With McCain off the list, I walked from my house to Johnson's, which was next door, on a spring afternoon. The obvious vice-presidential choice, we agreed, was John Edwards; in the primaries, he'd emerged as a first-rate campaigner—and I told Jim that despite thiness on substance, I thought, as I been in 2000, that he could handle Cheney in a debate; We couldn't afford to repeat the Lieberman mistake. But there were two other clear possibilities: Dick Gephardt and Hillary Clinton. Kerry was ready to partner with Clinton if it was the way to win, but he doubted it was. He liked Gephardt, was confident he was up to the job of being president, and hoped he might help carry Missouri, which could make the difference in a close election. But both he and Teresa worried that Gephardt was a gray choice who wouldn't light any fires. While Edwards might, they were both uneasy with him. I'd said to Kerry early on that all I cared about was picking the strongest choice—personal feelings had nothing to do with it.
Johnson had compiled a list of about twenty-five "serious" candidates—and some others besides—and we reviewed it in his living room. In addition to Edwards, Clinton, and Gephardt, it included New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and some "out-of-the-box" choices, like Nebraska's maverick Republican senator Chuck Hagel, a kind of McCain surrogate. Hagel, who I guessed wouldn't accept and didn't know his name was on the list, was a nonstarter because he had a zero rating from the League of Conservation Voters. Richardson's prospects were shadowed by alleged womanizing. Publicly reluctant, he coveted the publicity of being considered, but withdrew before the process was finished.
A quiet round of polling helped guide the search. Hillary Clinton had high negatives—she would hurt the ticket; Dick Gephardt apparently didn't help in Missouri—in fact, Edwards's numbers were decidedly stronger there. When I heard this, I should have questioned whether the numbers actually reflected the ultimate impact of a Gephardt pick. As Kerry's running mate, Gephardt's campaigning and the institutional forces in Missouri might have given us a chance in the state, and he might have boosted us a little in Ohio, maybe just enough. But the process was evolving to where it had started—perhaps not in Kerry's mind, but in the conventional wisdom and the will of the Democrats across the country. When I handed Johnson a memo about advertising to be rolled out right after the choice was announced, I included a contingency for "a VP selection... from outside the present battleground states." Johnson and I both knew that meant North Carolina—and Edwards—but Kerry and Teresa still weren't there.
