Rank the Vice Presidential Candidates of the last 20 years form best to worst:

[dw93]

Rank the candidates, both winners and losers from best to worst based on how much they helped/hurt the ticket. Mine would be as follows:

1. Biden
2. Cheney (not factoring in his Vice Presidency, just how the choice impacted the 2000 election)
3. Pence (Trump's other two finalists would've lost him the election, Pence brought enough "Never Trumpers for them to win)
4. Edwards
5. Ryan
6. Lieberman
7. Palin

Not including Harris as I feel it's too soon to do so, but you can include her if you wish.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

Harris
Biden
Edwards
Lieberman
Palin
Ryan
Pence
Cheney

edit: forgot Pence

[Mr. Smith]

Objectively:

Biden
Pence
Edwards
Cheney
Kaine
Ryan
Palin
Lieberman

Subjectively:

Biden
Kaine
Edwards
Palin
Cheney
Lieberman
Ryan

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

All of them were terrible that's Johnson was mentally incapacitated with war in Vietnam and Humphrey got blamed for war, too. Bush Sr got most of the blame for Iran Contra, Gephardt should of been the Prez nominee in 2000 and Veep 2004. Everyone e of them were terrible

Kaine or Warner would have best for Obama if Reade came out in 2008

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Biden
Ryan
Edwards
Kaine
Lieberman
Pence
Cheney
Palin

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Rank the candidates, both winners and losers from best to worst based on how much they helped/hurt the ticket. Mine would be as follows:

1. Biden
2. Cheney (not factoring in his Vice Presidency, just how the choice impacted the 2000 election)
3. Pence (Trump's other two finalists would've lost him the election, Pence brought enough "Never Trumpers for them to win)
4. Edwards
5. Ryan
6. Lieberman
7. Palin

Not including Harris as I feel it's too soon to do so, but you can include her if you wish.

1. Pence
2. Biden
3. Cheney
4. Ryan
5. Edwards
6. Kaine
7. Lieberman
8. Palin

Idk about Harris tbh. But Pence is the reason why Trump got elected.

[Roll Roons]

1. Pence
2. Biden
3. Ryan
4. Cheney
5. Edwards
6. Kaine
7. Lieberman
8. Palin

[SWE]

Lieberman and Pence are the only ones that actively hurt the ticket, with Lieberman being the only one that could have been the difference between winming and losing. Pence probably helped his ticket the most. The others had a pretty negligible effect.

By personal opinion:

1. Edwards
2. Kaine
3. Harris
4. Biden
5. Palin
6. Lieberman
7. Ryan
8. Pence
9. Cheney

[OSR stands with Israel]

1. Biden
2. Pence
3. Cheney
4. Kaine
5. Lieberman
6. Ryan
7. Palin
8. Edwards

[John Dule]

Unpopular opinion: Tim Kaine was one of the worst VP picks in recent years. He brought nothing to the table and didn't complement Clinton's shortcomings at all. As much as I hate Pence, he destroyed him in that debate.

[brucejoel99]

1. Biden
2. Harris

3. Pence
4. Edwards
5. Kaine
6. Cheney
7. Ryan
8. Lieberman
9. Palin

[brucejoel99]

Unpopular opinion: Tim Kaine was one of the worst VP picks in recent years. He brought nothing to the table and didn't complement Clinton's shortcomings at all. As much as I hate Pence, he destroyed him in that debate.

Totally & completely agree (here are my thoughts that I've previously shared on this matter):

Kaine was a highly qualified pick, but he was NOT a good pick. Sure, he by no means single-handedly doomed Hillary's campaign, but his choice was emblematic of why Hillary lost. Her number one challenge was convincing the Obama coalition & voters in general that she represented real change in a year when the electorate wanted an outsider. The VP pick was the one big chance for her to signal that, even though Hillary herself was the consummate establishment politician, she had heard the message loud & clear and was ready to shake things up.

And Hillary had a number of strong choices to pick from, including Warren (who clearly wanted the job), Sanders (politically unthinkable but he would've unified the party & supercharged millennial turnout), Brown (Sanders-lite), or even somebody like Castro or Booker who at least would've added charisma to the ticket & helped to keep the Obama coalition engaged.

So what happened? Hillary chose not just another insider, but one utterly lacking in charisma, apparently for no other reason than that she just felt more comfortable with Kaine than with somebody like Warren, who would've been a disruptive presence in Clintonworld. To be fair, I know Tim Kaine is a nice guy who's highly qualified & would've helped with Senate outreach, but the VP doesn't necessarily need to fulfill that role or any particular role from a governing standpoint.

