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The lesson I learned from Humphrey, Mondale, and Gore is that Liberal Democrats and their message of "I will raise your taxes, grow your government, and gut your defense" are not appealing.

I'm not sure why you're brining up Mondale. He wasn't a sitting VP when he ran for president. Nixon and GHW Bush were, in addition to Gore and Humphrey. I believe GHW Bush would have lost, too, had he not been facing probably the most inept major party nominee since Goldwater.

Commercecomet brought up Mondale as an example not me. I was just pointing out that Mondale losing had a lot more to do with his message than his ever being VP. It is not the fact that a candidate is or was the VP that helps or hurts his candidacy. What being the VP does is give you free media and name recognition for 4 or 8 years. If you are a fool to begin with free publicity isn't necessarily your friend (AL GORE.) If you are a decent man free publicity and name recognition help you (GHW Bush.) Does anyone think GHW Bush would ever have become president in 1988 if weren't the VP. He proved in 1980 that he didn't have the appeal within his own party. If Bush replaced Cheney with dud or a loose cannon then the publicity he gets in the next 4 years would help the rats defeat him in 2008. If Bush installs a good man then the VP spotlight will help him.