sign in sign up
<<
Home , Benjamin Wade, Bob Dole, Dan Quayle, Lloyd Bentsen, Richard Nixon, Running mate

“Potatoe” Kings Why Vice Presidents Are Doomed From the Start

Tyler Isaman

P-O-T-A-T-O. The word was scratched on the old blackboard in crisp white chalk causing a comforting smile stretched across the Vice President’s painfully young face. The clean cut, black suit that hung off ’s shoulders and the red patterned tie that was fastened tightly around his neck gave him an air of importance and intellect. William Figueroa, on the other hand, was an overweight Puerto Rican sixth-grader in a plain blue tee shirt who had to travel over an hour by bus to get to Trenton’s Muñoz Rivera School’s spelling bee.

"You're close," Quayle said, "but you left a little something off. The e on the end."1

William looked at his vice president, the man who was second-in-command of the free world, then slowly scratched an “e” on the blackboard. Moments later at a press conference a reporter entreated Quayle to spell “potato” and the media debacle began, forever implanting the misspelled “potatoe” next to Quayle’s name in American history. This, coming only months after millions watched “Danny Boy” get affronted by Senator at the vice presidential debate, sparked further questions about whether or not Dan Quayle was competent enough to be the next President of the if there was an emergency.

Quayle’s embarrassment follows a pattern that appears relatively often in vice presidential memoirs. A young, fresh faced man who has just dipped his feet into politics is suddenly up for the position of vice president. But, upon accepting the great honor that John

Adams called, “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived,” he suddenly realizes that he is unprepared to handle such a position. Or,

1 Allen Raymond and Ian Spiegelman, How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative, (Simon and Schuster, 2008). 1 even more frequent, is the story of the vice president who was chosen during a stressful election period. Suddenly, through national tragedy, the vice president assumes the role of president only to realize that he does not agree with his predecessor’s polices. In fact, many who get elected to the position disagree with their president on key issues, or, like Dan Quayle, agree on the issues but were clearly chosen for the wrong reasons and are not the best candidate to succeed to the presidency.

The fact of the matter is that vice presidents are often not the most qualified people to be president is often a result of the president himself or his party. There are two goals of presidential nominees: to get elected and to choose a vice president who will be effective in handling ongoing duties and as a presidential successor. The problem with these two goals is that they can potentially compete with each other because, as Douglas Kriner, an Assistant Professor of

Political Science at Boston University, points out in a recent Presidential Studies Quarterly segment, “the latter [of these goals] is meaningless without the former.”2 This mentality frequently causes candidates to become blinded to the possibility that their is not, in fact, the most qualified person to succeed to the presidency. To them the vice president is only a politically expedient choice to gain an electoral or popular vote advantage in the general election. To presidential candidates and their parties, the vice presidency provides the means to gain a very specific end. While the position might not originally have enormous pull, to undecided voters a familiar face in the vice presidential spot could be the small push they need to vote Republican or Democrat. So by geographically, ethnically, or demographically choosing their running mates, possible presidents can sway the electorate. The problem with having the relationship between the president and vice President be a political marriage of convenience is

2 Douglas Kriner, “Institutional Change and the Dynamics of Vice Presidential Selection,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, September 2008, 21. 2 that it creates several problems, the most pressing of which is that it often leads to radical, immoral, or inexperienced candidates who are unfit to take over the presidency.

Surprisingly, there are no rules about who is considered able to take over the presidency, because the description of the vice presidency has, for the most part, been left to personal interpretation. The Framers of the Constitution spent four grueling months delineating the roles of the Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidency in hot, humid Philadelphia, before even considering the vice presidential position. Today it is known that the Framers, who were more concerned about what would happen to the balance of power if misfortune left the president unable to perform his or her duties, created the job as an afterthought. As evidence, James

Madison’s, Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 proves that the Committee of

Unfinished Portions created the position of vice president on September 4 as an alteration to resolutions drafted on August 31 that same year. On September 4, the addition of a paragraph in section 1, article 10 established the Electoral College as the method of electing the president, and stated, the person with second highest number of votes would become vice president. Madison’s

September 4 notes on section 3 describe the vice president’s job as, “ex officio President of the

Senate,” who “shall not have a vote unless the House be equally divided.”3 This amendment also marked the first time the word “vice president” was even used in the Convention.

