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I felt it was a timely watch, given the Democratic urge to suggest the time is right for a second New Deal (it's worth noting: the recent abysmal unemployment numbers — 14.7% nationwide — is the worst America has seen since 1940, the seventh year of FDR's supposed economic elixir).
What caught my attention: the part of the documentary dealing with the 1944 election and FDR's choice of a running mate. The president was in failing health — his physicians confidentially warned that he wasn't long for the world — so the worry among insiders was the job going to the wrong man should FDR not complete his fourth term (indeed, he died less than 12 weeks after his January 1945 inauguration).
I won't bore you with all the details from the summer of 1944, but long story short: the incumbent veep, Henry Wallace, was booted from the ticket (too liberal, if you can imagine that) in favor of then-Missouri Sen. Harry S Truman, the establishment's compromise choice.
This is not to suggest that Democrats are in the same boat, in 2020, as they were in 1944 — putting their party's fate in the hands of a candidate with a limited life expectancy. But Joe Biden's advanced age (he turns 78 soon after Election Day) raises the question of whether he is at best at a one-term proposition. Given that — and the pattern of sitting vice presidents becoming their party's presidential nominee in the modern age (it happened in 2000, 1988, 1968 and 1960) — it's worth taking into account three considerations in weighing Biden's "veep" options.
That would include:
Preparedness. Harry Truman assumed the presidency after only 82 days as vice president; for Andrew Johnson and John Tyler ("too"), just 44 and 31 days, respectively. Chester A. Arthur assumed the presidency after six-and-a-half weeks as the presidential heir apparent.
For Theodore Roosevelt, the presidency materialized after only six months as William McKinley's vice president; for Gerald Ford, the wait was eight months until Richard Nixon resigned. Calvin Coolidge succeeded Warren Harding after two years and five months as vice president; Lyndon Johnson succeeded John F. Kennedy after 1,036 days of what, for him, was vice presidential purgatory.
There is no pattern here. LBJ, "the master of the Senate," easily handled the reins of power. Truman likewise proved adroit, but only over time (he entered office not knowing there was a Manhattan Project).
But there's a dark side. Arthur supposedly "looked like a president" but wasn't re-nominated by his party. Tyler was kicked out of his party, saw all but one member of his cabinet resign over policy differences, and suffered the indignity of becoming the first American president to have a veto overridden. With Andrew Johnson, congressional vengeance went much further: the ordeal of impeachment.
Biden therefore needs to consider a running mate who doesn't need years or an entire term of hands-on experience to adequately fill his shoes. I'll leave it to you to figure which of most-mentioned names in the women-only "veepstakes" — Stacey Abrams, Keisha Lance Bottoms, Catherine Cortez Masto, Val Deming, Tammy Duckworth, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Susan Rice, Elizabeth Warren, Gretchen Whitmer — fit that bill as ready to assume the presidency with little preparation.
Do any?
Responsibilities. "I hardly know Truman," FDR said of his running mate. He didn't do much to change that dynamic — the two meeting just twice during the remainder of Roosevelt's presidency.
More recent presidencies had more cordial relationships — for many, a weekly luncheon.
The question for Biden: what portfolio would he allow for his would-be successor?
Pre-coronavirus and with a healthy economy, one might have assumed that Biden would focus on foreign policy, with his vice president pursuing a more domestic agenda (better for making friendships, collecting chits and laying the groundwork for a presidential run). In 2021, perhaps the opposite would be true — Biden having to tend to a fragile economy; his vice president more the overseas envoy.
Again, let's look at the Biden short list to figure who's ready to engage in diplomacy. Other than Rice (Obama's final National Security Advisor) and Warren (she sits on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, as does Duckworth), who else has national security chops?
Again, a short list grows even shorter.
Direction. A final consideration for Biden: would his successor stay true to her predecessor's agenda, or sprint off in a new direction?
By this standard, John Tyler and Chester Arthur were the wrong choices. And there's the double-shot of Teddy Roosevelt — out of the GOP norm at the time as a "trust-buster" at home and even more of an imperialist abroad.
If this is a deal-killer, then say goodbye to Warren as her progressive "plans" — soaking the wealthy; declaring war on corporations — are much further to the left than the more cautious Biden (the Kennedy-Johnson relationship is maybe an apt parallel, as LBJ's forays into civil rights and a government-fueled "Great Society" arguably were more aggressive and ambitious than what a second JFK term might have offered).
Who then could Biden choose as a political "mini-me?" Or — and this would kill a Democrat to admit — the Coolidge to his Harding as someone ideologically in sync?
The guess here, from looking at the short list: Klobuchar, who fashioned herself as a pragmatist during her presidential run.
The good news for Biden is he has three months to figure this out, if he wants to stretch the veep drama up to until the national convention (or whatever version that resembles come mid-August).
That's plenty of time for the nominee-in-waiting to watch the "Roosevelts" documentary and consider previous presidents' actions — and, far too often, the failure to anticipate bad scenarios.