Kerry Spot    [ jim geraghty reporting ]
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Kerry and Edwards at a rally in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, July 8, 2004.

It seems to be down to John Edwards, Dick Gephardt, or Tom Vilsack.

John Edwards: If Kerry picks the North Carolina senator, it says something about the Democratic nominee: that he's willing to do what it takes to win, no matter what the consequences are to a Kerry presidency. There's considerable evidence that Kerry and Edwards don't get along that well:

Kerry, at an Iowa campaign event: "When I came home from Vietnam in 1969, I don't know if John Edwards was out of diapers then yet or not, I'm totally not sure. I don't know." (Edwards, 50, was 16 in 1969.) (CNN, January 19).

"Some say Kerry felt an early and understandable jealousy in 2000 when presidential nominee Al Gore seemed to give the two men roughly equal consideration as his possible running mate, even though Kerry was a three-term senator and former lieutenant governor and Edwards had never run for office until two years earlier." (Washington Post, June 27)

"Kerry openly questioned Edwards's electability, once saying he could not even carry his home state of North Carolina. The veteran senator also questioned the former trial lawyer's pursuit of the presidency after less than one term in elective office. 'And people call me ambitious?' a Globe reporter once overheard Kerry asking an aide." (The Boston Globe, June 10)

When Kerry responded to a yes-or-no question about Iraq with a 476-word answer, Edwards called it "the longest answer I ever heard to a yes-or-no question."

"Mr. Edwards, who views his own sunny disposition as a campaign asset, has confided to close associates that Mr. Kerry lacks the kind of personal appeal necessary to win against President Bush. He has also been miffed, aides said, at what he regards as Mr. Kerry's occasional snobbish behavior. Backstage at a recent debate in Wisconsin, Mr. Kerry barely greeted Mr. Edwards, while chatting up the other candidates... Edwards told reporters in Dayton, Ohio, on Monday, when asked about Sunday's debate. ''He and I are friends. But we have real differences and the voters need to know that." (New York Times, March 2)

In New York on Feb. 29, in the last presidential debate before Kerry's Super Tuesday triumph, Edwards dismissed Kerry as yesterday's news: "This is the same old Washington talk that people have been listening to for decades," he said of Kerry's remarks on taxes and spending. Kerry shot back that the "last time I looked," Edwards was a U.S. senator.

You get the feeling Kerry looks at Edwards and can't believe the good press the younger North Carolinian gets. This punk wasn't even in Vietnam!

A Kerry-Edwards ticket means that the Massachusetts senator has said 'to heck with all that.' Edwards is the favorite choice of a majority of Democratic senators, southern state Democratic party officials, a majority of Gallup-poll respondents, the Service Employees International Union, and Ted Kennedy. (You also have to wonder how much the Kennedy endorsement is worth, now that we know from the Boston Globe that the senior Massachusetts Democrat quietly backed Edwards over Kerry in the 2000 derby to be Al Gore's running mate, according to former aides.)

Edwards would probably — probably — be an okay vice president, even though each week President Kerry would grind his teeth at another New York Times profile piece remarking about how smooth and persuasive the veep was. You have to wonder if Edwards would chafe at the pre-Gore, pre-Cheney vice-presidential role of attending state funerals. Their strained relationship and differing levels of charisma would be like President Al Gore trying to rein in Vice President Bill Clinton.

If Kerry doesn't pick Edwards, that's something of a testament to the senator as well: He's said to all of the above groups, "I don't care what you think." Of course, picking "Not Edwards" would bring a decent number of furious columns and commentary, from Edwards fans at places like Slate, The New Republic, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post, poking Kerry for putting his personality before his electoral needs.

Dick Gephardt: Few names are as familiar to voters as Gephardt's, who has been running for president on and off for 16 years and who served as the House's majority, then minority leader from 1989 to 2002. Way back in 1988, Berke Breathed made fun of him in the comic strip "Bloom County" for flip-flopping and for not having eyebrows. Gephardt was a supporter of the Iraq war, but the man who could not restore the Democrats to the majority in 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002 made up for it with his party by tattooing Bush with the label "miserable failure."

Some of the unions have been talking about how excited they would be if Gephardt is the pick — one of the few cases where "excited" and "Gephardt" have appeared in the same sentence — but it's not like the unions are going to shift to Bush.

Gephardt is a safe choice. Safe. Dependable. Predictable. Tame. Flat. Stale.

Kerry aides have said if it comes down to comfort, Gephardt is far ahead of the other contenders. But the reaction of the party, the media, the comedians, the various interest groups, and ultimately the voters will be mostly "ho-hum" if the man from Missouri gets the call.

On the other hand, Kerry's been running a very safe campaign. He's talked about traditional Democratic themes. He hasn't dared consider a "Sistah Souljah" moment, taking on the fringe of a party interest group. None of his policy proposals are terribly daring or politically risky. In fact, over Kerry's entire political career, it's hard to find a moment where he's taken a big risk, taken on an entrenched constituency within his own party. Clearly, Kerry is comfortable with safe choices.

However, teaming John Kerry and Dick Gephardt on the same ticket risks the creation of what scientists call a "boredom vortex," or "boretex phenomenon." This occurs when so much dull, flat, pallid monotone rhetoric gets concentrated into a smaller and smaller volume so that the gravitational attraction increases, and eventually a point is reached when even light is not traveling fast enough to escape.

Tom Vilsack: Everything the Kerry Spot wrote about Vilsack a little while ago still stands. But here's one more point.

Why is Edwards getting mentioned? Because he did pretty well in the primaries and many Democrats, and particularly Southern ones, like him.

Why is Gephardt getting mentioned? Because unions like him.

Bob Graham? Florida. Sam Nunn? Defense experience, gravitas. Hillary? Immense popularity with Democrats.

Every other name that has been mentioned has a clear, easily identifiable reason to be on the short list. Except Vilsack.

What interest group has been touting the Iowa governor? What supporters does he have in the media? Had anybody outside of his home state known anything about him before a few weeks ago?

Without any outside forces pushing for Vilsack, inside sources must have gotten him on the short list. In short, he's in the final three because John Kerry wants him there. Clearly, at some point in the past, Vilsack made some dynamite impression on Kerry, enough for Kerry to say this guy is worth taking a long, hard serious look at.

And despite all the other criteria — geography, appeal to swing voters, readiness to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, charisma, gravitas — the vice-presidential nod is an election where only one vote counts: Kerry's.

John Kerry likes Tom Vilsack, and that might be the edge.