When John Adams was George Washington’s vice president, he thought he held "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." When the Whigs were looking for a vice president on Zachary Taylor’s ticket, the position was offered to Senator Daniel Webster who promptly declined and quipped: "I do not intend to be buried until I am dead."
Thomas Marshall,Woodrow Wilson’s vice president, told the story of two brothers, one of whom went away to sea while the other was elected vice president: “And nothing was heard of either of them again." Former Speaker John Garner,vice president during Franklin Roosevelt’s first two terms, remarked that his position was not "worth a pitcher of warm piss." And Harry Truman, FDR’s vice president from January 20, to April 12, 1945, wryly remarked that it was the vice president’s job to "go to weddings and funerals."
Most Veeps seem to have felt very constrained by the two main constitutional stipulations for their position: to succeed the President in the event of his death or resignation, and to serve as the presiding officer of the U.S. Senate. In the latter role, the Veep has to preside over the vote count of the Electoral College and to break the tie in case of a deadlock. That vote, however, can be very important, as it was in 2001 when the Senate was divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats, and Vice President Cheney's tie-breaker gave the Republicans the majority.
Informally, the role of the vice president depends much on what the president wants him to do. Presidents have often delegated ceremonial duties to the vice president. After John Adams attended a meeting of the president's cabinet in 1791, none of his successors did so again until Thomas Marshall stood in for President Wilson while he traveled to Europe in 1919. In 1933 at last, Franklin Roosevelt gave his vice president a standing invitation to attend cabinet meetings, a practice presidents have continued ever since.
Yet, FDR also had to deal with two vice presidents that seriously disagreed with him on political decisions. Garner openly opposed his attempt to increase the number of supreme court justices. And in his third term, Roosevelt saw his vice president, Henry Wallace, drift further to the left than he and most Democrats were willing to accept. As a result, Wallace became practically useless for the administration.
To avoid open dissent from his vice president, FDR chose a more agreeable Democratic Senator from Missouri, Harry Truman, as successor to Wallace. Regrettably, Roosevelt kept Truman uninformed on crucial war and postwar issues, including the development of the atomic bomb. To prevent the recurrence of this failure, four years later Congress made the vice president one of the four statutory members of the National Security Council.
Eisenhower had Vice President Nixon preside over cabinet meetings when a heart attack in 1955 and a stroke in 1957 temporarily incapacitated him. President Carter was the first to give his vice president, Walter Mondale, an office in the White House. No vice president, however, seemed to have been as close a confidante of the president as Richard Cheney whose counsel to Mr. Bush apparently prevailed on most nationally important policy decisions.
Yet, no matter how important or unimportant Americans consider the vice presidency, they have to be mindful of the fact that nine vice presidents were called upon to succeed the incumbent president upon his death or resignation. Four sitting vice presidents, moreover, became well-known enough to be elected president.
Given this historical record, what kind of person should a candidate for president choose as his running mate for the next four years? Should he balance the ticket for the purpose of shoring up his perceived weaknesses? Or should the call rather go to an educated realist whose qualities reinforce the leader of the ticket?