In 2012 should Obama drop Biden and go with Gillibrand?

[Mr. Morden]

In fact, I'd argue that the VP isn't really the greatest position to run for president from anyways as the track record of former VPs as presidential candidates is rather spotty.  Looking back at the last 60 years you have 8 former VP's who ran for president sometime after they served as Vice President: Truman, Johnson, Humphrey, Nixon, Ford, Mondale, Bush, and Gore.  Of those men, Bush was the only sitting VP to be elected president and he lost his re-election bid 4 years later.  Truman and Johnson were both elected president after already serving some time in the office due to their predecessors' deaths so they don't really count.  Nixon ran unsuccessfully as the sitting VP in '60 and when he came back to win in 68' he defeated Humphrey, the sitting VP.  Ford was the sitting president when he ran and had only served 8 months as VP prior to replacing Nixon, plus he wasn't even elected as VP in the first place.  And last but not least is Gore who I think we are all pretty familiar with.  All-in-all, there really isn't a whole lot of recent historical precedent that points to the sitting VP being a strong candidate for the incumbent party.

And in that same time period....the last 60 years.....how many state governors have there been?  How many US senators have there been?  Thousands?  And how many of those people eventually became president?  Only a small handful.  Either way, no matter what office you hold, your chances of eventually being elected president are small.  I don't see how being VP gives you worse odds than you'd have in one of those other jobs.

[Mr. Morden]

NO!

Stop the orgasmic Gillibrand talk.

Bless you.  This is getting worse than Walter and Hillary, Phil and Santorum and several posters and Mark Warner.

Still has a ways to go before reaching "Winfield and Romney" levels.

Edit: Just noticed that it was Winfield who started this thread.  I guess that's sort of ironic....or something.

[Mr. Morden]

Governors: Dewey, Stevenson, Carter, Regan, Dukakis, Clinton, Bush 43.  4 out of 7 won, 57%
Senators: Kennedy, Goldwater, Dole, Kerry, McCain, Obama.  2 of 6 won, 33%
Sitting VPs: Nixon, Humphrey, Gore, Bush 41.  1 of 4, 25%

As you can see, being the sitting VP has little advantage comparatively.  If you throw in Mondale and Nixon's second run then the stats improve slightly but your chances are still better if you're a Senator.  Of course if you include Truman, Johnson, and Ford the stats are somewhat better than being a Senator but are still worse than being governor.  But those three were all sitting presidents when they ran so as I said before, they don't really count.  Bottom line, being the VP holds no real advantage over other high-profile elected offices.

But you're only counting people who actually got the nomination.  Lots of governors and senators ran for president and never even got the nomination.  Others probably *wanted* to run, but were deterred because they didn't think they had a large enough national profile to give them a shot at the nomination (whereas they might have had a shot if they'd been VP).

Also, sidenote: You're comparing apples and oranges by limiting the VPs to *sitting* VPs, whereas in the governors category you count people who were *former* governors at the time they were elected president (like Reagan).  Why include the "sitting" requirement?  Four of the eleven VPs we had between Nixon and Cheney ended up as president at some point (whether by election or by taking office when the president dies or resigns).  Two others (Humphrey and Gore) came so close to being elected president that a minor change in circumstances would have gotten them there.

On the flip side, we've had hundreds (thousands?) of governors and senators over the last 50 years, and only a handful of them have made it to the White House.  All things considered, being VPOTUS seems like it offers the best odds at getting you into the Oval Office.

[Mr. Morden]

Of course if you're going to look at every single person who ever ran in a primary or on a third party ticket then the VP is the best spot to be.  But again, not the point.  We're not talking about a politician's odds of getting into the White House.  We're talking about the party's odds of winning with the VP as their nominee.

Oops, sorry.  You're right.  I think I was only half paying attention to your initial post on this, and thought you were arguing something else entirely.