The serious matter of the selection of a Vice Presidential nominee is often subordinated to short-term electoral calculations, but the choice of Kemp may set some sort of record for the shortness of the term. Presidential nominees often make their picks with less than three months in mind – the span between the convention and the election. Dole may have made his pick with one week primarily in mind. He probably had polling data indicating that he could get the largest, quickest boost from the convention by choosing Kemp, who has wide name recognition in the country and an intense faction of followers in the party. When Kemp is nominated on Wednesday evening, the delegates will almost certainly feel more enthusiasm for him than for Dole.

But come Friday morning, when the Dole campaign buckles down to the daunting business of assembling 270 electoral votes, what then? Even if Kemp accepts the discipline of subordinating his sometimes garrulous self to someone else’s agenda, he may complicate Dole’s task of becoming competitive in California. Hence he may make it even more difficult for Dole to compete in the states where the election will be decided.

Because of the Republicans’ electoral vote advantage in what is called the Republican ““L’’ – start at the Canadian border, drop south through the Prairie and Mountain West to Texas, then go across the South to the Atlantic – it is difficult for a Democrat to assemble 270 without carrying California’s 54, which are one-fifth of 270. But while a Republican can win without carrying California, a Republican cannot win without being competitive in California. If he is not, the Democrat can, figuratively speaking, rent an apartment in Columbus, Ohio, and devote all his resources to courting the states in the crescent between New Jersey and Wisconsin, including Kentucky and Tennessee.

A poll puts Dole 27 points behind in California, fueling speculation that he might concede the state, as Bush did in 1992. But Dole’s campaign has tentatively budgeted for a serious California effort. Last week President Clinton, whose courtship of California borders on the erotic, made his 26th visit to the state, a visit that indicated two things: He wants to drive his numbers up to a point that forces Dole to concede the state, but his lead is still too soft to force that.

Now comes Kemp. And perhaps there goes Dole’s most promising strategy for closing the gap in California. That plan calls for strongly leavening his national themes with two issues of high local saliency. One is the fight against illegal immigration. The other is the California Civil Rights Initiative, by which California voters can in November ban racial preferences by any of the state’s governmental units. The trouble is, for Dole to stress those themes, Kemp will have to bite his famously free tongue.

In 1994, when California’s Gov. Pete Wilson was fighting for his political life in an uphill reelection bid, he fueled his successful comeback with strong support of Proposition 187, which was directed against illegal immigration and included the exclusion from public schools of the children of illegal immigrants. Kemp campaigned vociferously against 187, which passed. Most of the spirit and many of the provisions of 187 – including the school exclusion – are in the platform on which Kemp will run.

Furthermore, Kemp, who calls himself a ““bleeding heart conservative,’’ has distanced himself from Republican efforts to end racial preferences. Also, he still seems to believe John Kennedy’s axiom that a rising economic tide raises all boats. We now know otherwise. ““Kemp,’’ writes David Frum, ““is a political Dorian Gray, a man untouched by time even as everything around him is transformed by it.’’ He is among the last believers in social engineering by tinkering with economic incentives, as in reviving the lunarscapes of America’s inner cities by means of enterprise zones and tenant ownership of public housing. Conservatism needs cheerfulness. So, Pangloss for Vice President.

There is, of course, a weighty precedent, and there are serious justifications, for Dole’s choice of an antagonist for a partner. In 1960, perhaps the only time a vice presidential choice determined the outcome of an election, there was no love lost between John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Kemp was the primary architect of the Kemp-Roth tax cut proposal which essentially became the Reagan program, so Kemp can erase what could seem to be a conviction deficit as Dole campaigns as a supply side tax cutter. A free-trader, Kemp can counter any crypto-protectionists near Dole. A Los Angeles native, Kemp is a walking, talking slice of California ebullience. He has not yet voiced opposition to the CCRI, and he might be able to fashion positions on it and on immigration that do not disarm Dole. A former congressman from Buffalo, Kemp could conceivably make Dole competitive in New York, where Clinton is more vulnerable than polls suggest.

Much, then, depends on Kemp at long last acquiring discipline, and the ability to doubt some of his rather dated nostrums. The Marquis de Custine said that there are people who know everything except what they are told. Kemp is like that. He is a former quarterback, used to barking out signals, not receiving them. He is not – one wants to say this as politely as possible – one of the world’s great listeners. Unfortunately for Kemp, and perhaps for Dole, dutiful listening is listed high in the job description for those who would be vice president.