The White House Vice Presidency

The Path to Significance, Mondale to Biden

Joel Goldstein

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780700624836, 9780700622023
• eBook ISBN: 9780700622030
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

“I am nothing, but I may be everything,” John Adams, the first vice president, wrote of his office. And for most of American history, the “nothing” part of Adams’s formulation accurately captured the importance of the vice presidency, at least as long as the president had a heartbeat. But a job that once was “not worth a bucket of warm spit,” according to John Nance Garner, became, in the hands of the most recent vice presidents, critical to the governing of the country on an ongoing basis. It is this dramatic development of the nation’s second office that Joel K. Goldstein traces and explains in The White House Vice Presidency.

The rise of the vice presidency took a sharp upward trajectory with the vice presidency of Walter Mondale. In Goldstein’s work we see how Mondale and Jimmy Carter designed and implemented a new model of the office that allowed the vice president to become a close presidential adviser and representative on missions that mattered. Goldstein takes us through the vice presidents from Mondale to Joe Biden, presenting the arrangements each had with his respective president, showing elements of continuity but also variations in the office, and describing the challenges each faced and the work each did. The book also examines the vice-presidential selection process and campaigns since 1976, and shows how those activities affect and/or are affected by the newly developed White House vice presidency.

The book presents a comprehensive account of the vice presidency as the office has developed from Mondale to Biden. But The White House Vice Presidency is more than that; it also shows how a constitutional office can evolve through the repetition of accumulated precedents and demonstrates the critical role of political leadership in institutional development. In doing so, the book offers lessons that go far beyond the nation's second office, important as it now has become.

1

Introduction

“I am nothing but I may be everything,” John Adams, the first vice president, wrote of his office.¹ For most of American history, the “nothing” part of Adams’s formulation captured the second office, at least so long as the president’s heartbeat maintained a normal rhythm. The Constitution prescribed only one ongoing duty for the vice president, presiding over the Senate, a role that conferred little power even when the Senate met, which it did infrequently. Most vice presidents found themselves unwelcome in both the legislative and executive branches. The vice president might become “everything” if called upon to discharge presidential duties upon the death or resignation of the chief executive, an event that occurred nine times from 1789 to 1974. Otherwise, he had status but not power.

The huge disparity between the vice president’s humble existence and contingent significance helped make the office a target of derision. The vice presidency was lampooned as unnecessary and ill-conceived. One senator referred to Adams as “his superfluous Excellency.”² Daniel Webster declined the second spot on the Whig ticket in 1848, explaining, “I do not propose to be buried until I am dead,”³ a decision he probably regretted when Millard Fillmore, not he, became president when Zachary Taylor died two years later. Thomas R. Marshall, Woodrow Wilson’s vice president, wrote that “the only business of the Vice President is to ring the White House bell every morning and ask what is the state of the health of the president.”⁴ Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller frequently disparaged his last public office as simply “standby equipment.”⁵

Things have changed dramatically. The perception and reality of the vice presidency is quite different now. Seeing Vice President Dick Cheney as the power during the George W. Bush administration, some joked that Bush was a heartbeat from the presidency. One scholar wrote of “the Co-Presidency of Bush and Cheney.”⁶ This characterization exaggerated Cheney’s role, but he was much closer to “everything” than to “nothing.”

The phenomenon of “vice-presidential power” did not begin with Cheney’s inauguration nor end when he left office. Paul C. Light coined that phrase in 1984 to describe the tenure of Walter F. Mondale (1977–1981),⁷ and the concept, to varying degrees, also applies to Mondale’s five successors. Adams, Webster, Marshall, and Rockefeller, among many others, could not have imagined Cheney’s vice presidency, but they also would have found shocking the roles of Cheney’s predecessor, Al Gore, and his successor, Joe Biden, both consequential number twos. Vice-presidential power varies from administration to administration, yet the change is largely institutional, not simply personal. The vice presidency is no longer a sinecure. It matters now. A lot. An office that was “nothing” has become a robust political institution.

In part, this development happened over time. In the early twentieth century, the office began to attract more accomplished men and to take tentative steps toward the executive branch. Recognizing this trend, Irving G. Williams’s The Rise of the Vice Presidency appeared in 1956⁸ as Richard M. Nixon finished his first term as Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president. Williams’s title accurately described the trajectory of the office but made no claim regarding its level of significance.

