Veepstakes Demographics: How Did I Do?

In May, I made a few predictions regarding the "demographic affiliation" of the Republican and Democratic vice presidential nominees. Now that we know who the running mates are, I can see how I did. My predictions are in Italics, followed by the results:

First of all, no more than one of the running mates will be a white male Christian. It is quite possible neither one of them will be a WASP, but definitely not both of them.

I got this one right. Joe Biden is a white male Christian. Sarah Palin is a white female Christian. I was wrong about the possibility that both won't be WASPs, but I was right that at least one won't be. Joe Biden is a Roman Catholic (the P in WASP stands for Protestant).

Since I doubt that all four people on the two major tickets will be senators, no more than one current senator will be a VP nominee.

Indeed, one of the four people on the major party tickets is not, nor ever was, a senator: Sarah Palin.

Both will come from either red (conservative) or purple (swing) states. Neither one will come from a blue (liberal) state, unless Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton run together.

I was wrong here. Only one of the running mates fits this description. Gov. Palin comes from Conservative Alaska. Sen. Biden comes from the safe Democratic state of Delaware. The swing states are not on either ticket.

If Barack Obama wins the Democratic presidential nomination, his running mate will not be black. John McCain's running mate will probably not be black, either.

Sure enough, both VP candidates are white.

Both running mates will be between the ages of 50 and 65.

I was half right, sort of. Sarah Palin has not reached this age range - she is 44. Joe Biden is exactly 65, but will be 66 by Inauguration Day.

One or both of the running mates will be a member of at least one of the following groups: women, Latinos and Jews.

No Latinos or Jews, but Sarah Palin is definitely a woman. I predicted correctly.

Neither RM will be openly gay or bisexual, nor will be even suspected as such.

In this still homophobic age, this one was a no-brainer.

At least one, but probably both, will have previous executive experience as a governor, major city mayor, United States Cabinet member, diplomat, high ranking military officer or a prosecutor.

Well, technically I was correct. One running mate, Sarah Palin, indeed has executive experience, but not much. She has been governor of the small state of Alaska for less than half a term (two years), and before that was mayor of a tiny city. I'd say that even Joe Biden, as the chairman of two powerful committees - the judiciary and especially the foreign relations committee, has more executive, and certainly diplomatic, experience than Gov. Palin, although he has never held an outright executive office.

My score: Six right, 2 half right, none completely wrong. You could say that's 7 out of 8. Not bad.

Congratulations, John McCain

Now that Senator Barack Obama has won the Democratic nomination for president, John McCain's chances of becoming the 44th President of the United States of America are very high. I have a feeling that John McCain will win the electoral college by a large margin, though the popular vote will be very close. Obama might even win the popular vote by a percent or two. McCain will win most, if not all, of the swing states.

This isn't wishful thinking. I believe that when the choice is either Obama or McCain, Obama is the lesser of evils. McCain would be a complete disaster. Obama would be a disaster, too, but not as much as McCain.

I didn't like Obama's speech to AIPAC. He went so much overboard, going as far as promising a united Jerusalem, that it became unbelievable. There's no real reason for him to oppose giving East Jerusalem to the Palestinians as their capital other than to win the Jewish vote.

Here's what will be most likely to get him as much of the Jewish vote as possible: picking Hillary Clinton as his running mate. If he doesn't want Bill and Hill on his back, he can choose one of Clinton's top supporters, Ed Rendell, the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania.

Just a thought.