.
Paul 06.28.04 at 4:45 pm
Dick Gephardt, George W. Bush, or Easy Cheese. Now there’s a new definition of Hell.
Anno-nymous 06.28.04 at 6:15 pm
Zizka writes: a lot of the animosity against Gephardt comes from a.) people who are biased against boring, snuffy Midwestern types
I don’t know if that holds water — wouldn’t that imply animosity against Vilsack as well? Anyway, the same people (hip metrosexuals) who would be biased against Midwesterners should also be biased against Southerners, which doesn’t explain the downright enthusiasm for John “Agricultural Subsidies” Edwards.
My point is merely that people are willing to look beyond their regional biases for, if nothing else, electoral vote considerations; people are not willing to look beyond their anti-Gephardt biases, and that suggests something else is at work.
Russell Arben Fox 06.28.04 at 6:16 pm
Zizka and Bob make many intelligent comments, but these are surely their most intelligent yet. Believe it or not, some American citizens actually vote for people like Gephardt. The fact that such “boring Midwesterners” may not be familiar with the profound repository of wisdom that is Giblets may indeed be reason to mock and dismiss them, but until and unless voting rights are restricted to only those who demonstrate the sufficient wit and sophistication as to be hip to Giblets, I’d suggest such makes for a crappy and demeaning electoral strategy.
Matt Weiner 06.28.04 at 6:22 pm
Seth G–Unfortunately, there aren’t any Democratic Senators from Missouri. That’s not just a cheap shot–one of the raps on Gephardt is that he won’t have any pull in Missouri outside his heavily Democratic district.
Anyway, I draw comfort from Dave Barry’s words about the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, whose responsibilities “include wearing a suit and phoning the Governor every day to see if he is dead.” Bush’s father won the election in ’88 with a completely loserly veep, so maybe Gep wouldn’t be so bad.
kevin quinn 06.28.04 at 6:36 pm
Fafnir wrote:
I did some research an yknow there isnt a duck out there who can live to be 35. It is tragic. An entire species excluded from the electoral process! I would vote for a Kerry/duck ticket in a heartbeat! That woud make America believe again.
Yes but the republicans would all be telling those duck jokes. Ask me once more and I’ll nail your beak to the bar – you know the ones. So that’s a downside. Or just “why a duck.” The Duck/Cheney debate would be fun: Quack Quack Quack! – F**k off! – Quack Quack -F**k off!
Zizka 06.28.04 at 7:07 pm
People who laugh at Gephardt laugh at Vilsack too, but a joke can really only have one punchline.
As for why some Democrats are solicitous of the inaccessible Southern vote, while flipping off the Midwest — well, given that we’re talking about the Democratic Party, the possibility that they’re morons has to be considered.
Being a Democrat isn’t always fun.
Anno-nymous 06.28.04 at 7:20 pm
An off-topic (and not original) joke with two punchlines:
Jim is wandering past a hotel pool when he comes across a group of people shouting numbers at one another. One man says “132.” and the whole group starts laughing. Another yells out “53.” and is met with knowing smiles. Jim watches this for about 5 minutes, at which point some says “321!” and everyone just dissolves in laughter. They fall off their chairs, they’re dying. Jim can’t suppress his curiosity anymore, so he asks one of the guys what’s going on.
“Oh, we meet up here every year, we’re all old friends. And to save time, we numbered our stories them and say the numbers instead of the stories — it saves time, so we can reminisce about more.”
“Alright… so why was 321 so funny?”
Punchline A) “We’d never heard that one before.”
Punchline B) “Oh, we were laughing at George — he always screws up the Scottish accent.”
bryan 06.28.04 at 8:03 pm
two things:
1.
Belle, I recognized your style and looked up to confirm you had posted this.
2.
Donald Duck is way older than 35.
He is an old, embittered boring man. Donald Duck could be Dick Cheney but Dick Cheney could never be Donald Duck, because Dick Cheney if he had nephews would already have had their spinal fluid drained to support his necrotic existence as a drake of the dark side.
JP 06.28.04 at 9:07 pm
In that case, I say let’s get him on the ballot. As I once read in an election law casebook, Donald Duck has a long and illustrious history as the candidate of choice for the disgruntled voter. Evidently, Donald has consistently outpolled every other protest vote out there by a landslide (including Mickey Mouse, who is so much more popular in every other realm), for reasons no one has ever been able to fathom.
rvman 06.28.04 at 9:14 pm
I don’t see why the Dems shouldn’t pick a duck. The Reps plucked a Quayle from the Bush a few years back. The Democratic response 4 years later involved quite a bit of Gore. Gore allowed to fester long enough to be President can be nasty, too.
Frank Wilhoit 06.28.04 at 11:04 pm
Congratulations on your ensnarement–by the ankle, meseem–in the superior noose of Giblets.
Erik 06.29.04 at 2:18 pm
If you believe the theory that the McCain ‘candidacy’ was a Karl Rove plot to make the real VP choice seem lame in comparison, then the consideration for Gephardt can only be the Dem’s counter-plot — and a damn fine one it is.
Zizka 06.29.04 at 3:07 pm
McCain is a right-wing superhawk with good press. The Dem VP buzz was submissive wetting on the part of the right-wing SM bottoms in the Democratic Party.
Susan Nunes 07.01.04 at 4:20 pm
If John Kerry picks anybody other than John Edwards as running mate, he can expect to lose 49 states.
If he picks Edwards, he will likely lose around 40 states, but it won’t be as embarrassing to the Democratic Party.
In other words, it doesn’t matter who John Kerry picks to run with him. The guy will lose the election handily to Bush.
The Republicans saw to it when they had the media crown the unelectable John Kerry as the nominee as soon as he won Iowa and New Hampshire.
monty python 07.03.04 at 6:25 pm
Disdain for boring midwesterners is probably a bad idea for Democrats in 2004, if you look at what states are in play. And I think the Dems have a real chance there, as midwesterners tend to be receptive to economic populism and are relatively iffy about wars and such, at least compared to the South. Kerry needs to do more to show that he has advantages in these areas that overcome the reluctance of socially conservative midwesterners to support the party of Zippergate.
People malign Gore’s convention fling with populism, but the fact is he jumped 17% in the polls when he did it, only to revert to unexciting Clintonian mush rhetoric later (and then lose). Kerry should realise that catching blue collar midwestern swing voters doesnt necesarrily mean cautious centrism. If he were to go populist, a working class midwestern labor guy like Gephardt might work quite well.
Yes, Gephardt is kind of a boring guy, and Vilsack isn’t exactly a thrilling fellow either (I should know, he’s my governor), but in that respect they resemble average midwesterners. It may not be a bad kind of boring, though, as its the “boring” associated with stoical workaholics from humble backgrounds, and to ordinary voters that maybe doesnt look so bad. Kerry, on the other hand…
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