Talk:Democratic Party vice presidential candidates, 2008/Archive 1

Hagel
Chuck Hagel is a Republican. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.185.184.49 (talk) 18:53, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't mean they can't nominate him. --WizardOfTheCDrive (talk) 01:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

The "Candidates Gallery" that has pictures of all the candidates has a photo of Chuck Hagel, yet he is NEVER mentioned throughout the article as having been considered. Either his photo should be removed or his named should be added to the article. Would an editor like to decide? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.123.158.30 (talk) 20:56, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

John Edwards says he won't be a VP candidate again
Could someone get a link to an article that says that? My internet is screwy. --WizardOfTheCDrive (talk) 01:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Somebody explain
How is Al Gore eligible to become VP again? Doesn't he have a term limit also just like Clinton? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.166.175.146 (talk) 17:46, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There appears to be no limit, per Vice President of the United States.--Appraiser (talk) 20:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Future of this article
Over the course of the next 2 months, this list could potentially dwindle down to one selected person. As names drop off, I think we should keep them, adding notes about when (and maybe why) they were eliminated as potential candidates - in order to preserve the historical record.--Appraiser (talk) 16:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This article (and it's Republican counterpart) are of an unusual type. Nobody runs for vice president, until he/she is chosen as a running mate by the presidential (presumptive) nominee. GoodDay (talk) 22:59, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * agreed. But I think it will be interesting to see who was considered 10 or 100 years hence.--Appraiser (talk) 14:22, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that after the nominee is selected, we should retain the list of "also-rans" for lack of a better word. E.g., list of United States Democratic vice presidential candidates who didn't get selected, 2008 Aldrich Hanssen (talk) 10:09, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My guess is, after McCain & Obama make their selections? this article (and it's Republican counter-part) will eventually be deleted. GoodDay (talk) 19:21, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My hope is that the article be retained with most of the names that are on it now, plus new ones added in the next two months. Renaming may be appropriate though. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a "top 25" list for every historical election? Where else but Wikipedia would this information be retained?--Appraiser (talk) 20:38, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A top 25 list? It certainly would be a huge undertaking for anyone ambitious enough to create them. GoodDay (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd personally like to see this eliminated or merged with another article, such as United States presidential election, 2008. This is too trivial to deserve much of its own article in the future, especially given that VP picks are pure speculation anyways unless you're looking at the candidate's short list, which doesn't happen. This also is flirting with the line of WP:NOT#NEWS. I'm putting in the merger propasal shortly. Bradkoch2007 (talk) 18:35, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Colin Powell
Colin Powell on a Dem. ticket? He is also on McCain's page I removed him. ⁂†Poison the Well†⁂ (talk) 06:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * He is just as much a speculated nominee as the other names on here, moreso even than some. -- Fifty7 (talk) 17:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Powell is mentioned in the cited source, which is the criterion used in this article. Hopefully the edit war will stop.--Appraiser (talk) 12:49, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Warner
We took off the Governor of Ohio why arent we taking future senator warner off? Gang14 (talk) 23:32, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think everyone who is sourced should stay on, with a note about any reason he/she is no longer in contention. Otherwise the article will dwindle to the one candidate eventually chosen. Keeping the names will provide an historical record.--Appraiser (talk) 12:11, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Valid article?
Excuse me, but this article just seems to be speculation about a running mate who won't ben known for quite some time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.25.24.244 (talk) 02:16, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This article consolidates information provided in the cited sources about potential vice presidential candidates. Would it not be informative to have such lists going back 230 years? That task would probably be impossible to create, but we can have such lists going forward if we choose to. I happen to think it's worthwhile.--Appraiser (talk) 12:11, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Merge proposal
As Barack Obama presidential campaign vice-presidential selection process is a short article which overlaps significantly with this one, I move that it be merged into this article. Skomorokh 05:56, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

✅ per clear consensus.--JayJasper (talk) 05:36, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support The merge makes perfect sense, as it seems utterly redundant to have the separate articles.--JayJasper (talk) 20:36, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Makes sense. GoodDay (talk) 18:53, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support Merge and redirect Barack Obama presidential campaign vice-presidential selection process. -- Yellowdesk (talk) 02:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support --StuffOfInterest (talk) 19:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Support makes sense Gang14 (talk) 23:37, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Merge into United States presidential election, 2008 proposal
Bradkoch2007 (talk) 18:45, 18 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Merge The US Vice Presidential selection process is performed almost entirely by the Presidential candidate, who normally does not release details on who he/she is considering. This article should be eliminated or merged with another article, such as United States presidential election, 2008.  VP picks are pure speculation anyways unless you're looking at the candidate's short list, which doesn't happen.  We will know in a few days who the candidate is, making much of this speculation too trivial to deserve much of its own article in the future.  This article is flirting with the guidelines in NOT.


