''The Vice President is The Only Person The President Can't Fire.''
It is not a Miss Congeniality award, not a runner-up trophy, nor a consolation prize of any sort. The vice presidency has been derided and desired, but one central fact about it is inescapable
In 1966, after a reporting trip with Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, I enjoyed off-the-record drinks with one of the Great Society's smartest people. The veep's frustration was a topic. Humphrey, his aides and even some of President Lyndon Johnson's braintrusters lamented the waste of Humphrey's skills and experience as senator and as mayor of Minneapolis. Shouldn't HHH be ''czar'' of the programs the Johnson administration had so eagerly begun? Can't the vice presidency be a position of line responsibility?
Robert C. Wood, whose book popularized the word "suburbia," set down his drink and was professorially patient. A political scientist at MIT, he was undersecretary, then secretary, of Housing and Urban Development. ''The vice president is the only person the president can't fire,'' Bob Wood said, confirming his commonsense role in an optimistic era. "Marty, you have to look at the Constitution."
Yup, there it is, several times. Cabinet secretaries serve at the pleasure of the president, who can dismiss them at any time. To oust a vice president requires a vote of the House and two-thirds vote in the Senate: a messy matter, but it would be fascinating television.
The vice presidency is a hugely erroneous afterthought by the Framers. Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist Paper 68, conceded that having the vice president preside over the Senate "has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous." The first vice president, John Adams, called the second vice president, Thomas Jefferson, a "consummate intriguer," which turned out to be accurate. Jefferson defeated Adams for the presidency in 1800. But because Aaron Burr tied Jefferson in the Electoral College, the young Republic changed the Constitution with the 12th Amendment, specifying how vice presidents were to be elected.
In the 19th century, party bosses made the No. 2 post a ticket-balancing nonentity. Vice presidents who entered the White House because of the death of a president -- John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson and Chester Alan Arthur -- were not strong enough to be win presidential nominations at party conventions:
Theodore Roosevelt was a famous V.P., a war hero and former governor of New York. But most 20th century vice presidents resembled Alexander P. Throttlebottom, the clueless, feckless and fictional V.P. in the 1931 George and Ira Gershwin musical Of Thee I Sing. This veep "lives at 1448 Z Street... with the other boarders" and mostly "sits around in the park and feeds the pigeons, and takes walks, and goes to the movies."
Dick Cheney is no Throttlebottom. All the more reason why the next president should make clear who's in charge here.
Choosing a vice president is the first important executive decision a would-be president makes. If Barack Obama is pressured by Hillary Clinton, a mathematical question arises: why would he choose someone whom record numbers of Democrats have voted against? More significantly, if a candidate for No. 1 is forced to choose someone he doesn't want then the potential president, not the would-be veep, would be the true Throttlebottom.
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the POINT is this is not her TIME to be president or vice president. she burned those bridges...
More voted for her than for your candidate so I guess why is Obama the democratic candidate when record numbers voted against him?
This post isn't just good--it's important.
It is precisely because the Vice President can't be summarily dismissed mid-afternoon at the President's sole discretion that the Vice Presidency is seldom awarded to a potential political liability or political foe. By selecting LBJ, JFK accepted a major risk--and so, that was a glaring exception.
The logical position for Sen. Clinton in the Obama administration would be as Secretary of Health and Human Services, if she wants it. Health care is her self-designated area of greatest expertise. She can be given two years to take on Congress and the drug companies a second time and try to put President Obama's health insurance plan in place. If she focuses on that and succeeds, the President and the American people win a great insurance plan, she wins our gratitude and she has a meaningful job for years to come either there or as ambassador to Japan or the like.
If she fails, tries to enact her own plan instead of the President's or otherwise engages in political intrigue, she gets sent back to Westchester County, New York, to see what Bill is up to, with the ceremonial thanks of a grateful nation.
And--so far--no one has ever particularly cared about what the spouse of the Secretary of Health and Human Services says or does.
I also endorse this solution to the Hillary problem. It seems so obvious when you think about it, and I would be willing to bet this is Obama's offer to Hillary.
Other benefits are 1) in order for it to happen, HIllary has to campaign her heart out to ensure Obama wins the Presidency, otherwise she's stuck in the Senate where no one seems to think she'll want to stay, and where her colleagues all prefer Obama to her. And 2) Her Senate seat will certainly be filled by another Democrat when she leaves to join the administration.