Amid this new idea of “vice president,” debate swirled about the legitimacy of the position, the separation of powers, and the best way to select such an official. Madison notes that

Elbridge Gerry “opposed [having the vice president preside over the Senate],” claiming, “We might as well put the President himself at the head of the Legislature. The close intimacy that must subsist between the President & vice-president makes it absolutely improper.”4 Roger

3 , Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, (W. W. Norton & Company, 1987). 4 Ibid. 3

Sherman, on the other hand, “saw no danger in the case,” arguing, “if the vice-president were not to be , he would be without employment, and some member by being made President must be deprived of his vote, unless when an equal division of votes might happen in the Senate, which would be but seldom.”5 In the end, both Mason and Gerry refused to add their names to the Constitution because, among other reasons, they opposed the vice president being head of the Senate. However, what is most interesting about the debate surrounding the vice presidency, is that both Gerry and Sherman were right. Having the vice president be head of the Senate would put him in two branches of our government, but without the Vice President holding that job, he would have no real authority at all.

This is the main reason the vice presidential position is so complicated; the position seems to have to straddle two branches and countless organizations, but realistically holds little power. Currently in the United States government, the vice president’s job description is as follows: President of the US Senate, National Security Council member, diplomatic representative, presidential advisor, deputy leader of the party, and President-in-waiting. The two priorities of the vice president, President-in-waiting and President of the Senate, function in two very different branches of American government, making the position, as said, a very “awkward office.”6 Asking if the vice president is an Executive Branch member who spends some of his time performing Legislative duties, or a Legislative member who spends some of his time performing Executive duties is similar to asking if a zebra is black with white stripes or white with black stripes. Mondale rightly described the vice presidential position as, “a public officer, the only one in our government system who belongs to both the executive branch and the legislative branch. But for most of our history, since the vice presidents were in both

5 Ibid. 6 Walter Mondale, Address by Vice President Walter Mondale, The Leader's Lecture Series, (4 Sept. 2002) 4 branches, they have been treated as if they were in neither.”7 The job of the vice president blurs the line between the Executive and Legislative branches and so creates a level of uncertainty.

The positions lack of a defined jurisdiction caused officials to not know where the vice president’s desk should be housed. In fact, it was not until , who held the position under

Eisenhower, that the vice president had an office anywhere in the Executive Branch, and it wasn’t until President Carter that the vice president was given an office in the .8 This is one example of how the Carter presidency marked real growth in the position of vice president. Under Carter, for the first time, the vice president became a senior adviser and troubleshooter for the president, and had real influence.9 In 1976, Carter was a little known who won the presidential nomination by surprise, so by choosing an experienced running mate he in many ways legitimized his ticket. This form of ticket balancing worked out, however, because he formed a close relationship and collaborated with Mondale on several issues including foreign policy, and Mondale’s position quickly moved from a figurehead to a respected leader. Since Mondale, other vice presidents have retained some of the resources that were available to him such as his weekly lunches with the President.

It seems that as the role of President has increased in importance, especially since

Theodore Roosevelt, the role of the successor has, too; nevertheless, the role the vice president plays in the Senate has not changed much since 1787. The vice president’s only real job within the Senate is to break tie votes, but because the Senate has grown from a mere twenty-six members to the full one hundred members it has today, ties are not frequent. Vice President

7 Ibid. 8 Dan Quayle, Address by Vice President Walter Mondale, The Leader's Lecture Series, United States Senate (9 Sept. 2000). 9 Joel Goldstein, Vincent C. Immel Professor of Law at Saint Louis University and author of The Modern American Vice Presidency: The Transformation of a Political Institution (Princeton University Press 1982), Interview by author, 21 March 2009. 5

Quayle never even had the opportunity to cast one. With nothing to do in the Senate, the main brunt of the vice president’s job depends on what the president asks of him. put it best: “What the vice president will do or is permitted to do... is determined by what the president assigns to him or permits him to do... The president can bestow assignments and authority and can remove the authority at will.”10

To further complicate an already ambiguous position, the vice president is often seen as a threat to the president’s power, and so is stifled early on by being given only tedious, mundane tasks the president cannot bother himself with. This is especially true if the vice president was chosen to balance the party’s ticket, because this often leads to the president and vice president not agreeing on key political issues. For example, George Clinton strongly disagreed with James

Madison's policies and eventually became ignored. In 1812 he died making the vice president's spot vacant, but the position was not filled (the 13th amendment said nothing of a replacement).

