Roy Cooper does not stand out, which makes him a standout candidate for VP

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper appears to be on the short list as Kamala Harris’ running mate in the presidential election. WFAE’s Tommy Tomlinson, in his "On My Mind" commentary, says Cooper’s understated style might be to his advantage.

Picking the right vice president probably doesn’t help a presidential candidate win an election. But picking the wrong vice president can help a candidate lose an election.

The odds were probably against John McCain anyway when he faced Barack Obama in 2008. But when McCain chose Sarah Palin for his VP, it undercut any claim McCain had to greater wisdom and judgment. Most Americans did not want Palin one step from the presidency.

In the next couple of weeks, Kamala Harris is expected to decide who she wants to be on her ticket in the faceoff against Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. It has already been a wild and historical year. It would seem to me that Harris’ best move would be to pick someone … stable. Reliable. A little boring, even.

Well hello there, Roy Cooper.

Cooper is wrapping up his second term as North Carolina’s governor. He’s been in office nearly eight years. And in all that time, I have learned exactly two personal things about him. One, he prefers the double-O in his last name to be pronounced like “foot” instead of “booth.” And two, he’s a massive Carolina Hurricanes fan.

That’s it.

And that’s good.

Most of the time I’d like my elected officials to work quietly in the background, like whatever tiny electronic hamsters are inside my laptop, making the computer run. Sometimes a politician has to rise to a moment in history. But most days aren’t historical. Give me a politician who just gets the job done.

By and large, that’s what Cooper has done the past eight years. No scandals, no personal drama, just the normal back-and-forth of politics. The Republican-dominated legislature overrode most of Cooper’s vetoes, but he did accomplish a major goal of his campaign: to get Medicaid expansion approved for the state. It took nearly seven years of his tenure, but the legislature passed the bill last year, and it enabled hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians to get health insurance.

He’s a popular Democrat in a purplish state that leans more red than blue. Term limits prevent him from running for governor again, but if he could, he’d probably win.

Those term limits are another advantage for Cooper over other potential VP candidates such as Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. They’d have to give up their current jobs and Cooper wouldn’t. It also helps that North Carolina is a swing state, although vice presidential candidates don’t traditionally provide much of a boost in that regard.

It seems like, especially in this election, the Democratic VP candidate has two jobs: One, don’t screw things up for Kamala Harris, and two, give voters confidence that you could run the country if needed.

You can see where the Republicans are already running into trouble with this, as J.D. Vance has so far not inspired great confidence that he could run a Rotary Club, much less the United States of America. This would reflect poorly on Trump’s judgment, except that when it comes to examples of Trump’s judgment, this falls to about 978th on the list.

Roy Cooper is a steady hand who has already had a long career in politics. He’s not an electrifying speaker but he could hold his own in a debate. And, it must be said, he’s a white man. That probably matters when the top of the ticket is not only Black and Asian, but would also be the first woman president.

In the end, Cooper seems perfectly suited to be Harris’ running mate. If he gets the job, and does it well, you might forget he’s even there. That’s kind of how it’s been in North Carolina these past eight years. Considering the normal politics we have to put up with these days, not having to think about a politician is a relief.