Tuesday night at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio, Vice Presidential candidates Richard Cheney and John Edwards faced off in their one and only debate.  The substance of the debate was neither particularly interesting nor revealing since each candidate defended their running mate and their party’s policy proposals and positions – albeit, more strongly and with more efficacy than either of their running mates were capable of achieving a week ago.
 
In fact, the selections of Cheney and Edwards as vice presidential candidates marks the first time in history that the vice president has been chosen for more than the mere electoral votes their selection brings to the ticket.  In all previous presidential races, the vice president was chosen for electoral significance: Clinton’s selection of Gore solidified the southern vote for Democrats; Bush’s selection of Quayle helped him win the regional votes necessary; Reagan’s selection of Bush, in a decision similar to Kerry’s selection of Edwards, combined two former primary opponents into one effective ticket; Carter’s selection of Mondale helped secure the ideological and regional votes; and so on back through history.  In the end, the vice presidents were chosen for the ticket’s electoral needs.  For Cheney and Edwards, however, their presence on the ticket is not for just the electoral opportunities they bring.

Both President George W. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry have substantial and serious flaws in their character, flaws that would effectively torpedo their chances of success if they had not selected the vice presidential candidates that they did.  Cheney and Edwards offset these fatal flaws, but they also have their own flaws that Bush and Kerry help to balance.  On November 2, Americans will have the choice between two president/vice president combinations that separately from each other would be neither appealing nor desirable.

Bush’s most noticeable flaw is his complete lack of debating skills and a frustrating inability to use the English language to make his points effectively.  While he is intelligent, his awkwardness as a speaker and his apparent incapacity to sound coherent do not reinforce this idea.  Cheney, on the other hand, is an excellent speaker who makes his points coolly and rationally for the entire audience.  He is able to explain his party’s position with efficiency and with a logic that makes sense.  Unfortunately for Cheney, he has health issues and he has been portrayed as a dark, evil presence in the world by the liberal media.  He is, in a word, unlikable.  Bush counters this.  Regardless of the innumerable attempts by the media and Democrats to malign his character and turn the people against him, Bush remains someone that the majority of Americans both like and trust on a personal level.  Together, Cheney and Bush make an effective combination even if separately they would be utterly incapable of holding office.

Kerry’s most serious flaw is his lack of a solid core belief.  He panders for his votes even while insisting that he never does such a thing.  The senator is also a wealthy elitist who insists and believes that he knows better than everyone else because he has been in combat.  After all, what candidate for federal office has ever referred to himself as a hero so many times over the course of a campaign?  All of these things couple together to create a candidate who appears arrogant and patronizing, even if he doesn’t intend to be.  Edwards counters all of that.  He is a youthful-appearing, self-made candidate who came from humble roots and who has accomplished a lot.  Edwards is a likable person who can show excitement and talk to people without appearing arrogant and without constantly trumpeting his achievements.  The man’s problem is that he lacks legislative experience.  The sum total of his experience in elected offices is his sole term as senator from North Carolina, a far cry from the federal experiences or elected experiences of Kerry, and this is the way that they balance each other out: Kerry has a two decade long legislative record that, even unmentioned and unexplained by his campaign, suggests to the American people he has the experience to lead.  By putting their primary-season bickering aside and pairing up, Kerry and Edwards are that much closer to the goal that neither would be capable of achieving separately.

In the end, both the Bush/Cheney and Kerry/Edwards tickets, if divided, would be fatally flawed.  For the first time in modern history, we have two major party tickets that offer the American people a combined president and vice president that separately lack the necessary skills to be an effective Commander-in-Chief.  Regardless of who wins on Election Day, the United States will continue to have a powerful and influential Vice President because without him, both Bush and Kerry would be, unfortunately, wholly incapable of doing their job well.

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