In 2012 should Obama drop Biden and go with Gillibrand?

[Padfoot]

I like Gillibrand, she is a nice moderate DEM, but the fact that were talking about her as the next president days after her appointment is ludicrous.

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People are getting way too overexcited about her, and the 2016 race in general for that matter.  There are multiple other discussion worthy topics taking place before we get to 2016, like the NY Senate primary in 2010, the NY Senate general election in 2010, and the NY Senate general election in 2012.  Everyone seems to forget that Gillibrand has to make it through all of that before she'd even be considered for 2016.  If Gillibrand is still around after 2012, then we'll talk.

I've never really understood all this talk about replacing Biden as VP. I don't see anything that would really cause that to happen, and I wonder why it's become so popular.

Biden is the oldest VP ever, I think, and look at what a mess the Republicans were in without the VP as a natural successor to the President. It's a beguiling thought and Biden seems like such a good sport about everything, while he has no ambitions to succeed Obama.
 

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I too have been puzzled by all the "replace Biden" talk.  Yes, he is old and probably won't run for president in 2016 if Obama serves two terms but that doesn't mean there will be a vacuum of Democratic leadership.  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.

[Padfoot]

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.

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.

[Padfoot]

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).

The point is to include only people who won the nomination.  The original statement I was refuting claimed that Obama needed to replace Biden with a "natural successor" to run in 2016.  All I was trying to prove is that a sitting VP has no benefits as "natural successor" over other candidates.

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Again, the idea is that Obama's VP needs to be some sort of "natural successor" in order to keep the White House in Democratic hands.  Including all former VPs doesn't follow this rule.  Plus, the only reason Johnson and Ford ended up president is because Kennedy died and Nixon resigned.  We're talking about getting elected, not the line of succession.

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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.