Flashes of Panic

Since the major-party candidates announced their nominees for Vice President in the last month, I feel like I’ve been reading more about those nominees (one in particular) than about the top-of-ticket candidates. Part of this is because they’re new and there’s not much about the candidates themselves that didn’t get hashed over in the primaries, of course.

I see a lot of VP discussion centering on the nominee’s role in the campaign and the “qualified to be President” argument. (The last VP to become President through succession was Gerald Ford; despite the candidate’s age, we can probably count all of them in U.S. history on our fingers.)

What I haven’t seen, and what is probably more relevant, is the reminder that the VP is also President of the Senate and the 101st vote in the event the Senate deadlocks with a 50-50. That deciding vote doesn’t happen too often, but reminding voters about it might help clarify the importance of the VP pick a little more: it’s an extra, nation-wide Senate race.

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