 * It looks as if I need to clarify my original position. My main point is that the information contained on this page basically boils down to 1 basic informative paragraph on the process, a list of candidates, a redundant gallery of these candidates, and the finalist.  In my opinion, this information could easily be condensed into a couple of paragraphs in a vice presidential candidates section of the United States Presidential Election, 2008.


 * In addition, I attempted to make the point that the standards for who is included are pretty low. Using Tom Daschle as an example, all it took to get him on the list (judging from the citation) was him getting mentioned by a political commentator.  Using these criteria, I could realistically add Carl Levin (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2006/12/the_obamadaschle_connection.html) or maybe even Jon Tester (http://stonecipher.typepad.com/the_stonecipher_report/2008/07/obamas-vice-pre.html).  Why didn't I do so?  Because neither of them are realistic candidates anyway, Carl Levin already being the 2008 Michigan Democratic Senate candidate and Jon Tester being an entry level Senator whose case would rest on one mention of his name.  Basically, the list looked really inflated to me, but since I originally made the suggestion some of the ones that I thought were a huge stretch, like Anthony Zinni, have been removed.  The Republican article suffers much more from this problem than the Democratic one.  Basically, these lists have too many people who (in my opinion) didn't have a snowball's chance in hell in the first place.


 * So in summary, my reason for suggesting the merger is that there might not be enough notable information in the article to justify its existence as an independent article.


 * It looks like consensus is building otherwise though, in which case I suggest we outline the criteria more thoroughly so that we don't pick up random people who just happen to be getting mentioned for a week and then end up being completely unrealistic candidates anyways.Bradkoch2007 (talk) 19:12, 25 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose This article should remain in order to document the list of people that were considered by reliable sources to be potential candidates. If it is absorbed into a broader article as you suggest, the information will very likely be lost once a selection is made and announced. We have been diligent to ensure that all entries are cited properly and that potential candidates are not deleted when circumstances indicate that they are eliminated from the running. We don't want this article to be pared down to one candidate&mdash;that would be of no encyclopedic use. It should remain as-is for future researchers.--Appraiser (talk) 12:43, 19 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose I agree! I found this very helpful for research that I was doing today! If merged this would be lost. Strawberry Island (talk) 05:01, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose If you reread wp:note
 * "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, and no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive.
 * "Reliable" means sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability, per the reliable source guideline. Sources may encompass published works in all forms and media. Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability.
 * "Sources," defined on Wikipedia as secondary sources, provide the most objective evidence of notability. The number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources. Multiple sources are generally preferred.
 * "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including (but not limited to): self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc.
 * "Presumed" means that substantive coverage in reliable sources establishes a presumption, not a guarantee, of notability. Editors may reach a consensus that although a topic meets this criterion, it is not suitable for inclusion. For example, it may violate what Wikipedia is not.
 * This article meets 1 through 5. There is huge coverage about hillary clinton that belongs on this article, that would not belong on either her page, her presidential campaign page, democratic primaries, etc... nor on the pages suggested.  This article should be kept because it meets criteria 1 through 5 with flying colors.  The stuff discussed on this page would be out of place if we tried to copy/paste bits and pieces to various other pages.  The other articles that are related are well balanced, and adding stuff that belongs here on this page, would bloat the other articles.  Remember, guidelines serve a purpose because not everyone has common judgment.  Lets stick to tried and test guidelines, lest we open up a huge edit debate between people with different opinions.  The facts are laid out at wp:note which we can all agree to.  It is my opinion that criteria 1 through 5 are affirmatively met.  Sentriclecub (talk) 23:59, 23 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Followup, for anyone not receptive to the appeal to policy argument, then I'll give additional reasons. This VP decision was extremely important and reflective of Obama.  This was his first major chance to apply judgment and leadership and combat the criticisms that he doesn't have experience.  This issue is especially important because Mrs. Clinton badly wanted the position, several people polled said that immediately after Barak declared himself the nominee, that they won't vote for the democrat unless hillary is his running mate.  The polls showed an incredible amount of hillary supporters vowed to not vote.
 * Secondly, this was a huge issue in the news and on talk-radio due to the pressure from the clinton marks, and also Barack was rushed to define himself in a short amount of time before focus is split between two people. If hillary won the nomination, she already agreed to offer obama the vp.  That would not have generated signficant coverage by media and newspapers.  Additionally, when obama's shortlist leaked, it only stimulated further interest.  To someone who doesn't have that annoying windows vista sidebar with news headlines, then maybe the vice presidential issue didn't get any coverage.  I can't speak for what the CNN, NBC, FOX, CBS coverage, but let me just say that the news headlines I am subject to provided plenty of coverage.  Probably about 10 times more coverage of the democratic vp candidates than the republican vp candidates.  I've only seen a couple headlines, and only recently since its getting close.  The dem VP issue has been a headline at least once a week for me, ever since obama clinched the nomination.  The television is a poor way to get your information, its even poorer to assert lack of coverage.  This is a very notable issue for people to have the privilege to find this great encyclopedia fifty years from now, and irresponsible to bypass the policies in wp:note and wp:5 just to assert fallacies and promote naivete.  I take offense that you would invent and apply the following logical reasoning: VP picks are pure speculation anyways unless you're looking at the candidate's short list, which doesn't happen.