In 1982, I wrote The Modern American Vice Presidency: The Transformation of a Political Institution,⁹ which argued that the modern vice presidency, the office from Nixon to Mondale, had grown due to dramatic changes in American politics and government since Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933. With the depression and World War II, Americans increasingly looked to Washington to address national and international issues. The power of the presidency grew relative to the other branches of government, to political parties, and to local political bosses. Presidential nominees gained the right to choose their running mates, a decision that was previously the province of party leaders. The president’s new responsibility for the decision changed the dynamic between the two members of the ticket. The vice president became indebted to his benefactor (even if he was not embraced by the president once in office), more loyal, and more closely identified with the administration. The advent and increased feasibility of air travel and the ubiquity of radio, then television, created new possibilities and challenges for the chief executive. He was expected to respond, or appear to respond, to more problems and to be more places, demands that created a need for high-level help. The Cold War and nuclear age made the first successor more significant and his preparation more essential. The vice president became more visible and his qualifications more important.

These factors drew the vice presidency away from the Senate and toward the executive branch and provided incentive to fill the office with able figures and to give them work other than presiding over the Senate. Especially beginning with Nixon’s time in the office, vice presidents increasingly performed executive-branch chores instead of the constitutional Senate role. They chaired commissions, traveled abroad, lobbied for and defended administration programs, and discharged partisan responsibilities. The office began to attract more accomplished people, which enhanced it as a source of presidential candidates. My 1982 book praised the Mondale vice-presidential model but suggested future vice-presidential influence would turn largely on the relations between the president and vice president, the needs of each administration, and the resources contributed by the vice president.

The Modern American Vice Presidency accordingly gave a systemic or contextual explanation for the institutional growth to that time. It saw the vice presidency as evolving in response to developments in other institutions and related its rise to opportunities and incentives presented by these changes. I continue to believe that that account largely explains the rise of the vice presidency during most of that time.

Yet a lot changed with Mondale’s vice presidency. It did not simply tinker with the office Nixon and the next five vice presidents had held; it introduced a very different model. Mondale conceived of and, with President Jimmy Carter, implemented a new vision of the office as providing a close presidential adviser and senior troubleshooter. They brought the vice presidency into the White House and converted a developing, but limited, office into one of great significance. Their vision enabled the institution to rise to an elevated plane far above the level where its prior forty-one occupants had operated. It made “vice-presidential power” plausible, not oxymoronic.

The innovations Carter and Mondale introduced outlasted their term. More than three decades later, the essential features of the Mondale model have largely redefined the office. Rather than belonging to an earlier period, Mondale’s vice presidency inaugurated a new era. It more closely resembled those of his five successors (George H. W. Bush, Dan Quayle, Gore, Cheney, and Biden) than those of its six immediate predecessors (Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey, Spiro T. Agnew, Gerald R. Ford, and Rockefeller).

The institution that exists today, the “White House vice presidency,” reflects the Mondale design and its further development. The modern institution follows the Mondale model closely though not precisely. Put differently, the Mondale model was the original, the source of, and a version of the “White House vice presidency,” but the two terms are not synonymous. The “White House vice presidency” also does not signify that the vice president spends all of his time in the White House—far from it; much necessary work is performed elsewhere. Rather, it means that the vice president has become part of the president’s inner circle and works closely with him to achieve administration objectives. It signifies a set of roles, relationships, and resources now associated with the office that allow vice presidents to contribute importantly at the central and highest level of the executive branch.

The White House vice presidency represents a very positive development for the vice presidency, the presidency, and the American constitutional system more generally. It has increased the likelihood that the vice presidency will better serve its contingent constitutional function to provide an able, well-prepared successor. Yet the greatest benefits from the White House vice presidency come from the vice president’s enhanced role in the ongoing work of government. An involved vice president can advise the president regularly on the problems that reach the Oval Office from a unique and helpful perspective. Unburdened by attachment to any departmental perspective and as an elected official, the vice president is positioned to take a holistic approach, to see the range of choices much as a president does, and as one who largely shares the president’s interests, and to advise accordingly. And because the vice president’s political future depends on the administration’s accomplishments, a vice president has incentive to help the president succeed. The White House vice presidency also provides a high-level official to handle important duties. Of course, vice presidents still perform ceremonial work. So do presidents. Yet most vice-presidential work now is significant. Vice presidents regularly discharge important assignments that otherwise would require presidential attention or be neglected. The stature of the office, coupled with presidential access, allows the vice president to shoulder significant responsibilities that virtually no other presidential subordinate can handle. A vice president perceived as influential can extend government’s capacity and ease the president’s burdens.