It was surreal seeing Democratic Party insiders & the Washington press all sing Kaine's praises, while meanwhile it was obvious to many young &/or left-leaning voters that he was a terrible choice for the reasons I mentioned above.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

1. Harris
2. Kaine
3. Biden
4. Edwards
5. Lieberman
6. Ryan
7. Pence
8. Palin
9. Cheney

[Senator Spark]

1. Pence
2. Harris
3. Cheney
4. Biden
5. Kaine
6. Ryan
7. Edwards
8. Lieberman
9. Palin

[here2view]

Objectively:

Biden
Pence
Harris
Cheney
Kaine
Lieberman
Ryan
Edwards
Palin

[Ancestral Republican]

Lieberman and Palin were the worst. Lieberman is also one of the worst modern Democrats, period, a true embarrassment and doubly so that he represented a supposedly liberal state.

[politicallefty]

It's too soon to make a judgement on Harris. Ask me again in about 3 months. I'm not ranking them as to my liking of them as individuals or their politics.

1. Biden
2. Cheney
3. Pence
4. Edwards
5. Ryan
6. Palin
7. Kaine
8. Lieberman

I don't think there's anything McCain could've done to salvage the race with his VP pick. While I think Palin did turn off some swing voters, I think she shored up some of the conservative base and kept it from being a total wipe-out.

Biden has to be, without question, one the best choices in recent history. He complemented the ticket with his vast experience, he was acceptable to the party as part of the ticket, and he easily held his own in the debates. I only vaguely remember the debate between him and Palin, but he destroyed Paul Ryan. That was easily one of the most entertaining debates I've ever seen. If that Joe Biden can show up in the debates against Trump, it's over.

[morgieb]

I'll omit Harris as she hasn't had a chance to do much yet:

1. Biden (perfect pick. Ideal complement to Obama with his experience and WWC appeal, did well in the debates and proved a handy figure in the administration)
2. Pence (this was probably the only pick that changed the election. I think the majority of fundies would've come around, but Trump's winning margin was narrow enough that even a handful sitting it out would've killed him. Pence gave enough assurances to the fundies that Trump was going to do them right)
3. Cheney (he didn't hurt at least, and given Bush won.....)
4. Edwards (Kerry lost, but hard to really blame Edwards and he didn't do any harm. Though given what we now know about Edwards it's very lucky Kerry didn't win.....)
5. Palin (embarrassing, but she did at least win over some base voters who were otherwise unenthused by the ticket and I don't see what else McCain could've done)
6. Kaine (not a horrible choice in theory, but a bad fit for Hillary. Basically see brucejoel's post on the matter)
7. Ryan (bad choice. Was easy to smear as an ideological extremist and gave little contrast to Romney or assurances to Romney-skeptic downmarket conservatives)
8. Lieberman (bad choice. Too right-wing on key issues, didn't seem to add anything to the ticket and hurt it by going too far away from Clinton's strengths. Especially when you consider how close the election was)

Big gap between the first four and the last four.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think objectively the best pick was Pence, in terms of helping the incumbent with a clear weakness without outright causing dissonance (like the McCain/Palin or Gore/Lieberman pair). In fact, I kind of think he's the only pick that actually gave a measured benefit (as opposed to other decent picks like Biden, where the benefit is purely that he was not a drag.

Like contrast with Romney/Ryan, which was a classic misreading of why the GOP base distrusted Romney. Because the GOP elite don't understand their own electorate, they assumed the reason people disliked him was because Romney was a moderate who didn't care about the GOP's wacko economic policies, and foisted him with a Randian loon who managed to make Mitt's stregths weaknesses and elevate his clear liabilities.

In general, I think braingenius moves tend to backfire, and you should just get someone who gets on with the top figure rather than BS electoral reasons from the electoral strategists (i.e. not Kerry being forced to pretend to be friends with nightmare automaton Edwards) and not be hated by the base (i.e. McCain's terrible idea to put Loserman on the ticket because they were Senate BFF's, an idea that was if anything even worse than Palin).

[TDAS04]

Harris
Biden
Kaine
Edwards
Lieberman
Palin
Ryan
Pence
Cheney

[Earthling]

1. Biden
2. Pence
3. Cheney
4. Kaine
5. Ryan
6. Edwards
7. Lieberman
8. Palin

[morgieb]

If we're doing it subjectively:

Biden (it says a f**king lot about this field if he's first)
Kaine
Harris
Lieberman
Edwards (would be a clear first on political values alone)
Palin (at least she's just stupid)
Ryan
Pence
Cheney (why has he not been Hague'd yet?)