 * I have to dissect this as a lesson for others to learn from. First lets lookup Logical connective and see where Bradkoch2007 is coming from with this disturbing line.  Before we analyze this, we need to do some fix some blatant mistakes.  First of all, the article is not about VP picks but rather VP candidates.  Moving on now, the candidate's short list is bothersome, I assume he means Obama's short list.  Obama is not a candidate.  Obama is a nominee because he won the nomination which changes him from a democratic party presidential candidate (or you can call him a presidential pick) to a presidential nominee.  I could accurately call myself a 2008 presidential candidate and I can accurately call obama a 2008 presidential candidate.  Now we have VP candidates are pure speculation anyways unless you're looking at the nominee's short list, which doesn't happen.  This statement is evolving but still doesn't make any sense yet, let's have a look at the tables and we'll see no fit for the statement yet.  What doesn't happen?  Ironically the type of sentence category, even though its pushing the boundaries of what a sentence can be, is this one Complex sentence.  What doesn't happen?  Who's on first, what's on second, which is on third?  What does which refer to when it is used in the following way? which doesn't happen  A Relative pronoun refers to a relative clause, which in the statement under scrutiny, the relative clause you're looking at the nominee's short list is a Dependent clause and more specifically an adverbial clause.  Ahah!  There it is, we found the recipient of which.  Okay, now we have a declaration that you're looking at the candidate's short list never happens.


 * Now shoveling a scoop from our own soil...


 * A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger sentence. It is called a relative pronoun because it relates to the word that it modifies.


 * A relative pronoun links two clauses into a single complex clause. To this extent, it is similar in function to a subordinating conjunction. Unlike a conjunction, however, a relative pronoun stands in place of a noun. Compare:


 * (1) This is a house. Jack built this house.
 * (2) This is the house that Jack built.


 * (3) You are looking at the nominee's short list. Looking at the nominee's short list doesn't happen.
 * (4) You are looking at the nominee's short list, which doesn't happen.


 * Okay, now this whole complex sentence marked (4) is now preceded by an unusual word unless! What a dilemna we have developing!  The word unless is such a forceful unambiguous word!  It has one and only one definition: except on a specified condition.  With its power comes its ultimate warning, don't use it unless you know what it means!  The word unless can only be wielded by grandmasters of prose!  For it is in hands of the inexperienced, that shame and humility ensues!


 * shoveling the last scoop of earth over you
 * 6 feet deep below
 * I plant for you a new seed
 * work hard to make it grow


 * logic and arguments may be plenty
 * wikipedia is filled to the brim
 * but its the invalid ones that stand out
 * and those are the ones we must trim


 * ash to ash and dust to dust
 * let us bequeath the fallacy here
 * maybe you'll review linguistics and Wittgenstein
 * next will be you, the logician to fear.


 * Thanks for giving me this opportunity. You committed the all too famous fallacy of Denying the antecedent aka vacuous implication aka inverse error aka shoestring-moon paradox etc... and you gave me a field day of creativity.


 * To quickly wrap things up now, admittedly I did spend three times as much time crafting my response as was allowed bradkoch2007. I am sure you didn't do it intentionally, but you put your statement VP picks are pure speculation anyways unless you're looking at the candidate's short list, which doesn't happen. in such a well hidden form that I didn't catch until after my first final response!

Denying the antecedent, sometimes also called Inverse error, is a formal fallacy, committed by reasoning in the form:


 * If P, then Q.
 * Not P.
 * Therefore, not Q.