It's reasonable to suppose that Nixon's VP Spiro Agnew
was pretty much 'fired'. Being asked to resign, or advised
to resign so as to avoid imprisonment, gets it done and is the
equivalent to being fired in the higher circles of executive offices
everywhere.
http://www
But, had Agnew decided that he wasn't going to be thrown under the bus, there was nothing that Nixon could have done short of inciting an impeachmen
If M.N.'s point is that since the VP office is an elected one, rather than appointed, it's that much more permanent, if not necessarily powerful in its own right, then the point is well taken. HRC as VP would have enormous political power, even if her actual duties were minimized by the Obama administration.
Hillary would make a great ambassador to Bosnia because she's such a hard working white person, as far as I know.
Record numbers of Democrats didn't vote AGAINST anyone. They voted FOR someone, whether Obama or Hillary. Would Yawl please cut it out? Obama won. Stop bashing Hillary. Move on. Ignore her.
You said: " why would he choose someone whom record numbers of Democrats have voted against?"
Nonsensical question. Could the answer possibly be that he should pick a candidate whom record numbers of Democrats have voted for? Of course not, if you live in hate world. Or if you would prefer to have a mccain presidency.
His is a valid question, Jake. Put it into perspective. Yes, lots of people voted for her AND against her. Both sides of that fact are a detriment to Obama if he chooses her as his running mate. For the people who voted against her, her presence on the ticket is an affront and that subtly weakens his leadership. As for all those who voted for her, they are a constant temptation for her to upstage him at every opportunity, again weakening his leadership. Where's the payoff?
No, the negatives of that suggestion outweigh the positives by a large margin. Most of the people who voted for her will support the Party's nominee even if they don't like him personally because the Party carries the banner for our interests as opposed to the bankrupt GOP. Those who won't get behind him wouldn't be swayed by her runningmate status anyway.
Sorry, but this is one of those rare cases where the whole is less than the sum of its parts.
By your logic, it also makes no sense to select a presidential candidate who record numbers of democrats have voted against.
"If Barack Obama is pressured by Hillary Clinton, a mathematical question arises: why would he choose someone whom record numbers of Democrats have voted against?"
This makes perfect sense to me.
Math seems to be a problem on HP.
49.9 % plus 50.1% equals 100%.
The statement you quote may make sense to you but it is far from perfect sense if you want to appeal to all Democrats. Did you vote for Obama or against Clinton? Would you vote for McCain if Hillary were the nominee? If she were the VP nominee? Hillary is a candidate that record numbers of Democrats have voted for. Almost half.
I voted for Hillary. I did not vote AGAINST Obama. I would hope most Obama voters voted FOR Obama and not against Hillary. That part of your argument is nonsensical. I do agree Obama probably should not pick Hillary as Vice President. There are plenty of good choices, including Hillary supporters. I hope he doesn't pick a conservative to "balance" the ticket. Like Lieberman. He needs to pick a true Liberal and start telling the truth about liberals and conservatives. If the Democrats stand for their ideals they'll win. No need to cave or compromise. Speak the truth and win. Act on the truth and succeed.
That's EXACTLY what I did. I would have voted FOR Hillary if there hadn't been Obama, but since there was, I voted FOR Obama. In November, I will actually do a combination of voting FOR Obama and AGAINST McCain!!
I agree, especially since Obama only needs to garner a percentage of her Democratic voters to sink McCain, assuming of course the craven Senator from N.Y. doesn't declare herself as an Independent.
It is good to be reminded of the fact the Vice President cannot be dismissed by the President. I wonder how many Americans actually know this?
More worrying is the thought it has never, to the best of my knowledge, been clarified if a two-term President could be appointed as a Vice President. This raises the interesting possibility the Clintons, in the hope of Hillary becoming President, might actually have had the unthinkable and very scary thought of Bill then being appointed Vice President, although I doubt the country would have bought that!
You must note that John Adams & Tom Jefferson were not
even of the same party, so they would be expected to be
political adversaries. That electoral-college flaw was soon
corrected.
Otherwise, even when they're party-mates, they certainly
are rarely 'good buddies'. I think we understand that JFK
& LBJ did not 'get along'. None the less, the post is a
necessary one, obviously, even with the 'pitcher of warm
spit' problem.
You learn something new every day.
Now it's a double hell no for clinton for vp.
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