Choosing a veep is choosing a president, that is the accurate and proper assumption, does it hold true in every case? no, but it is the proper assumption, if you want to keep someone out of the presidency, you would not want to make them vice president.
On the other hand, if you have a favorite who couldn’t quite snag the nomination first time around, there is no better place that you would want him, than being vice president.
Not it is not. A veep is nothing more than a political asset to a ticket. That is the reality. I don’t think Rand Paul has much chance of being elected President after becoming VP so I am not worried about it. First things first. How do we get Cruz elected? I think Paul could complement Cruz and pull in different types of voters and that’s the role of a VP candidate.