The spot remained vacant for almost a year with no attempt to fill it until Madison had to run for reelection. When Madison ran again he chose , the same man who refused to sign the Constitution because he thought the position of vice president was unnecessary in American government, as his running mate. Nevertheless, Gerry geographically balanced the ticket and both of them were elected shortly after. But tragedy struck again and Gerry died, leaving the vice presidency vacant for over two years; once again, no one seemed to care that the spot was vacant and policy went on as normal.11 If the position not once, but twice in the span of a single presidency was left unattended, then it can be concluded that it could not have held much importance or been that popular. In fact, since 1805 only one, , out of twenty- one 19th century vice presidents was elected to become president. It seems that George Clinton

10 Hubert Humphrey as quoted in Thomas E. Cronin, and Michael A. Genovese, The Paradoxes of the American Presidency, (: Oxford University Press Inc., 1998) 11 Jules Whitcover, Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency, (New York: Crown, 1992). 6 and Elbridge Gerry followed suit with several other 19th century vice presidents and failed to leave their mark on the position. Failing to leave a mark, though, is better than the 19th century vice presidents like John Breckinridge, , and who go down in history with tarnished reputations.

Andrew Johnson is a key example of how political disunity between a president and a vice president could be catastrophic. Johnson, a and the only southern Senator not to quit after the South’s succession, united with Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket and was elected vice president in 1864. But on April 15, 1865 while the guard protecting Lincoln’s presidential box door at Ford’s Theatre left, and John Wilkes Booth shot the president in the back of the head. Three hours after Lincoln’s death on April 15th, Andrew Johnson was sworn in as the 17th President of the United States.

Only days after his impromptu inauguration, significant differences between Johnson and

Lincoln became apparent. He became hostile to the Freedman’s Bureau and in 1866 vetoed the

Civil Rights Bill, which would have protected former slaves from Black Codes in the South. His veto was soon overridden, but that same year his three of his cabinet members quit. Johnson opposed anti-slavery movements and had owned slaves. This mixed with extreme racism caused him to veto the 14th amendment even though that, too, was still passed. Radicals quickly became outraged and in 1868 encouraged the House to impeach him on the grounds of violating the

Tenure of Office Act. The Senate with a single vote acquitted him. The majority of Democrats and several Republicans disliked the idea of Benjamin Wade, an extreme liberal, becoming president, and so opted not to impeach Johnson. Regardless of the court’s outcome, Johnson still goes down in history as a horrible president. In CSPAN’s 2009 Historians Survey of Presidential

Leadership Lincoln was ranked number one, as the best president, while Johnson took second-to-

7 last place at spot forty-two12. So how is it that a vice president can be so different from a president if they are supposed to be partners? From the start the two did not have much in common; they were geographically and politically different. They did not even share the same party. Lincoln was a quiet and strong political presence, while Johnson showed up drunk to his own vice presidential inauguration.13 Johnson ended up being the polar opposite of Lincoln, so why would the party have chosen him?

The answer, unfortunately, is all too simple; he represented a geographical locational.

Lincoln’s first vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, was chosen for the same reason. Hamlin was from the East and balanced Lincoln’s ticket the same way Johnson’s southern heritage did.

Hamlin did not have an impressive resume, and did not even meet Lincoln until he was on the ticket. Perhaps the best thing about Hamlin was that he never became president. When reelection time can around, Hamlin was quickly dropped and Johnson was nominated. Johnson balanced the party ticket and allowed the Union to make a strong political statement: the south, being represented by Johnson, was still a part of the United States of . Unfortunately, similar to Hamlin’s case, Lincoln’s men did not take time to consider what would happen if he assumed the presidency.

Still, not all vice presidents need to assume the presidency for the public to see that they are not the most qualified leaders to hold their positions; is one such vice president.

He was an obscure Greek governor from when he was elected to give the nominating speech for Nixon at the 1968 Republican National Convention and then later chosen as Nixon’s running mate, but that was exactly what Nixon wanted. Nixon’s 1960 defeat against

12 CSPAN, “2009 Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership.” (Online) Available http://www.c-span.org/PresidentialSurvey/presidential-leadership-survey.aspx 19 Mar. 2009. 13The Lincoln Institute, “Andrew Johnson.” (Online) Available http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=91&subjectID=2 21 Mar. 2009 8 left him determined not to repeat his previous mistakes, one of which was being upstaged by his running mate .14 Additionally, according to ’s book “Very

Strange Bedfellows,”

Polls were taken that showed none of the prospective running mates would help the ticket; indeed, they suggested that Nixon would run best alone. But that wasn’t possible, so the next best thing would be to choose somebody who in a sense was a nobody on the national scene.15

Agnew fit this description perfectly. He had been governor for less than two years and publicly announced several times throughout his career that he had no intentions to make a move to the national level of politics. Many of his detractors thought of him as inexperienced and his handling of race riots in Maryland made him a controversial figure. However, claiming, “'He has real depth and genuine warmth,” Nixon proved that Agnew’s past experiences did not deter him from choosing him as his running mate.16 Unfortunately for Agnew, this sense of warmth did not last long. After using several racial slurs on the campaign trail (he addressed a Japanese-

American reporter by asking, “How’s the fat Jap?”17), the gossip surrounding Agnew multiplied.

