So I asked my husband (grysar), who's a political science person, about why people don't choose Vice Presidents right away and the likelihood of Clinton/Sanders or Sanders/Clinton as an eventual ticket. Here's what he had to say:
"Presidential Candidates typically announce their VP pick at the convention. There is nothing statutorily keeping them from an earlier announcement, although there are advantages to waiting. First, generally speaking, picking early is seen as a sign of weakness, if you wait until you win you've got a broader array of choices and can pick a good complement for the general election rather than trying to finish off the primary. Secondarily, the VP pick is one of the few bits of suspense about a typical convention, unlike the Republican convention this year (or Dem in 1968). If you don't hold something back, you won't get as much coverage for what's basically a half-week infomercial for the party. Third, VP is sort of a weird position, it's not a great position from which to implement even part of your agenda. This is probably why then Sen. Clinton went for Secretary of State. (I do think there are restrictions about announcing your cabinet early, those rules are dumb and should be repealed. parliamentary democracies have full shadow cabinets so you have a firm feel for what the other side would look like governing)."
"A few specific things to this case (Clinton/Sanders or Sanders/Clinton): 1) They're both a bit on the older end and would probably prefer to round out with a younger VP candidate, particularly as VP's most important role is emergency backup President. 2) Clinton does still have reason for confidence on the delegate count and Sanders best hope is that he's seriously over-performing the polls. So they both have reason to wait. 3) The winner effectively co-opting the other part of the party is really important, but it's typically done through other sort of mechanism that are very much not in the public eye. There's some gap between the end of the primaries and convention may also let people calm down a bit. Elections are by their nature contentious and that's okay, but it's hard to instantly switch over."
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More information than you probably wanted ;)
Date: 2016-03-15 10:51 pm (UTC)"Presidential Candidates typically announce their VP pick at the convention. There is nothing statutorily keeping them from an earlier announcement, although there are advantages to waiting. First, generally speaking, picking early is seen as a sign of weakness, if you wait until you win you've got a broader array of choices and can pick a good complement for the general election rather than trying to finish off the primary. Secondarily, the VP pick is one of the few bits of suspense about a typical convention, unlike the Republican convention this year (or Dem in 1968). If you don't hold something back, you won't get as much coverage for what's basically a half-week infomercial for the party. Third, VP is sort of a weird position, it's not a great position from which to implement even part of your agenda. This is probably why then Sen. Clinton went for Secretary of State. (I do think there are restrictions about announcing your cabinet early, those rules are dumb and should be repealed. parliamentary democracies have full shadow cabinets so you have a firm feel for what the other side would look like governing)."
"A few specific things to this case (Clinton/Sanders or Sanders/Clinton):
1) They're both a bit on the older end and would probably prefer to round out with a younger VP candidate, particularly as VP's most important role is emergency backup President.
2) Clinton does still have reason for confidence on the delegate count and Sanders best hope is that he's seriously over-performing the polls. So they both have reason to wait.
3) The winner effectively co-opting the other part of the party is really important, but it's typically done through other sort of mechanism that are very much not in the public eye. There's some gap between the end of the primaries and convention may also let people calm down a bit. Elections are by their nature contentious and that's okay, but it's hard to instantly switch over."