This recognition, that the White House vice presidency has greatly enhanced American government, far from ending the inquiry, suggests further questions. How did this change happen? Why did the office become much more robust on Mondale’s watch than ever before? Why have the essential features of the Mondale model survived more than thirty-five years beyond his term even without constitutional or statutory enactments? And what does the development of the vice presidency teach about institutional change in the American constitutional system?

This book addresses those questions. It describes the changes in the vice presidency beginning with, and brought on by, the Mondale term and argues that they are fundamental and enduring. The book discusses the development of the office since 1976, not to provide a history of those years but to portray the contemporary vice presidency as a governmental institution and to explain why it changed when it did and how that institutional revision has been sustained. The account also provides a study of political leadership. As such, this book uses the vice presidency to explore political behavior of presidents and vice presidents since 1976. Finally, it studies the dynamics of institutional reform, showing how fundamental constitutional change can occur through informal means. The following paragraphs elaborate on these themes.

Mondale’s vice presidency built on foundations constructed during the prior quarter century. These included (1) the increased association of vice presidents with the executive branch, (2) the ability of the office to attract more able occupants, and (3) the increased value of the office as a springboard to the presidency. Yet far from continuing a familiar pattern, Mondale’s vice presidency represented a bold departure in institutional design in which the old, and some new, threads were woven into a sturdier fabric. Mondale assumed a far more prominent and influential role in the executive branch. Whereas prior vice presidents had operated at the administration’s periphery with episodic access and influence, Mondale became one of Carter’s closest advisers. Whereas conflict with the president, his inner circle, or both diminished most prior vice presidents, Mondale developed a harmonious relationship with Carter and his closest associates that largely continued throughout their term. Far from being “standby equipment,” Mondale was an integral figure in the presidency’s ongoing important work. Mondale’s success also depended on resources he obtained to support his advising and troubleshooting roles.

The Carter-Mondale period also witnessed significant changes in the process by which vice presidents were chosen and in their campaign and transition roles. Carter and Mondale were not solely responsible for these changes but contributed importantly. For instance, Carter’s vice-presidential selection process differed from prior models. It was more deliberative and protracted than its predecessors. Carter did not ignore conventional criteria, but he understood that political and governmental considerations had converged so that choosing a well-qualified running mate had strategic value. The 1976 campaign included the first vice-presidential debate, an innovation that gave running mates greater visibility and impacted subsequent vice-presidential selection and campaign roles.

Some of Mondale’s successors were more influential than he; others had less clout. But each retained the resources Mondale obtained, each saw the president regularly, and each found significant ways to contribute. Vice presidents, beginning with Mondale, had far greater opportunities to participate in high-level executive decision-making and assumed more significant assignments as troubleshooters. Although different vice presidents have emphasized distinct activities, they have undertaken more substantive roles on a more consistent basis than did their pre-Mondale predecessors. Their foreign travel and other diplomatic work have been more consequential, their legislative interventions more significant, their domestic troubleshooting more regular and central. Whereas Mondale avoided responsibility for ongoing governmental programs, many of his successors accepted, and at times embraced, such roles. Mondale’s successors, and the presidents they served, each contributed to the evolution of the office and anchored a more robust version in firmer foundations.

The selection process for vice-presidential candidates also changed as subsequent nominees developed Carter’s innovations. It began and ended sooner. The earlier start can be traced to changes in presidential nominating practices that advanced the resolution of that decision. The earlier conclusion occurred as presidential candidates took advantage of the opportunity to remove the selection from the convention. Vice-presidential selection now includes a formalized vetting process over an extended period during which public discussion of possible nominees occurs. The longer review focuses greater attention on the vice presidency and allows more intensive scrutiny of political running mates. The protracted consideration raises the stakes for the presidential candidate as the perceived quality of the process and of the running mate chosen ultimately reflect on the selector. The preconvention vice-presidential rollout developed as a new standard campaign event.

The vice-presidential debate also became a standard feature of presidential campaigns as, b...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Vice Presidency through History
• 3 Laying the Foundation
• 4 The Mondale Model: Creating the Vision
• 5 Implementing the Mondale Model
• 6 Why It Worked
• 7 The White House Vice Presidency: Bush to Gore
• 8 The Triumph of the Vice Presidency: Cheney to Biden
• 9 Determinants of Vice-Presidential Role: Bush to Biden and Beyond
• 10 The Vice-Presidential Selection Process
• 11 Criteria for Selection
• 12 Vice-Presidential Campaigns
• 13 The Vice President as Successor
• 14 The Political Future of Vice Presidents
• 15 The Problems with the Vice Presidency
• 16 Conclusion
• Notes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index
• Back Cover