Soon after his inauguration, Agnew even started to lose his appeal to the President.18 Agnew was tried out in several different positions only to have to be removed from all of them. To make matters worse, he did not agree with Nixon on welfare or foreign policy issues and constantly went against the president’s wishes, sometimes even ignoring them.

But soon Agnew’s time came. When Nixon asked for public support of the , media coverage threatened his approval ratings. The administration conceived a plan to have

14 Jules Whitcover, Very Strange Bedfellows: the short and unhappy marriage of and Spiro Agnew, (Public Affairs, 2007). 15 Ibid. 16 United States Senate, “Spiro Agnew” (Online) Available http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/VP_Spiro_Agnew.htm 22 Mar. 2009 17 , Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History, (W. W. Norton & Company, 2004) 18 Senate. 9

Agnew publically attack the press. During his speech on November 13th, 1969, Agnew captured the attention of the nation with his offensive and outrageous remarks. He commented on the media coverage of the Nixon administration by saying that television commentators were, “a tiny fraternity of privileged men elected by no one and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by the government.”19 The speech landed Agnew back into the good graces of the President, and

Agnew loved his new job and the instant gratification he received from it.20 He polarized and captured the nation, and became famous for attacking the press and almost any opponent of

Nixon with phrases like, “''nattering nabobs''21 or ''pusillanimous pussyfooters.”22 When questioned years later for Agnew’s obituary, said, “'Spiro Agnew earned the support of millions of his countrymen because he was never afraid to speak out and stand up for

America.”23 However, soon after his surge in popularity, investigations in Maryland found that

Agnew had previously asked for money from companies and individuals who had supposedly,

“benefited from his [Maryland] administration,” and never reported the cash on his income tax returns.24 On October 10, 1973 the vice president was forced to resign after threats from Nixon’s camp and a mere two days later Gerald R. Ford replaced him.

Agnew never had to succeed to the presidency for the public to know that he would not be able to handle the job. He was an indecisive, fraudulent, criminal who is commonly referred to as the worst vice presidential pick in history. Agnew was chosen not for his political acumen, but because he the son of a southern immigrant, and because he would not compete with Nixon for power; essentially, he did not want a leader. But this, in itself, put the nation at risk. Let’s

19 Senate. 20 Senate. 21Francis X. Clines, “Spiro T. Agnew, Point Man for Nixon Who Resigned Vice Presidency, Dies at 77,” , 19 Sept. 1996: B15. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid. 24 Senate 10 say, hypothetically, that instead of being impeached Nixon was assassinated; Agnew would not have been the leader the United States needed or wanted. The two main jobs of the vice president are to tackle ongoing duties and being a successor, but Agnew could do neither. Nixon did not choose him because he would be a good president; Nixon chose him because he needed to balance his ticket and he needed to not have his power or authority threatened.

Like Agnew, Quayle was chosen not because he would be a good president, but because of what he represented. George H.W. Bush had a tough decision to make when choosing his vice president, and his choice of Quayle said a lot. When explaining his choice, Bush said, “for me, this is a statement of confidence in a younger generation... a whole new generation [will be] represented on the national scene.”25 So clearly Bush was attracted to Quayle as a running mate largely because of his youth – Quayle would be the first baby boomer candidate, after all.

Conversely, almost right from the start Quayle did not have the influence Bush had hoped for and seemed to be a disappointment. So as the campaigning went on, the country asked itself: why, besides for his youth, would Bush choose such a wildcard as a second-in-command?

Shortly before Election Day, previous Bush aides released some answers in the form of reasons why other candidates for vice president were ruled out. Gerald B. Boyd reported:

A key argument about Senator Bob Dole of was whether he would be deferential enough to Mr. Bush or would want to appear as his equal. Senator Pete v. Domenici of New Mexico rated high on several lists, but was regarded as too much the insider. And Representative Jack F. Kemp of upstate New York, who was also popular, was viewed as having an established reputation that had no chance of improving and thus no chance of attracting additional voters to Mr. Bush.26

25 Gerald B. Boyd, “Question of Selection,” The New York Times, 29 Aug. 1988: A14. 26 Ibid. 11

According to this list, Quayle fit the bill, he was not seen as Bush’s equal, he was not a

Washington insider, and he did not have an established reputation. But this only raised more questions about whether or not Bush made the best choice for the country.

After the success of the Bush/Quayle ticket, in 1988 Quayle’s reputation declined further.

Without a doubt, he is the most undermined and publically criticized vice president to date.

