America Deserves a Boring Vice President

Two cheers for dull, purplish Democratic governors.

A tumultuous decade of politics just culminated in a fortnight where the former president was nearly assassinated and the current president and presumptive Democratic nominee announced that he was withdrawing from the race—just three and a half months before Election Day. Barring another sudden unexpected twist, the next major political news will be who the new presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, picks as her running mate. After all we've been through, Americans deserve a boring veep option, if only to provide some hope that this chaos will one day dissipate.

Here are three candidates who could bring a little blessed boredom to the Democratic ticket:

Gov. Andy Beshear
"Like eating vanilla ice cream with no topping"

Andy Beshear, the Democratic governor of the otherwise reliably red Kentucky, was first elected in 2019, besting incumbent Gov. Matt Bevin by fewer than 5,000 votes. By 2023, he had gained bipartisan support and won reelection by more than 67,000 votes. Beshear doesn't often make national headlines, yet recent polls show his approval rating at 65 percent, the fourth highest among governors and the highest of any Democratic governor.

His base appreciates that he vetoed a 15-week abortion ban (which was later overturned by Kentucky's GOP-controlled General Assembly). Republicans like that he has twice lowered the state's income tax rate. Even Libertarians can find some common ground with Beshear: While Kentucky's legislature has failed to deliver on marijuana legalization, he has issued a conditional pardon to protect medical cannabis users from prosecution.

Described by Kentucky sports radio host Matt Jones as "like eating vanilla ice cream with no topping," the 46-year-old father of two has no scandals in his record.

Gov. Jared Polis
"A 49-year-old balding, gay Jew from Boulder"

When CNN's Dana Bash asked if he would consider being Harris' running mate, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis responded: "Look, if they do the polling and it turns out that they need a 49-year-old balding, gay Jew from Boulder, Colorado, they got my number." A winning combination of dull and self-aware!

The Centennial State was largely a Republican stronghold from 1968 to 2004. That changed in 2008—the same year Polis was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives—and Colorado has gone blue every election since.

After winning reelection to the House four times (where he was the sole Democratic member of the Liberty Caucus), Polis won the governorship in 2018 and was reelected in 2022. In that time, he has delivered for his base by fulfilling campaign promises to secure funding for full-day kindergarten and increase Colorado's minimum wage. He also signed bills lowering commercial, income, and property taxes, which appealed to Republicans. 

Lovers of limited government can find much to like in Polis' record. He supports school choice, signed the free-range-kids-friendly Reasonable Independence for Children Act, and has pardoned more than 4,000 people convicted of marijuana possession.

He also has a grasp of the deeply unsexy topic of housing policy. The father of two told Reason's Christian Britschgi in March that he has worked with legislators of both parties to roll back regulations that make housing less affordable. "We have a number of bills that will end government-imposed parking requirements…establish the ability to build more housing in transit-oriented communities near bus and rail, and really look at the ability to remove red tape and bureaucracy associated with housing being built."

Gov. Roy Cooper
"What it would look like if a sweater designed a human"

North Carolina has tended recently to vote for the Republican presidential nominee, but it twice elected Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Throughout Cooper's tenure, he has quietly compromised with the GOP-controlled legislature. In 2021, he signed large tax cuts into law, aiming to attract businesses to North Carolina. He also signed the Second Chance Act, which allows the expungement of certain nonviolent criminal records—a positive data point for those who want to see more criminal justice reform nationally.

When Cooper entered office, North Carolina was in the middle of a headline-grabbing economic boycott because the previous governor had an unpopular "bathroom bill" micromanaging where trans people can use the restroom. Cooper ran on repealing the bill and did so upon taking office, replacing it with a controversy-dampening bipartisan compromise.

Cooper—self-labeled as a "diet soda sommelier," and once described by Slate as "what it would look like if a sweater designed a human,"—is term-limited out of his position come November. The girl-dad of three is unlikely to inspire rap parodies or endorsements from shirt-tearing wrestlers, but if he is as good at calmly working across the aisle as he has been in North Carolina, he could turn the state blue for the first time since 2008.

 

None of these options are ideal for libertarians. (For that, check out the Libertarian Party's ticket of Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat.) While their economic records are a mixed bag—Beshear, Polis, and Cooper respectively earned a D, a C, and a B in the Cato Institute's 2022 Fiscal Policy Report Card—all of them have historically opposed cuts to entitlements and are very unlikely to change their stances now. None of them would challenge Harris' commitment to strengthen national gun control laws, including a so-called assault weapons ban, and none have indicated that they seek to rein in the American war machine.

It's regrettable that Americans are once again hoping for a major party ticket that is not the absolute worst rather than enthusiastically supporting a ticket that will tackle the debt and defend all individual rights. But if we have to choose between ambitious, amoral authoritarians or "vanilla" middle-aged dads, these purple-ish governors don't look so bad. 

If we end up with a boring VP in 2024, maybe we could even get a boring president in 2032.