In the 1930s one of the most popular Broadway musicals was the Gershwin brothers' Of Thee I Sing. The story of an American presidential campaign, the play featured a hapless vice president named Throttlebottom. The man wandered through the play, ignored by all. When he applied for a library card, he was turned down because he could not supply two references.
Ever since the founding of the Republic, vice presidents have scorned the office's lack of power and purpose. Thomas Jefferson, a vice president who became president, called the job "the fifth wheel to a handsome coach." Thomas Marshall, vice president under Woodrow Wilson, often told the story of two boys: "One ran away to sea and the other became vice president. Neither was ever heard from again."
Although the office itself is essentially powerless, the vice presidency is a high-profile position that often catapults its occupant onto the national stage. Six of the last eight vice presidents have later gone on to win their party's nomination in their own right (Bush, Mondale, Ford, Nixon, Humphrey and Johnson). And of course, five vice presidents have become president in this century by succeeding to the office upon the death or resignation of the president.
But how much help can a vice-presidential running mate be to a presidential candidate? The noted historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., has examined the recent political record and concluded that it is not clear that it really makes much difference whom Michael Dukakis and George Bush choose as their running mates.
He does point out that there are exceptions: John Kennedy would certainly never have carried Texas (and perhaps other southern states) in 1960 without Lyndon Johnson on the ticket. But vice presidential candidates often cannot even deliver their own states. In 1948, Tom Dewey put Earl Warren, the most popular governor California had ever had, on the ticket with him, and the Truman-Barkley ticket took California. Estes Kefauver could not save Tennessee for Adlai Stevenson in 1956, nor Cabot Lodge Massachusetts for Richard Nixon in 1960, nor William Miller New York for Barry Goldwater in 1964, nor Spiro Agnew Maryland for Nixon in 1968, nor Sargent Shriver Illinois for George McGovern in 1972, nor Geraldine Ferraro New York for Walter Mondale in 1984. The capacity of vice presidential candidates to help the ticket can be easily overrated.
Nixon, himself a vice president for eight years, once observed that "the vice president can't help you. He can only hurt you." Polls confirm Nixon's view, indicating that more voters vote against vice presidential candidates than for them. Robert Dole's uneven campaign with Gerald Ford in 1976 probably cost the ticket votes in a very close election.
Still, there are counterexamples. Agnew, who was of Greek descent, may have brought thousands of Greek-Americans into the Republican column in 1968. The Nixon-Agnew ticket won by only 500,000 votes. Dukakis, whose grandfather immigrated from the Greek island of Lesbos, will probably swing those same ethnic voters in his direction this November.
Bush is being urged to compensate for his upper-class origins and the gender gap, with a conservative or woman or, best of all, a right-wing
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