Knowing the VPs

Vice presidents rarely matter -- even the awful choices. So I doubt Joe Biden and Sarah Palin matter all that much in electoral votes or how people learn about the campaign or the impressions they form of McCain and Obama.

If people could vote separately for vice president, who would they pick? Biden, it appears, at least according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll, by a 54% to 41% (4% undecided, 1% unsure). It's interesting that the margin of preference is a little greater for the VPs than it is for the presidential candidates. Latest poll has Obama with a 50-43 advantage, no doubt a post-convention bump. Pre-convention polls had it more or less even.

Palin is largely unknown, though news this weekend will change some of that. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they haven't heard enough about her to have an opinion. So we have Joe Who and Sarah Who. For the GOP, at least she has only 11% negatives. In the mind of the U.S. electorate, she's a blank slate. The battle's already underway to fill in those blanks, either with positives or negatives depending on your political flavor.

But in the long run, it matters very little. It does, however, give the talking heads something to do with their time.