Arguments of this form are invalid (except in the rare cases where such an argument also instantiates some other, valid, form). Informally, this means that arguments of this form do not give good reason to establish their conclusions, even if their premises are true.

The name denying the antecedent derives from the premise "not P", which denies the "if" clause of the conditional premise.

One way to demonstrate the invalidity of this argument form is with a counterexample with true premises but an obviously false conclusion. For example:


 * If Queen Elizabeth is an American citizen, then she is a human being.
 * Queen Elizabeth is not an American citizen.
 * Therefore, Queen Elizabeth is not a human being.

That argument is obviously bad, but arguments of the same form can sometimes seem superficially convincing, as in the following example imagined by Alan Turing in the article "Computing Machinery and Intelligence":

If each man had a definite set of rules of conduct by which he regulated his life he would be no better than a machine. But there are no such rules, so men cannot be machines.

However, men could still be machines that do not follow a definite set of rules. Thus this argument (as Turing notes) is invalid.

Candidates could be not pure speculation, if you're not looking at the nominee's short list.


 * Truthfully, I have never heard of some of those linguistics words that I cited. I didn't know an adverbial clause existed!  But my gut feeling knew that the microargument was a brilliantly blanketed version of that all-too-tricky fallacy of denying the antecedent.


 * I'll do a stepwise rephrasing while keeping the meaning 100% intact, until it is phrased in the same form as Turing had.


 * VP candidates are pure speculation anyways unless you're looking at the nominee's short list, which doesn't happen. into the form


 * If each man had a definite set of rules of conduct by which he regulated his life he would be no better than a machine. But there are no such rules, so men cannot be machines.


 * VP candidates are pure speculation unless you're looking at the nominee's short list. infers if you're looking at the nominee's short list, VP candidates are not pure speculation because the word unless strictly means except on a specified condition which means if the specificied condition is true, then the exception (that VP candidates are not pure speculation) is true.


 * Now lets modify the last part which doesn't happen as I tautologically proven earlier is equal with you are looking at the nominee's short list, which doesn't happen.


 * Combining them now, without any changes becomes if you're looking at the nominee's short list, then VP candidates are are not pure speculation. But you're not looking at the candidate's short list, so VP candidates are pure speculation. 


 * Its a hard sell and I'm sure others will be tempted to disagree and wait for someone else to go first. Since I'm prepared for that and have a second eulogy written and ready, I'll welcome the boldest, brightest challenger to go first!  Plus I know that there are tons of semantics issues and tons of different equally good logic systems (Marilyn vos Savant stumbled on this assumption), so I'll take them all on! Sentriclecub (talk) 23:59, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

"prominent Democrats who otherwise would be considered "...?
I deleted the poorly-sourced section that says:
 * The following prominent Democrats who otherwise would be considered as potential vice presidential candidates cannot be inaugurated if Obama should win the election, thus making them unable to be considered for the vice presidency.

There needs to be sources if such a section is included. 72.244.203.87 (talk) 06:53, 23 August 2008 (UTC).

Freeze the article?
I wonder if this article should be locked now; I can't really see a reason to substantially add or delete information to it or from it. I think it should be preserved for future researchers. Also, I had deleted the "ongoing election" banner because the selection process is complete. I think the purpose of the banner is to highlight articles that will change due to an election, and this one will not. Thoughts?--Appraiser (talk) 15:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Several days later, there is still changes and improvements so locking an article is not good. How about George Washington or King George III? They have been dead for centuries. 903M (talk) 03:55, 13 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Agree with 903M. I have never heard of protecting an article from edits simply because it covers events from the past. With that kind of logic, all historical articles would be protected. Ward3001 (talk) 04:16, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Short list candidates flawed
''Obama has never released a short list of candidates. We are either guessing or reporting the media's guess. We should say that the following people have been reported in the press to be on the short list.'' Some of them may have never been seriously considered by Obama but that's not our problem as we only cite sources, not perform original research. 903M (talk) 03:55, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * It's fine as you have edited it now, but not by changing the header as you were doing previously. Ward3001 (talk) 04:17, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Removed unverifiable info about Richardson
Having seen this (questionable) line in the "Final list" section:
 * "Bill Richardson of New Mexico was supposedly one of the choices that Obama had, but Obama did not feel that America was ready for a multi-ethnic ticket.

I questioned whether zimbio.com actually said what the line claimed and whether it was verifiable... And found that the article didn't even discuss Obama's choice of Biden as his VP or what he thought of the other choices. This line and citation seem to have been added by HarveyDent1234. In any case, I removed the line. --V2Blast (talk) 23:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)