As Vice President Role Grows, Spotlight Becomes Brighter
Jules Witcover

The debate between Vice President Joe Biden and challenger Paul Ryan earned an uncommonly bright spotlight in the wake of President Obama's perceived weak performance in his first debate with Mitt Romney, which seemed to tighten the presidential race.

Such verbal bouts between running mates have seldom been great drawing cards. Nevertheless, while second banana candidates are most often little seen and less heard, their debates have become increasingly valuable. They shed light on the political judgment and wisdom of the presidential nominees who choose them, though seldom are they determinants in how presidential votes are cast.

In the last two presidential cycles, public interest in what in earlier years had been an inconsequential sideshow rose sharply. Four years ago, the debate debut of little-known Sarah Palin was the subject of great curiosity. The lure this time around was the question of whether Biden could shore up Democrats worried that the election might be slipping away from their party.

Beyond that, however, the vice-presidential debate was a reminder of how far the vice presidency itself has come in the lifetime of most of us. Once shunned as a political dead end by most ambitious politicians, it is now eagerly sought by many. It has become not only a stepping-stone to a future presidential nomination but also a job in which a major role in national policy can be had.

That trend really began 26 years ago, when presidential nominee Jimmy Carter chose Sen. Walter Mondale as his running mate. After their election, Carter brought him directly into the White House as a functioning partner in governing the country, almost as an assistant president.

In 1981, winner Ronald Reagan likewise gave his standby, the senior George Bush, an office in the executive mansion. But Bush was not utilized in quite the extensive way Mondale had been. He was sufficiently identified with Reagan however, that eight years later he was elected to the presidency in what was often regarded as the next best thing to a Reagan third term.

As president, Bush interrupted the trend by choosing boyish and gaffe-prone Sen. Dan Quayle as his running mate. In Quayle's four years in the office, the ridicule and disrespect the public had formerly shown toward the office resumed with every unfortunate remark he made.

In 1992, Bill Clinton chose a wonky but cautious running mate in Sen. Al Gore and brought him significantly into the workings of his administration. Rather than making Gore a general adviser, as Mondale had been to Carter, Clinton assigned him to specific areas of his expertise, including the development of alternate sources of energy and environmental concerns.

In 2000, the junior George Bush raised the bar on the delegated power of the vice presidency in making his running mate, Dick Cheney, a central player in both domestic and foreign-policy matters. He did so to the point that Democrats complained that Cheney became the tail wagging the dog.

Eight years later, when Barack Obama tapped Biden, and subsequently made him a governing partner in the Mondale mode, Biden vowed to "restore the balance" of the office after Cheney's dominant tenure. He proceeded nevertheless to assert considerable influence in policy making as a visible presence in administration councils.

As for Romney this year, he chose in Ryan a rising young star in the Republican congressional leadership ranks. As chairman of the House Budget Committee. Ryan had already gained a prominent voice in setting party policy, and he has the potential to do the same as vice president.

In all, the esteem and power of the nation's second elective office have come a long way since 1964, when Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater frivolously chose as his running mate an upstate New York political hack named William E. Miller "because he drives Lyndon Johnson (the incumbent Democrat) nuts."

It may be too much to expect that voters, in casting their ballots for president, will give much consideration to the two party's choices for vice president. But at least the vice-presidential debates afford a good look at what they might get as part of the package that may run the country for the next four years.

 

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As Vice President Role Grows, Spotlight Becomes Brighter | Politics

 

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