Ignoring the buffoons we have to choose between for President, who would you vote for based only on the Vice President candidate?
Conspicuously absent from the choices: Mindy Finn. And considering she's going to get actual electoral college votes, and Weld and Baraka aren't ... Mindy Finn’s Quest for the Vice Presidency, by Ericka Andersen, National Review Yeah, I voted for Kaine ... but it's getting a little weird how stubbornly determined everyone is to ignore McMullin/Finn.
Voted for Kaine, but man the Libertarians made a mistake not flipping their ticket. Weld would have been a far better choice (and far, far better spokesman) than Johnson.
Though I admit that I was disappointed with Kaine's debate performance; I could never vote for an ultra-conservative, ultra-right wing for anything. Just ain't gonna happen.
I'm one of Kaine's constituents, and I've been less than impressed with what he's done. A few months ago I sent letters to all my elected officials about a regional problem that coincidentally requires congressional approval for any meaningful solution. I got responses (mostly form letters) from everybody except him within about a week; his response (also a form letter, one that didn't particularly reflect my comments to boot) took over a month. At that point, why even bother responding? Action had already been taken by other parties and it was already severely detrimental to his constituents He seems to be more focused on his next career step rather than his current responsibilities, even more than McAuliffe who isn't shy about his connections nor his aspirations. Realistically, VPs don't have a lot of real responsibility so I'm not sure what exactly he will do in office, but I've been underwhelmed by him for years. I suppose that means we'll likely have a special election in the spring, but I haven't heard any rumblings about who will be running. [Edit: Apparently the governor will appoint a replacement, and we would have a special election as part of the normal fall 2017 cycle.] I honestly don't know too much about the other VP candidates (though my parents are Pence's constituents, so I have some familiarity with him), so I really don't know who I would pick if they were the top name on the ticket
<Realistically, VPs don't have a lot of real responsibility> They basically have only two Constitutional responsibilities that are spelled out: 1). Become the President if that becomes necessary; 2). Break a tie in the Senate if there is one. In practical terms, however, VP's have a lot of real responsibility (and power) IF the president in question grants it. And our recent history is all over the map. Bush Sr. granted Quayle almost nothing. Clinton and Obama granted Gore and Biden a few actual things, mostly things those veeps were interested in to begin with. And then there's Bush Jr., who granted Cheney all sorts of power and influence - you can't say he didn't have a tremendous impact on what went down in DC, especially in the first term. My guess is Hillary would take a page from Bill's book and give Kaine some responsibility in areas in which he has an interest.
