Michael Cianchette is a Navy reservist who served in Afghanistan. He is in-house counsel to a number of businesses in southern Maine and was a chief counsel to former Gov. Paul LePage.
Sometimes the exception proves the rule.
That saying’s meaning is sometimes confused. One possible interpretation is that exceptions “preuve” the rule, derived from the Latin “probo,” for test. That’s how I mean it.
One of the “rules” of presidential elections is that no one votes based on the vice presidential nominee. There is logic inherent in the belief. As former Sen. John McCain wryly noted, “the role of the vice president is to break ties in the Senate and inquire daily into the health of the president.”
That rule is probably getting tested this year.
Ever since that fateful, fitful presidential debate on June 27, people across the political spectrum have questioned President Joe Biden’s fitness for another term in office. Follow-on damage control meetings haven’t instilled confidence.
Biden’s claim that he won’t schedule any events after 8 p.m. in the future gives his opponents plenty of fodder. Hillary Clinton’s “3 a.m phone call” attack ad against Barack Obama comes to mind.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump was literally inches away from death last Saturday. Setting aside concerns about the GOP nominee’s age for the moment, the fact that some apparently deranged individual thought he should murder the man naturally raises questions about “what if” the attempt was successful.
Enter the candidates for vice president.
For the first time in many, many years, there are legitimate scenarios where either could soon accede to the White House. The comparison between the two — current Vice President Kamala Harris and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance — will likely be intense, potentially moving the needle in a closely contested campaign.
To start, they were both elected to the United States Senate. Neither completed an entire term before catapulting to their vice presidential nomination.
Both are attorneys. Harris was a prosecutor for much of her career, while Vance was a “recovering lawyer” who struck out on a business career in Silicon Valley.
Both of them attacked the top of their ticket. Vance was a “Never Trumper” during the 2016 campaign. Harris famously savaged Biden’s long Senate record during the Democrats’ 2020 primary process.
Yet there are significant differences between the two. The most obvious are race and gender. Harris is the daughter of immigrants. Her mother came from the Indian subcontinent while her father was Jamaican. Vance’s family has long tenure in the United States, descended from the Scots-Irish immigrants who came over centuries ago.
However, Harris’ parents were professionals. Her father was an economics professor at Stanford University and her mother was a biologist specializing in breast cancer research.
Vance was born into poverty. His parents divorced at a young age, his mother struggled with drug abuse, and he was raised by his grandparents. He enlisted in the Marine Corps and deployed to Iraq.
In some ways, the Harris-Vance contrast echoes the 2010 Maine gubernatorial campaign. Democratic nominee Libby Mitchell came from a politically-engaged South Carolina family and was a woman of “firsts,” including the first female Speaker of the Maine House.
Across the aisle was GOP candidate Paul LePage, a former homeless teenager who learned English as a second language.
We know how that story ended.
With the GOP convention at an end, we are accelerating into fall’s campaign season. The Biden-Trump contest is a rerun of 2020; voters generally know where they stand.
However, in an exception to preuve the rule, the vice presidential nominees could make the difference in this year’s election. Ignore the partisans and take some time to learn about the people.
The reality is that one of them may move into the White House sometime over the next four years. So do you want the Marine born into meager circumstances or the prosecutor raised by two professors?
That may be the question that decides the election.
