Kamala’s VP Picks Should Compete—Like My Grandfather Did for FDR

Wallace, an attorney and co-chair of the Wallace Global Fund, was the 2018 Democratic nominee in Pennsylvania’s First Congressional District.

It’s been a long time since either party had a convention that actually decided on candidates, and many Democrats worry about the potential chaos. Now that President Biden has stepped aside and Vice President Harris seems to have the nomination wrapped up, shouldn’t we just let her pick her Veep and lock it in well before the convention?

Will it be Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona or Govs. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Tim Walz of Minnesota, or Andy Beshear of Kentucky? These, according to sources speaking to the New York Times, are top of the list for Kamala Harris’ possible Veep picks—even if the list “remains in flux.” Add to the mix (even if she says she is not interested) Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Secretary of Transportation and dynamic former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.

How to pick the best? My grandfather, Henry A. Wallace, had experience as a vice presidential candidate in two contested Democratic conventions. One went great for him, the other not so much. But both were riveting for the nation, and both resulted in resounding victory for the ticket.

Going into the 1940 convention, even the presidential nominee was in doubt. President Franklin Roosevelt sent delegates a message that he had “no desire or purpose” to seek an unprecedented third term, and others wanted the job for themselves, including FDR’s own two-term VP. But with war clouds gathering, the delegates wanted continuity, and FDR was nominated on the first ballot.

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Henry Scott Wallace, James Roosevelt Jr., Tim Teeman

But the vice presidential nomination was still unsettled. Though FDR insisted on my grandfather, who had served two terms as his immensely popular Secretary of Agriculture, conservative delegates to the convention rebelled. They didn’t trust Wallace, who had never been elected to political office and was viewed as too liberal and intellectual. They fought for an establishment candidate like House Speaker William Bankhead.

That’s when FDR sent his wife Eleanor to deliver her famous “no ordinary time” speech in support of Wallace. The delegates acquiesced, and the Democratic ticket went on to win in a landslide. And my grandfather became an unprecedentedly active vice president, mobilizing public opinion against the rising tide of fascism and managing America’s immense war production infrastructure.

In the 1944 Democratic convention, at the climax of World War II, there was no question of changing horses at the top of the ticket. But with FDR’s health obviously failing (at age 62, almost 20 years younger than Biden), the delegates knew that in choosing a vice president, they were probably also choosing a president. Wallace had overwhelming public support—65 percent according to Gallup, versus 2 percent for Truman. A New York Times headline declared that Wallace “keeps New Deal alive … has a good chance to be renominated.”

But in an episode of remarkable political intrigue, the anti-Wallace party bosses shut down the convention just before the vote on the vice presidential nomination. When delegates reconvened in the morning, after a night of feverish deal-making by the bosses, Wallace led on the first ballot, but Truman won decisively on the second. And of course, the FDR/Truman team went on to win in a landslide.

My grandfather’s reaction was unexpected. Instead of sour grapes, he doubled down on commitment to FDR’s re-election and New Deal values. He campaigned vigorously all over the country, and FDR rewarded him with his choice of Cabinet position. He chose Commerce, for its power to rebuild American business and global trade—though Truman later fired him for proposing what later became known as détente with the Soviet Union.

Contested conventions at the presidential level also proved successful and invigorating. In 1932, going into the Democratic Convention, FDR had two formidable opponents—former NY Governor and 1928 presidential candidate Al Smith and House Speaker John Nance Garner—and didn’t win the nomination until the fourth ballot. And he was famously elected in a landslide, on a promise of a Depression-ending “New Deal” for the American people.

Even more remarkably, Abraham Lincoln—a mere one-term congressman from Illinois—didn’t win his convention’s nomination (as the first Republican ever) until the second ballot, and went on to save the nation from splitting in half, and ended slavery.

Contested conventions be damned. FDR and Lincoln did just fine in their six combined elections.

So, far from fearing a contested convention, at least at the VP level, Democrats should embrace it. Let there be a spirited and engaging vetting of a raft of impressive vice presidential possibilities. An open vetting of the VP pick by the convention would feel more democratic than a pro forma ratification of the entire slate decreed from above. The whole party would emerge more overwhelmingly united than before, behind the imperative of dispatching Trump to the dustbin of history.

There would be remarkable unity of purpose, and remarkably unprecedented liabilities on the other side—a convicted felon, twice impeached, found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and for massive fraud in his businesses, his foundation, and his “university”, with six business bankruptcies, and facing multiple additional felony charges over a bloody insurrection at the US Capitol. The choice will be dramatically obvious, voters will be supremely engaged, and Americans worried about the fate of our democracy should feel greatly reassured.