Hillary Clinton is thinking about her running mate the wrong way

No one has any idea what kind of person Donald Trump might choose for his running mate, which makes speculation about the Republican ticket difficult. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is likely to look to politicians with more traditional qualifications, which means that every pundit, columnist, reporter, or blogger will be obliged to weigh in on the "veepstakes" and make their predictions about her choice.

That's not my purpose. Few campaign secrets will be guarded as closely as this one, and it's unlikely that any of the small number of people who actually know which way she's leaning will spill the beans to reporters. So instead of asking who she will pick, I'm going to ask what she ought to be considering as she makes that choice.

The first thing to understand is something that runs counter to the assumption underlying all the speculation. That assumption is that the choice matters greatly to the outcome of the election. The truth is, it really doesn't. Clinton could make some wildly irresponsible choice, as John McCain did in picking Sarah Palin eight years ago. If she did that, she might lose at most a couple of points in the final tally. But as political scientists have discovered when they've investigated this question, even a terrific running mate can't get you many votes you wouldn't otherwise have gotten. Which makes sense — would you vote for a candidate you didn't like only because you liked their running mate?

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It's not clear that Clinton herself fully understands this, however. As The New York Times reported on Sunday, "Mrs. Clinton has offered general guidance as her team begins the search: She cares less about ideological and personal compatibility than about picking a winner, someone who can dominate the vice-presidential debate and convince Americans that Mrs. Clinton is their best choice." While that doesn't sound unreasonable, it puts the campaign, where the running mate will have only the tiniest impact, well above the presidency, where he or she could have a substantial impact.

So here are a few things Clinton ought to keep high on her list:

The right experience. In a vice president, experience is about more than a long resume. What the right person needs is experience in the federal government. To get the most out of her second-in-command, Clinton would want to have her vice president oversee complex, agency-spanning projects and represent her in a variety of situations. The right person will need an understanding of how the various systems of the government interact and work together (or don't). The last two vice presidents were effective because they had that kind of understanding. Dick Cheney had been a member of Congress, the secretary of defense, and the White House chief of staff, enabling him to work the government's levers with unusual dexterity. After 36 years in the Senate, Joe Biden had a similar grasp of the government, and he has been a more effective vice president than most people realize.

Stature. It isn't necessary for Clinton to choose an elder statesman, but it is important that she pick someone who commands respect, both within the government and outside it. If she wants the VP to represent her overseas, for instance, that person needs to convince foreign leaders that s/he speaks for Clinton. The same goes for the work the VP will be doing in government; the president wants a vice president whose requests and orders will be treated with nearly the same urgency as her own.

A personal rapport. If Clinton has actually told her team that she doesn't care much about personal compatibility, it's a bad sign: Either she isn't learning the lessons of the past, or she has already decided that her vice president won't have much of a substantive role. That's because the greatest resource any vice president has is the president's attention and trust. Without that, no vice president can be effective. Everyone in government will know whether the two truly have a good relationship, and if they don't, then the things the VP tries to accomplish will almost inevitably be more difficult.

Internal and external political skills. Like the president herself, an effective vice president will be someone who can work within the government to make sure policies are implemented well and the bureaucracy carries out the leadership's objectives, and is also able to be an advocate for those policies to the country and the world. This is one area where the campaign does offer a preview of what kind of a job the vice president will do. We won't learn much about whether the running mate will be an effective manager, but we can learn whether he or she will be a persuasive communicator. A vice president who can't do that is an enormous waste of a large megaphone.

There are some other things Clinton might consider — for instance, nominating someone who isn't a white male could have important symbolic value beyond its short-term political benefits during the campaign. But if Clinton realizes that her running mate will only have a marginal effect on the final vote tally in November but could make her presidency much more successful, she's more likely to choose the right person.