Veepstakes 2008

John Nance Garner might have called the vice presidency a “bucket of warm spit,” but that’s not stopping most melting Washingtonians from playing Veepstakes ’08 — the latest parlor game designed to pick running mates for Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Halls of Congress. 24/7 on the cable news channels. K Street. And on bar stools all across town. The only ante required to play the game is that you can breathe, have an opinion, and promise to not smack anyone who picks the one politician who drives you absolutely nuts.

My latest column in The Hill encourages the candidates to look beyond “electoral requirements” and think soberly about their important choice, especially in light of the realities of a post-9/11 world.

In short: Don’t just put someone on the ticket because he or she can deliver Ohio, or Florida, or any other particular state, for that matter, but consider the bigger picture.

Thirteen days after taking the presidential oath of office, Harry Truman first learned about the atomic bomb.

A few months after that, he faced arguably the toughest decision ever faced by any American president in history, before or since.

A steep learning curve for a VP who first came to Washington as the hand-selected choice of a corrupt Kansas City powerbroker.

Truman was chosen as FDR’s running mate at the 1944 Democratic convention because he was an acceptable compromise candidate who could make peace between two warring factions of the Democratic Party.

By his own admission, when FDR died, Truman wasn’t near ready for the task ahead.

Although making, or keeping, peace within one’s political party is something that both Obama and McCain need to be mindful of, they should also keep one eye on history as they consider who would be the best VP.

And, as much as ethnicity, gender, electoral demographics, key states, and all the rest are always going to part of the consideration to make it around the board and collect 270 electoral votes, Obama and McCain owe it to their countrymen to answer one solitary question: Who do they most trust to keep the country safe and secure should they die in office, become incapacitated or be unable finish their term for any other reason?

Although this kind of thinking could well produce a boring running mate, it is the only way to go when we are talking about continuity and stewardship of the greatest nation on the face of the earth.