A heartbeat away

Do vice presidents matter?

Just ask the men who’ve held the job. John Adams, our very first vice president, called it “the most insignificant office ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” John Nance Garner, one of three vice presidents to serve under FDR, said his high office was “not worth a pitcher of warm piss.” Harry Truman, another FDR veep, thought the vice presidency “about as useful as a cow’s fifth teat.” The “fire hydrant of the nation,” said Walter Mondale. “Standby equipment,” said Nelson Rockefeller.

Then why have one?

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Because presidents are mortal. The nation’s founders created the vice presidency solely as an insurance policy, to ensure an orderly succession should the president die. Originally, the vice presidency was awarded as a cruel sort of consolation prize, with the runner-up in the presidential election being forced to spend four years as the winner’s vice president. Congress realized that this was a problematic arrangement during the presidency of John Adams (1796–1800), when he and his bitter political rival, Vice President Thomas Jefferson, spent four years trying to undermine each other. To prevent such chaos from recurring, the 12th Amendment was ratified in 1804, mandating that presidential and vice presidential candidates would henceforth run as a single ticket. Founding father Gouverneur Morris predicted that, subsequently, vice presidential candidates would be chosen as “vote bait,” and that prediction has held true for 200 years.

What did vice presidents do after Election Day?

Attend funerals the president didn’t want to attend, cut ribbons too insignificant for presidential hands, and make speeches the president didn’t want to make. For much of our history, vice presidents had no specific constitutional duty except to cast tie-breaking votes in the U.S. Senate. From 1791 to 1918, not one vice president attended a single Cabinet meeting. Abraham Lincoln’s first vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, found his job so dull that he rarely visited the White House and ended up joining the Coast Guard to have something useful to do. Vice presidents were held in such poor esteem in the 19th century that only one—Daniel D. Tompkins—was invited back by his president for a second term. When Rutherford B. Hayes learned, in 1876, that party bosses had picked as his running mate former congressman William A. Wheeler, he replied, “I’m embarrassed to say this, but who is Wheeler?” Thomas Marshall, who served under Woodrow Wilson, was given the use of a staff car but told he had to buy his own gasoline.

Is it still that bad?

No, and today’s vice presidents have Harry Truman to thank. Truman was ignored in his few months as FDR’s veep; upon Roosevelt’s death, he suddenly found himself commander in chief during a world war. Truman was then shocked to discover that he hadn’t even been told that the U.S. was building an atomic bomb. He resolved that no vice president would operate in such ignorance again. The National Security Act of 1947 gave the vice president a seat on the newly established National Security Council, and that marked a turning point. Since Truman, vice presidents have enjoyed a much greater voice and stature. Today, in fact, the incumbent vice president is usually his party’s presumptive nominee when the president leaves office.

What do modern vice presidents do?

Although many of their duties are still perfunctory, most have carved out unique positions of responsibility. Richard Nixon represented Dwight D. Eisenhower on many goodwill missions abroad, going head-to-head with Nikita Khrushchev during the famous “kitchen debate” in Moscow. John F. Kennedy put Lyndon Johnson in charge of the high-profile space program. Walter Mondale helped Jimmy Carter reorganize the U.S. intelligence apparatus. Al Gore was Bill Clinton’s point man on the environment and communications technology. Today, Dick Cheney plays a major role in shaping administration policy, advising President Bush on foreign policy, energy, and myriad other matters. That Cheney ordered U.S. warplanes to shoot down the hijacked jets of Sept. 11 has only enhanced his reputation as the most powerful vice president in history.

How are they chosen?

Presidential candidates, and not party bosses, now control the choice. But as in the past, vice presidential candidates still serve as vote bait, offering geographical balance or filling in some hole in the presidential candidate’s résumé. The ideal vice president must meet just two other qualifications: He should not perform so well that he upstages his boss, but not perform so badly that he embarrasses him. Many vice presidents, unfortunately, have found the second mandate difficult to fulfill. Andrew Johnson showed up staggering drunk at Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural, so incensing Lincoln that he only spoke to him once ever again. In 1952, Richard Nixon nearly lost his spot on Dwight Eisenhower’s ticket for failing to declare $18,000 in contributions and a cocker spaniel named Checkers given to him by Republican supporters. During Nixon’s presidency, Spiro T. Agnew got caught taking paper bags stuffed with cash kickbacks and had to resign. Sen. Thomas Eagleton, George McGovern’s original running mate in 1972, dropped out after it was revealed he had had electric shock treatment for depression.

Why would anyone want the job?

Presidents are mortal. “Every vice president from John Adams on has bad-mouthed the office,” observed Timothy Walch, director of the Herbert Hoover presidential library, “yet no one has refused it.”

The accidental president