Vice-presidential nominations

[Volokh, Eugene]

	I have no idea how to even understand Sandy's message.  It
sounds like it's suggesting that nominating a candidate partly based on
her electability rather than her theoretical optimality for the job is
somehow in the same league as deliberately, fraudulently, and
feloniously breaking into voting machines -- but how on Earth could this
be so?  Proposing a candidate partly based on her electability is the
quintessence of democratic politics; primary voters' choices of a
Presidential candidate, and not just nominees' choices of
Vice-Presidents, often rest on this.  The whole point of legitimate
democratic politics is to propose a candidate who will do what you think
is best for the country but at the same time will actually get elected
so she has a chance to do what you think is best on this.  The best
President might be some policy wonk who has no charisma and no ability
to run an effective campaign; does it follow that the party that thinks
him the best has some duty to nominate him, or else be tantamount to
people who try to steal elections by manipulating voting machines?

	On top of that, manipulating voting machines isn't just a crime:
It's thwarting the will of the people, and deceiving the public about
who actually got the most votes, two things that you'd think are bad in
a democracy.  Nominating someone partly based on her electability is
neither of these.

	I must not be grasping something about Sandy's post, but I
really see nothing whatever relevant about the analogy, which would be
outrageous if it weren't so surreal.

	Eugene
 
 
Sandy Levinson writes:
 
	Also, relative to an earlier posting aboug Bayesian thought, if
some Republican down the line decides that it is really, rally important
to elect John McCain and that the best way to do that would be to
manipulate the voting machines, what is wrong with doing that?  It is,
to be sure, illegal, as the choice of Sarah Palin most certainly was
not.  But is there any other difference.  Are Republicans authorized,
indeed obligated, to do whatever is not out-and-out illegal in order to
forego the perceived costs of an Obama election.  Ditto, of course, for
Democrats.  But if we're Holmesians, why should breaking the law matter,
so long as the benefits are high enough.