Veep showdown: Does it matter?

Did you watch the Veep debate? Me too. We’ll talk about that in a minute. But first, let me go into my whole thing about vice presidents.

Here’s a clumping of individuals: Al Gore, Dick Cheney, John Edwards, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin and Paul Ryan. Would you want to see any of these people in a position where they’re a heartbeat away from the presidency? Didn’t think so.

Vice Presidents don’t do much aside from visiting restaurants. Presidents don’t die anymore: they have too much protection and they get the best and most innovative medical attention out there. Furthermore, because of how politics has grown into an assorted attack of records and party failures, it feels as though it might be a long time before any vice president has a chance to take over for the president, successfully engineering an election victory of their own.

With all that in mind, you have to expect these VP kandidates to lay it all out there on a Thursday night in October? This is it. This is their shining moment of glory, something they may never experience again.

It’s actually kind of underwhelming. Really, when you think about it, these guys aren’t even debating each other. Rather, they are serving as surrogates debating the viewpoints and ideologies of their masters (presidential kandidates).

And actually, because some of these surrogates are picked for more political than ideological reasons (like, for example, picking someone from a specific battleground state or someone of a certain religion or sex), they may not even be fully equipped to get on stage and talk for about 40 minutes while remaining confident, politically correct, and honest (granted most presidential kandidates can’t do this either).

So, therefore, no matter how heated VP debates can get, they are ALWAYS unentertaining. Don’t let anyone let you believe otherwise. They’re unentertaining because they are unimportant.

However, because we are social Americans, we still find a way to make it important culturally, so we can have something to talk about around the water cooler or in the classroom on an otherwise chilly fall Friday. But the fact of the matter is, after four years, you’re hardly going to remember this as much as you remember this.

And that is why Thursday’s debate succeeded. Because people watched and made things trend on Twitter. Good work, VPs, you’ve done your job. See you in four years when it’s time to do it again.