residential candidates used to follow two basic rules in picking running mates:
1.Wait for your national convention to unveil your choice.
2.Balance your ticket in terms of ideology, geography, and resume (foreign policy experience if you've been a governor, executive experience if you've been a legislator, etc.).
Bill Clinton broke the second rule eight years ago when he picked a Clinton-like clone, another tall, Southern, mostly-moderate centrist, US Senator Al Gore.
Here's a suggestion for how Gore can inject some pizazz into his lumbering campaign, stuck in neutral for the past month or two, while George W. Bush has edged ahead by 7 points in one recent poll.
First, surprise everyone by announcing his anointed running mate early, leaving the rest of May, June, and all of July to have him or her run around the country, generating publicity, interest, and doubling the ticket's presence on the ground.
Bush has to make his choice public no later than the GOP convention opening July 31 in Philadelphia. Gore could wait another two weeks, till the Democrats convene in Los Angeles. Why jump the gun? Gore needs help now. He should jump-start his campaign, bogged down in the Washington tar pit over issues like Elian Gonzalez, China trade policy, and fund-raising hangovers.
Gore needs a running mate to share some of the heavy work of knuckling Bush's suggestions on the economy, Social Security, guns, etc. Making all the speeches himself about what lousy ideas Bush came up with makes Gore look tendentious, nettlesome, querulous. And betting wrong on the public relations fallout of the Elian soap opera reinforced a lot of doubts people harbor about Gore as a political opportunist.
Putting a running mate out early pressures Bush to explain why he's taking so much time to make up his mind. And while there may be a small downside to Gore's naming his pick early - would-be running mates might do you some favors - the pluses far outweigh the minuses. Breaking the mold is not a trait for which Gore is noted. Shaking up his campaign worked after previous stalls; why not try it again? It's not like Al is wowing them with his low-rent, another-day-another-elementary-school-photo-op routine.
As to the eventual Democratic vice-presidential nominee, I am happy to furnish the Gore camp with my suggestions. Running mates don't win it for you; but they can make it harder for you. George McGovern being skewered because Tom Eagleton admitted having been treated for severe depression remains Exhibit A for how to get sandbagged by ineffective vetting; Geraldine Ferraro's husband's business dealings, from her run with Walter F. Mondale in 1984, remain Exhibit B.
Warren Christopher, the former secretary of state, is riffling through resumes for the Gore campaign. He met recently with Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, a conservative Democrat on many scorecards. But Lieberman projects the pained expression of a gent who ate a bad fish at lunch and needs an antacid pronto.
Hispanic Democrats talk up Energy Secretary Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who also has United Nations experience. In Illinois, a state the Democrats almost have to have to win, the affable US Senator Dick Durbin is touted as the sort of business-savvy Roman Catholic a Gore ticket could profit by.
No one in the Clinton Cabinet seems particularly well-groomed for veep-ship. The Democrats' powerhouse governor, Gray Davis of California, says no to rumors about him. Florida Senator Bob Graham probably took himself out of business with his home-cooking performance during the Elian furor.
There are few female officeholders after California Senator Dianne Feinstein with much of a case for being vice president. Former US Senate majority leader George Mitchell of Maine is still mentioned for his foreign policy gravitas and legislative experience. Bill Bradley and Gore clearly lack the personal chemistry for Bradley to go anywhere with him. Bush's strength in the South and West makes it less likely that any Southern or Western Democrat can break the GOP hold on the Sunbelt (West Coast excepted).
Which brings me to John F. Kerry, the other senator from Massachusetts. No, Kerry is not at all interested in running for governor, a retrograde step if ever there was one. At 56, with 14 years of Senate experience and a resume any pol would be happy to flash, Kerry is definitely in the mix for VP. Yes, Massachusetts is a given for just about any Democrat running for president against any Republican not named Reagan. So by the old geographical ticket-balancing scale, Kerry doesn't bring you anything you didn't have already.
But he is one of the best campaigners, and best debaters, in the field. Over nine hourlong televised debates, he grappled with Bill Weld in 1996, a heavyweight championship campaign by any definition, and beat a very popular and able incumbent governor by 7 percent.
A war hero with a Silvar Star from Vietnam, a dogged criminal investigator by training whose detective skills are unmatched in Senate hearings' annals of the BCCI banking scandal and Latin American drug cartel depredations, Kerry is a cool and polished TV performer who'd be ferocious in debating any Republican rival.
He was two years ahead of George W. Bush at Yale, ''and you're 10 years ahead of him now,'' a Kerry backer cracked Friday. Kerry is fatalistic; he knows you can't actively campaign for the job without looking too pushy. He knows Christopher has already sounded out Teddy Kennedy on the Mahatma's willingness to have his seatmate picked.
There's one drawback: Should Gore-Kerry win, Republican Governor Paul Cellucci would get to name a successor who'd get a two-year-long leg up on the next election. But no one seriously thinks the Democrats are going to win back the Senate this November, so being down one more vote there is not such a big deal.
The White House will very probably be decided by five states: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan. That's the battleground. And Kerry's hole card? His wife, Teresa Heinz, is still quite popular in Pennsylvania for her philanthropic efforts. Her first husband, John Heinz, was a well-liked GOP senator until his death. Put it all together and Gore could do a lot worse than Kerry, who'd be a tiger on TV in debates, and could give Bush fits all summer long.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
