Vice Presidential Running-Mate Announcements, 1948-:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GC3fBcYuDAEOJrJuEP3qZTvSMi1Tdqdq8Yn8yTfLXqs/edit?usp=sharing

Announcement dates, comparisons with national convention start dates, video/news story links

Enjoy!

Four years ago this evening, Hillary Clinton announced by text message that Tim Kaine was her running mate.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-23/clinton-picks-kaine-as-vp-in-move-toward-center-for-election

They appeared together the next day in Miami.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?413100-1/hillary-clinton-campaigns-miami-running-mate-senator-tim-kaine

From 1984-2016, 10 of 13 VP running mates were announced within a week before national convention began.

Exceptions:
Bush-Quayle '88 (Aug. 16, 2nd day of convention)
Kerry-Edwards '04 (July 6; 20 days before convention)
Romney-Ryan '12 (Aug. 11, 16 days before convention)

1948 (D): Truman preferred Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas to others including Kentucky Sen. Alben Barkley (70 and from a neighboring state), but Douglas declined and Barkley's stock rose after a well-received convention speech. The ticket won.
https://kentuckyoralhistory.org/ark:/16417/xt7vdn3ztj40

1952 (R): Eisenhower adviser Herbert Brownell wrote he had dinner with Ike, who "wrote out a list of six or seven names, without any prompting from me, who would be acceptable to him and handed it to me. It included Senator Richard M. Nixon of California."

1952 (R): Nixon, in his memoirs, said Ike "needed a moderate conservative from the Midwest or West who could serve as a bridge to the regular Republican Party organization, which had been sorely disappointed by [Robert] Taft's defeat."

Nixon also wrote Eisenhower wanted someone "willing to engage in all-out combat, and who was good at it."

"Perhaps my anticommunist credentials from the Hiss case were what most tilted the decision to me" because "the communist challenge" was going to be a campaign issue.

1956 (D): "I don't know how all of you feel, but I sure am tired." - Sen. Estes Kefauver (TN) after winning VP nomination on 3rd ballot over Sen. John F. Kennedy. Adlai Stevenson asked convention to make VP choice
https://www.c-span.org/video/?3397-1/kefauver-acceptance-speech

1960 (D): JFK said after discussions "with all elements of the Democratic Party leadership, I've reached the conclusion that it would be the best judgment of the convention to nominate Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas for the office of Vice President."

"The reality was the numbers: the figures in the Electoral College were all that mattered now." - Robert Caro, The Passage of Power, on JFK picking LBJ 1960

“Based upon the available individual-level data from 1960, then, we simply cannot affirm as an empirical reality the perception that Johnson provided a decisive advantage in that election.” - Christopher J. Devine and Kyle Kopko in their 2016 book "The VP Advantage"

Texas voted about 2 points more Democratic than the nation in 1952 and 1956 and about 1 point more Democratic than the nation in 1960:

1960 (R): Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., US Representative to the UN in NY, wrote in his "As It Was" book that Nixon called at 3 am from Chicago after "a meeting of leading Republicans at the Convention who had all finally agreed on me as the nominee for Vice President."

Lodge wrote that Nixon's 1960 VP choice came down to him and Sen./RNC chairman Thruston Morton, and that Tom Dewey said Morton "would be the favorite with the delegates, but that I was better known to the public." (Lodge lots of TV exposure at UN during Cold War)

1964 (D): "We're old friends and we get along well, but you have to understand that this is like a marriage with no chance of divorce. I need complete and unswerving loyalty," LBJ to Hubert Humphrey just before they formed ticket, per Humphrey's "The Education of a Public Man."

1964 (D): After LBJ adviser Jim Rowe told Hubert Humphrey he would be VP nominee, HH & Sen. Tom Dodd (a decoy for the press) flew from Atlantic City convention to DC to meet LBJ. They drove around DC for 15 mins until LBJ ready. As Dodd met with LBJ, HH fell asleep in the car.

1964 (R)/ Barry Goldwater picked Rep. Bill Miller (NY) & later wrote: "The upstate New Yorker, a fast-talking quipster with a biting wit, had driven Lyndon Johnson nuts in the past with his sharp tongue.”

As RNC chair, Miller "could return the party to some semblance of unity."

1968 (R): "Agnew fit the bill geographically, and as a political moderate he fit it philosophically." - Richard Nixon, in his memoirs

“The meetings produced no strong consensus for any candidate, but they did gradually tend to eliminate all except Agnew.”

1968 (R): "How to reach those Wallace supporters while appearing to be above the fray? Pick a running mate to do it for you. So it was that Spiro Agnew became the surprise choice" for VP at convention. - Charles Holden, co-author of "Republican Populist"
https://www.c-span.org/video/?465488-1/spiro-agnews-impact-republican-party

1968 (D): Hubert Humphrey chose Sen. Ed Muskie (ME) over Sen. Fred Harris (OK), Gov. Richard Hughes (NJ), and ex-Gov. Terry Sanford (NC)

Humphrey said LBJ preferred Sanford.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?70789-1/senator-muskie-package

1972 (D): George McGovern in 1996 said Sen. Tom Eagleton (MO) "not my first choice" but was "bright, rising star" who sought No. 2 spot and was picked after others turned McGovern down. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4895113/user-clip-george-mcgovern-choosing-tom-eagleton-vice-presidential-running-mate-1972
Eagleton withdrew after 18 days & was replaced by Sargent Shriver.

