Okay: for veep? - Republican vice presidential choice

National Review, August 12, 1996 by Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.

### Buckley Jr., Wm. F.

NEW YORK, JULY 16

Speculation on who will be named (or should be) as vice-presidential candidate alongside Bob Dole discloses one or more disqualifying characteristics. James Baker is too establishmentarian, Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett too mistaken on immigration, Dan Lungren not well enough known, Tom Ridge too weak on abortion, Don Nickles too hidebound against abortion, John Engler too uncharismatic, George Voinovich too fond of taxes, Dick Cheney too fragile in health, etc. etc. etc. The point of this exercise is that something could be found to disqualify George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. There is something wrong with everybody except thee and me, and sometimes I'm not all that sure about thee.

My own rule dates back to 1964 when I earnestly pleaded, in public and in private, that Senator Barry Goldwater name Dwight Eisenhower as his Vice President. On that proposal there were two camps of killjoys. The first maintained that an Eisenhower in the Executive Office would diminish the luster of a bright conservative activist in the White House. The second, that the Twenty-Second Amendment stood in the way. The answer to the first was that Ike's political positions were substantially irrelevant -- Goldwater was a voice, not an echo. The answer to the second objection was that the Twenty-Second Amendment forbids the election as President, not Vice President, of anyone who has served two terms.

My point then was, and continues to be, that a vice-presidential candidate should be named with almost exclusive concern for the strength contributed to the ticket. To refuse to vote for a President whose views are congenial with yours because the Vice President's views are less than congenial is the equivalent of voting on the assumption that the President will die in office. That doesn't happen very often.

If the only idea is to win, there is one electric possibility: Elizabeth Dole.

Yes, that would be the most brazen act of nepotism in democratic political history, and as a matter of decorum, Senator Dole should coyly leave the scene, assigning implicit responsibility to the convention delegates, who of course have explicit responsibility to begin with. Obviously he would need to let it be known that he would not attempt to veto her selection.

Now what would be accomplished by naming her?

There is simply zero question about her qualification to serve. She is a lawyer, Harvard Law School no less. She has served two Presidents in the Cabinet, as Secretary of Transportation and of Labor. She was selected as President of the American Red Cross, which is very far removed from the sinecure class. She has appeared everywhere in America always leaving the impression of a superbly competent human being with a comprehensive knowledge of public affairs. And --

Yes, she is a woman. Geraldine Ferraro is a woman. What did that do for Vice President Mondale? Nothing. But that tends to happen the first time around. Al Smith, the first Catholic to run for President, was slaughtered. Jack Kennedy made it. Geraldine Ferraro suffered from some of her husband's difficulties with Eagle Scout rules. Mrs. Dole has no such problems. Mrs. Ferraro was good at political repartee, but has nothing like the comprehensive skills of Mrs. Dole. A debate between Elizabeth Dole and Al Gore would be a splendid event, and may the best woman win.

To look at it in a different way, one that seeks to inquire into the dramatic possibilities open to Senator Dole: 1) At this moment his campaign is dead on its feet. His only immediately visible assets are the negative emanations of Mr. Clinton. If the Republican alternative were a pure abstraction -- a merely mythical figure -- that abstraction would at this point have about the same standing in the polls that Mr. Dole has. 2) There is a gender gap. Mr. Dole is acutely aware of this and seeks to do something about it, e.g., mitigating the militancy of his pro-life position. There would surely be no movement more decisive among inert women voters than the naming of a woman to the post. But women voters of this category are not galvanized by the mere nomination of a woman. Nothing would hurt their cause more than to come up with a semi-competent woman candidate.

There is no such risk with Elizabeth Dole. As happened in Great Britain with Margaret Thatcher, it would instantly be established that a woman can handle government leadership as well as anybody.

The only problem one can see is that the Secret Service, if existing rules were applied, would forbid Mr. and Mrs. Dole to fly in the same airplane. A tolerable privation.