Beginning with a review of how party presidential candidates are selected and ending with a discussion of “Veepstakes,” James S. Sherman Professor of Government Philip Klinkner published three essays on the presidential race in July in The Conversation. Preceding those essays, Klinkner was interviewed by The Conversation for an article titled “Joe Biden commits to staying in the race – like Nixon, his biggest threat comes from within his own party.” In the article, published on July 9, 12 days before President Biden withdrew from the race, Klinkner noted that “Until a day or two before Richard Nixon resigned as president in August 1974, he said he would never do it.”
In Klinkner’s first essay, “Until 1968, presidential candidates were picked by party conventions – a process revived by Biden’s withdrawal from race,” Klinkner reviewed the history of how both parties nominated presidential candidates. He wrote, “With Biden’s withdrawal, it remains to be seen if the new Democratic nominee will be a strong candidate or, if elected, a good president. But there’s no reason to think that this year’s unusual path to the nomination will have any effect on those outcomes.” As Biden left the race on that day, he immediately announced Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement. This essay appeared in the Los Angeles Times as well as in many outlets around the country and the world.
The volume of news in the next days after the president’s announcement seemed historic. But Klinkner reflected on previous news cycles during election years in his next Conversation essay, “Sure, 2024 has had lots of news – but compared with 1940, 1968 or 1973, it’s nothing exceptional,” appeared on July 23. Klinkner noted that in 1940 the news was dominated by Nazi Germany’s invasions of European countries, the response to that aggression and a precedent-setting third term for U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Axios also noted Klinkner’s comparison of 2024 with 1940, 'Youngest Americans meet news whiplash'.
In his final essay, “Veepstakes have evolved from where you live to who you are − which way will Harris turn to balance the ticket?,” Klinkner provided an extensive analysis of vice presidential picks from 1960 to the present. “With a bad pick, the issue isn’t whether the ticket is sufficiently balanced or diverse, it’s whether the vice presidential candidate is adequately vetted,” he wrote in his July 25 piece. “The worst picks – Tom Eagleton in 1972, Quayle in 1988 and Palin in 2008 – resulted from hasty and poorly thought out selection processes.”
In addition to his own writing, Klinkner was broadly quoted and interviewed by national and international outlets including on Australia’s national public radio on a program titled “The eerie parallels between the resignation of Lyndon Johnson in 1968 and Joe Biden 2024,” on New Zealand’s national public radio segment “What happens to the Democrat presidential nomination process,” the United Kingdom’s Times Radio (link not available), Los Angeles’ public radio KPCC, “After President Biden’s withdrawal from race, what happens next with campaigns, the DNC and more,” POTUS (SiriusXM)’s “The Laura Coates Show,” New Orleans' WWL (news/talk) "What presidential candidates look for when picking a VP for their ticket"and Global News Canada titled “How will the Democrats choose their next presidential nominee?” Klinkner was referenced in print in Canada’s Globe and Mail and The Boston Globe.
