GOP is licking its chops over Biden’s veep shortlist

If Joe Biden doesn’t want to blow his lead in most polls, he will follow Bill Clinton’s lead in picking a running mate.

Biden should choose a vice presidential nominee who reinforces his main message, just as Clinton, in 1992, chose Al Gore to reinforce Clinton’s message as a somewhat centrist Democrat and an avatar of a new generation of leaders.

Clinton, like Biden, was under pressure from the leftmost elements in the Democratic Party to pick a more liberal running mate. In Clinton’s case, the conventional wisdom also suggested a veep choice who also was older and from outside the South. The idea was to promote geographical, experiential, and ideological balance.

Instead, Clinton went with someone, Gore, of his same age group, philosophical approach, and region. The pairing worked like a political charm. It sent reassuring messages to centrists and “swing” voters and amplified Clinton’s image as a can-do, post-partisan, policy-wonkish reformer.

Likewise, Biden shouldn’t dilute his message. Biden is leading handily in most polls not because he is selling some popular ideology or particular agenda but because he promises a return to “normalcy” and a change to a more comfortable, steady tone.

The activist left wing of Biden’s party is too eager to defeat President Trump to sit on its hands, no matter whom he chooses as his co-pilot. But the swing voters, as ever, are soccer moms, a portion of blue-collar whites, and family-oriented (and culturally centrist) Hispanic women. They may be tired of Trump’s volatility and vindictiveness, but they aren’t in the mood for some sort of liberal revolution, either. They want steadiness, not an ideological crusade.