Good vice-presidential picks share certain common traits. They don’t attract negative headlines. They serve as the “attack dog” to the opposing ticket. They are free of scandal. They solidify the base. 

A mere 10 days since being formally nominated as the vice-presidential pick for the GOP, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, has fallen short on each of these fronts. 

Since accepting the nomination, the Catholic politician has attracted an avalanche of negative headlines for recently unearthed statements about the government being run by “childless cat ladies” and about awarding votes to children that parents could cast. 

He has failed to land any politically significant blows on Vice President Kamala Harris, despite her vulnerabilities on the economy and the border. 

His inconsistency on abortion — which includes his explicit desire that abortion pills remain accessible — has roiled the GOP base more than it has solidified it. 

With only four months until the election, he must begin to right the ship immediately to avoid joining the list of historically ignominious picks that includes former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Vice President Dan Quayle. 

There is little evidence that vice-presidential selections attract new voters to a given ticket. But there is plenty of evidence that the wrong choice can do real damage.

The first and most crucial move for Vance is to stop saying sarcastic and mean-spirited things. Indeed, Vance is a brilliant thinker — he does not need to rely on insults to make his points. For a 39-year-old running for the second-highest office in the land, his remarks are frequently off-putting and immature. It’s the last impression he could hope to make.

The Harris campaign has done an effective job defining Vance as an object of ridicule for these comments. He should stop giving them material. 

In relation to his “childless-cat ladies” remark, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board wrote: “The comment is the sort of smart-aleck crack that gets laughs in certain right-wing male precincts. But it doesn’t play well with the millions of female voters, many of them Republican, who will decide the presidential race.”

It is a point Vance should heed. 

Next, he must leave behind obscure philosophical musings about the state of civilization that risk alienating large swaths of voters. Instead, he should emphasize specific, bread-and-butter issues of concern to voters in the Midwestern battleground states — the voters he was picked to attract in the first place. 

A recent CBS News poll found that a whopping 80% of voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania say the economy is the most critical issue, with 77% concerned mostly about inflation. A recent New York Times survey found that 73% of Americans rate the economy as either “fair” or “poor.” The ground for a strong attack on the economy could not be more fertile. 

It is political malpractice to emphasize any other issue above the economy, particularly in the Midwest.

Whether parents should be awarded extra votes in correlation with their number of children makes for interesting fodder in the faculty lounge. But these ideas are disconnected from the lived realities of voters who are only beginning to pay attention to the race. They strike many as odd, even unsettling. 

Indeed, there is some merit to the idea that parents have a greater stake in the future of America than the childless. But voters want to hear about the economy. This isn’t a time for deep thoughts; it’s a time for communicating solutions clearly and concisely. 

Vance should also train his sights on Harris’ record as the Biden administration’s “point person” on the border. Mainstream media outlets have bent over backwards refuting the claim that Harris was ever the “border czar” — Axios recently scolded the Trump campaign for using the label on Harris, despite having used it numerous times themselves in the past — and these efforts should be refuted loudly and clearly. 

To be certain, Harris indeed oversaw Biden’s border efforts — and her record is abysmal. Vance should be issuing a constant barrage of reminders on this. The House just approved a resolution condemning Harris’ tenure as point person on the border, attracting six House Democrats in the vote. Theirs is a good lead to follow. 

Finally, Vance must help solidify and energize the GOP base on life issues. His record on abortion, which includes recent comments about the abortion pill and his vocal support for IVF, is anything but clear. Combined with the dismay pro-life voters feel about changes to the GOP platform on abortion, his lack of clarity has the potential to do real damage in states that could be decided by mere thousands of votes. 

Vance has stumbled out of the gate in his nascent campaign for the vice presidency — it is crucial to acknowledge this with clear eyes. But there is still time for Vance to regain his footing. 

He must immediately refocus his attention on core issues and avoid abstract musings that give ammunition to the opposition and risk appearing “elitist” to blue-collar voters — which is the very thing he was not supposed to be.