For focusing on number one instead of cleaning up number two?

Over the past couple of decades. The past two VPS, Gore and Cheney, for good (Gore)or for ill (Cheney) have been much more than state funeral attendees. That's why I care. Also, giving someone the vice presidency makes it that much more likely that this person will be the party nominee someday.

Part of the fascination is caused by the media's focus on this issue. Another part is the role that Hillary will play in the party and in this election. Part of the interest in McCain's pick is driven by the possibility of Romney, who is in some ways a controversial pick to right-wingers because of his religion.

Usually, the pick is something of a surprise. LBJ certainly was a surprise to most people. Cheney wasn't an obvious pick for Bush.

Another reason for the fascination is because it is so hard to predict who will be chosen. If a pundit gets it right they will have serious bragging rights and be credited with superior insight.

its a mix of what you state, the fact that bushy is a douchey, the drama of the primary and dissatisfaction (for some) with the presumptive nominees.

rec'd.

41%  is like winning half.

So VP is a VERY powerful position especially for someone who has their own political power and isn't a sock puppet even if they act like one for 4 or 8 years.

The left wing of the party has staked a claim that the Clinton wing doesn't know what they are doing.

Those of us who believe that the Clinton years were the best in our lifetimes and remember the Reagan years or even the Carter years believe that if we let this battle go there may not be a real alternative to the next Bush.

Was Carter, Mondale, Dukakkis, really the answer to Reagan and Bush Sr?

If we are run by that wing of the party we may have Bush Jrs for 20 years.

THATS why it matters.

That VP is a crappy road to the presidency. George H.W. Bush, Nixon, LBJ, and Truman got there one way or they other via this road. Were in not for the USSC, Gore would have been there as well. Historially, its  a better road than US senator or member of the House of House of Reps. And its been a quaranteed road to the nomination for any sitting VP who wanted it.

I'm also 28 and have a degree in history.  I also don't get the fascination outside of tactical considerations (whether candidate A gets us State X or Region Y, etc.).  What some apparently want to believe is that there would be a dual presidency, though there is no evidence that that would be the case.  That, or it's some sort of indirect power play for the 2016 elections, though no one can predict how the next eight years will shake out or the identities/positions of those future candidates.  

I think it's because Obama's positioned himself as a new-blood change candidate.  His VP pick will go a long way toward showing how serious he is about shaking up the power structure.

By the way, Reaper, I've always thought your writing is among the best at MyDD, and every time you reveal something about yourself it mirrors my own life.  I'm 28, with a degree in history, in law school, and I like to swear in my blog posts also.  Are you also like a Mets fan who likes playing Settlers of Catan?  Cause then you'd be my fucking doppelganger.

Traditionally, the importance of the choice of the vice presidential running mate is that it is the first clear, unrevokable choice that the presidential candidate makes.  It is the first evidence of what group he's going to sacrifice and what group he's going to pander to, who he's comfortable working with, and in fact, who he really is.

I don't recall this being a big issue since LBJ was chosen by JFK.  JFK's VP choice is a similar case to Obama:  while you feel comfortable that you know what Obama would do as president, or what McCain would do as president, there is a sizable group of voters who don't feel your level of precognition.

I thought I knew who McCain was in 2000, and McCain model of 2008 isn't the same guy.  I have no idea which McCain would be installed in the White House.  With Obama, are we going to get the liberal voting Senator or are we going to get the kind of guy that would choose a Republican for VP?  I don't know the answer to either of those questions.

So I'm on tenterhooks, waiting for Obama's choice, to find out a little more clearly who Obama really is.

In the JFK pre election days, many people did not feel at all confident that they knew what JFK would do.  The choice of LBJ signalled that JFK was not throwing the South overboard and had the confidence to have as vice president a man with a long resume in Washington, and did not fear being overshadowed by him.

Now that importance of JFK's choice was obscured by the fact that the choosing was done in those legendary smoke filled rooms.  Obama and McCain's choices are out in the light of day by comparison.

And I thought other posters have had great points:  the VP almost always gets a shot at running for president if he or she wants it.  I would like the VP to be someone electable in 2016.