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Unpopular opinion: Tim Kaine was one of the worst VP picks in recent years. He brought nothing to the table and didn't complement Clinton's shortcomings at all. As much as I hate Pence, he destroyed him in that debate.

That's not an unpopular opinion, but the truth. I also agree with Brucejoel99

[Alben Barkley]

Since OP asked for how much they helped/hurt the ticket rather than how much I like them:

1. Biden: Probably swayed a number of white voters in the rust belt to feel more comfortable voting for Obama. Balanced out Obama’s inexperience with a lot of experience of his own. In 2012, pushed Obama to support gay marriage which excited the liberal base.

2. Cheney: Gave the relatively inexperienced Bush ticket some gravitas and foreign policy credentials. Every bit helped in an election that close. In 2004, was largely seen as the brains behind the War on Terror, for better or worse; clearly most of the electorate went along with it though.

3. Pence: Reassured evangelical voters who may have had reservations about Trump. Added experience and conservative credentials while not making the ticket significantly more controversial than it already was as someone like Gingrich would have. Hardly an exciting pick, however, and won’t help Trump at all this year now that the evangelicals are firmly in his camp.

4. Edwards/Ryan (tie): Both of these guys were chosen because they were seen as rising stars in their parties who could help their ticket make in-roads into a region their party was struggling to crack into (the South for Edwards, the Midwest for Ryan). Both failed. But at least they didn’t drag their tickets down or anything either.

6. Lieberman: Was chosen as part of Gore’s misguided strategy to distance himself from Clinton. Also likely alienated some more liberal/left voters who ended up going for Nader. He may have helped some with the Jewish vote in Florida, but clearly not enough.

7. Kaine: Added absolutely nothing to the ticket. Was an incredibly bland and “safe” pick that made me groan. Hillary really dropped the ball here, missed a shot to shake things up with a pick like Sherrod Brown who could have handed her the rust belt on a silver platter. Instead she chose Kaine, who didn’t deliver Virginia (she won have won it anyway), didn’t impress the Latino community with his Spanish skills, and managed to embarrass himself in a debate he lost badly against Mike Pence.

8. Palin: The only one who managed to do worse than just not add anything the ticket; she actively harmed it and probably cost it significant support. McCain probably had no chance of winning that year anyway, but boy did this backfire. At first it seemed to actually help, as Palin’s soccer mom schtick had some appeal to suburban white women. Then she opened her mouth. It was all downhill from there.

[John Dule]

Unpopular opinion: Tim Kaine was one of the worst VP picks in recent years. He brought nothing to the table and didn't complement Clinton's shortcomings at all. As much as I hate Pence, he destroyed him in that debate.

Totally & completely agree (here are my thoughts that I've previously shared on this matter):

Kaine was a highly qualified pick, but he was NOT a good pick. Sure, he by no means single-handedly doomed Hillary's campaign, but his choice was emblematic of why Hillary lost. Her number one challenge was convincing the Obama coalition & voters in general that she represented real change in a year when the electorate wanted an outsider. The VP pick was the one big chance for her to signal that, even though Hillary herself was the consummate establishment politician, she had heard the message loud & clear and was ready to shake things up.

And Hillary had a number of strong choices to pick from, including Warren (who clearly wanted the job), Sanders (politically unthinkable but he would've unified the party & supercharged millennial turnout), Brown (Sanders-lite), or even somebody like Castro or Booker who at least would've added charisma to the ticket & helped to keep the Obama coalition engaged.

So what happened? Hillary chose not just another insider, but one utterly lacking in charisma, apparently for no other reason than that she just felt more comfortable with Kaine than with somebody like Warren, who would've been a disruptive presence in Clintonworld. To be fair, I know Tim Kaine is a nice guy who's highly qualified & would've helped with Senate outreach, but the VP doesn't necessarily need to fulfill that role or any particular role from a governing standpoint.

It was surreal seeing Democratic Party insiders & the Washington press all sing Kaine's praises, while meanwhile it was obvious to many young &/or left-leaning voters that he was a terrible choice for the reasons I mentioned above.

If you could go back in time and recommend a VP to Clinton, who would you choose? I think she needed a Tester/Manchin-type personality (obviously not actually them, just someone like them) who came across as blue-collar and, to put it frankly, masculine. Kaine was too earnest and timid to properly reach out to men who, like it or not, were probably put off by having Clinton at the top of the ticket. They should've found a Ron Swanson-esque person to fill those shoes.