1976 (R): "I'm not certain what I can add to the ticket, but I will work hard and do the best I can not just for the Republican Party, but because I think America needs President Ford's leadership for four more years." - Bob Dole, accepting Ford offer https://www.c-span.org/video/?74133-1/ford-vice-presidential-nominee-announcement

1976 (D): Walter Mondale's vice-presidential nomination acceptance speech https://www.c-span.org/video/?3436-1/mondale-1976-acceptance-speech

Excerpt of 1992 interview with @SteveScully about how Mondale joined Jimmy Carter on the ticket: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4895164/user-clip-walter-mondale-jimmy-carters-1976-vice-presidential-running-mate

1980 R: "I went to the Republican convention in Detroit knowing the vice presidency was a possibility, but I did not expect it. ... No one was more surprised than I was when I answered the phone in my hotel suite and Ronald Reagan was on the other end of the line."-George HW Bush

1984 (D): Geraldine Ferraro, who formed a ticket with Walter Mondale, years later reflected on the selection process and becoming the first woman nominated for vice president by a major party.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4895188/user-clip-geraldine-ferraro-1984-democratic-vice-presidential-nominee ("Dianne" is Dianne Feinstein, another VP finalist)

1984 (D): Mondale on choosing Ferraro, from his memoir "The Good Fight"

1988 (D): Michael Dukakis on how he came to select Lloyd Bentsen
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4895196/user-clip-michael-dukakis-selecting-lloyd-bentsen-1988

"Had I been able to do a better job in that campaign, I think Lloyd Bentsen could have made the difference." Dukakis said Gore, Gephardt, Glenn, Jackson also were under consideration.

1988 (R): Sen. Dan Quayle (IN) the last VP running-mate announced during convention.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?3917-1/announcement-dan-quayle-george-hw-bush-running-mate&playEvent

"He kept his head high and was loyal to me, and I never regretted my choice," Bush 41 later wrote.

(Quayle, elected VP at age 41, is younger than Trump & Biden.)

1992 (D): "Besides knowing more about subjects that we'd have to deal with if elected, Al understood Congress and the Washington culture far better than I did." -- Bill Clinton on selecting Al Gore

1996 (R): "Maybe we ought to take a look at the quarterback."

Scott Reed, Bob Dole's 1996 campaign manager & a former Jack Kemp aide, quoting Dole before Dole's surprise pick of Kemp. What the campaign did to keep the secret (3-min video):
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4895277/user-clip-bob-doles-selection-jack-kemp-running-mate-1996

Charlie Black: "Dole and Kemp knew each other very well but they had been on the opposite sides of some big issues, like taxes, and they didn't particularly like each other." But they "developed a way to work together" and Kemp was a "positive addition."
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4895281/user-clip-charlie-black-1996-dole-kemp-ticket

2000 (D): For VP interview w/ Gore, "I was smuggled into the U.S. Naval Observatory, the vice president's official residence, in the backseat of a van with darkened windows." -Joe Lieberman

"When you come in as a VP candidate, you're boarding a train that's already moving."

2000 (R): Dick Cheney, chosen by George W. Bush after leading Bush's VP running-mate search process, on why "it's harder to find a good vice presidential candidate than you might think."

2004 (D): John Kerry's finalists were Dick Gephardt, Bob Graham and his eventual choice John Edwards, "who campaigned hardest for the job and who had captured the excitement of the party," Kerry later wrote. Edwards had "both fans and detractors in the Senate."

2008 (D): "I'm not the guy." - Joe Biden to reporters Aug. 19 amid Obama VP speculation


4 days later, he was: Obama-Biden ticket debuted in Springfield IL Aug. 23
https://www.c-span.org/video/?280630-1/obama-vice-presidential-announcement

2008 (D)

Aug 17: Obama decided on Biden over Bayh and Kaine, per Obama campaign manager David Plouffe's book
Aug 19: Biden told reporters "I'm not the guy" (see above)
Aug 21: Obama called Biden with offer
Aug 23: Obama-Biden debuted in Springfield
Aug 25: convention began

Per Plouffe, after Biden accepted Obama VP offer, senior Obama aides David Axelrod and Patti Solis Doyle met with Biden but flew to West Chester PA instead of Wilmington to keep choice secret until formal announcement.

"The last thing I should do is VP, after thirty-six years of being the top dog, it will be hard to be number two"

"But I would be a good soldier and could provide real value, domestically and internationally."

-Plouffe quoting Biden in VP-search meeting summer 2008

2008 (R): "The Republican convention was a week away, and when Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis raised Sarah Palin with me, I was intrigued." - John McCain in his book "The Restless Wave"

"Her profile as a reformer and as someone who managed to get important stuff done without years of experience or deferring to established interests was her main appeal."- McCain.

McCain-Palin ticket debuted in OH Aug 29, day after Obama acceptance speech https://www.c-span.org/video/?280808-1/mccain-vice-presidential-announcement

"And I still believe, whatever the effect it would have had in some quarters of the party, that a McCain-Lieberman ticket would have been received by most Americans as a genuine effort to pull the country together for a change." - McCain in "The Restless Wave"