Quayle’s many public image disasters include several verbal blunders such as, “We don’t want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward,”27 and, “Bobby Knight told me this, “There is nothing that a good defense cannot beat a better offense. In other words, a good offense wins.”28

But how can a man who can barely speak a grammatically correct sentence, or spell “potato” for that matter, be successor to the President? Or perhaps, more importantly, how could Bush be so blind as to choose someone purely based on his youth? The fault of the vice presidency ultimately lay with the President for choosing someone unfit for the position. By having a president choose his or her own running mate, problems arise; but how else could a running mate be chosen?

Originally the Constitution proposed the vice presidency as a consolation prize for the runner-up, which created problems almost instantly. The officials elected to both positions were often in competing parties and had been campaigning against one another for several months.

Several sets of enemy pairings were created like and in 1796, and

Thomas Jefferson and in 1800. The tension between them forced the government to take action. But even the creation of the 12th amendment, in 1804, did not eliminate this problem.

Party leaders, who until FDR played a major role in choosing running mates, often tried to keep

27 Kate Pickert, “America’s Worst Vice Presidents: Dan Quayle.” (Online) Available http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1834600_1834604_1834585,00.html 8 Mar, 2009 28 Ibid. 12 factions together and broaden election appeal through vice presidential candidates; something that has not been abandoned today. This formed a new series of president/vice president pairs that disagreed with each other. The Jackson/Calhoun and the Garfield/Arthur tickets both experienced conflict, and with the power the vice presidency dependent on the president’s willingness to allot power, vice presidents became increasingly ignored and aggravated. No matter the spin, vice presidents always seem to be elected for the wrong reasons.

Whether to represent a location, a minority, or a generation; Johnson, Agnew, and Quayle were all chosen by their Presidents for specific reasons, yet somehow, none of these reasons seem to be that they were the most qualified person to become president. As the power of the position increases, this approach to choosing vice presidents poses an even greater danger to

America. In the 2008 election, Senator McCain chose Governor over hundreds of other more qualified candidates to be his running mate. She appeared to most of the American public as too inexperienced and conservative for the vice presidential position. In an interview with CBS, when asked Palin to answer why being governor of enhanced her foreign policy credentials; she responded by saying, “Well, it certainly does because our-- our next door neighbors are foreign countries. They're in the state that I am the executive of.”29 In a surprisingly Quayle-like moment, Palin in two sentences exhibited why she would be unfit for the vice presidency, but none of this mattered to McCain’s campaign. To them, Palin was the means to steal ’s previous voters. But if the pair had been elected, McCain would have been the oldest President to ever reach the executive office. This means that there would have been a higher chance than ever before that the vice president would become president; something Palin would not be capable of handling.

29 Katie Couric, “Exclusive: Palin On Foreign Policy,” (Online Video) Available http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/25/eveningnews/main4479062.shtml 23 Mar, 2009 13

So why do presidents and political parties constantly put America at risk and choose inadequate vice presidents? It is because, in the end, the relationship between Presidents and their second-in-commands are political marriages of convenience aimed at getting their party elected. It becomes a game aimed at achieving what would be best for the candidate, but it is often our country that suffers.

14

Bibliography

Agnew, Spiro T. Go Quietly... Or Else. N.p.: William Morrow, 1980.

Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913-1962. New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc., 1988.

“Andrew Johnson.” The Lincoln Institute. 29 Mar. 2009 .

Boller, Paul F. Presidential Campaigns: From to George W. Bush. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Boyd, Gerald B. “Question of Selection.” New York Times (1857-Current file); 29 Aug. 1988: A14. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. ProQuest. Katharine Brush Library, Windsor, . 12 Jan. 2009 .

Brugger, Robert J., and Gynthia Horsburgh Requardt. Maryland, a Middle Temperament: 1634- 1980. : Johns Hopkins UP, 1996.

Clines, Francis X. “Spiro T. Agnew, Point Man for Nixon Who Resigned Vice Presidency, Dies at 77.” The New York Times 19 Sept. 1996: B15

Couric, Katie, and Sarah Palin. “CBS Exclusive: Palin on Foreign Policy.” CBS. 25 Sept. 2008. 26 Mar. 2009 .

Cronin, Thomas E., and Michael A. Genovese. The Paradoxes of the American Presidency. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1998.

Cunliffe, Marcus. American Presidents and the Presidency. New York: American Heritage Press/‌McGraw-Hill, 1972.

Daschle, Tom, , and Dan Quayle. Address by Vice President Dan Quayle. Leader’s Lecture Series. Senate. 19 Sept. 2000. 15 Jan. 2009 .

Edwards, George C., III, and Lawrence R. Jacobs. “The New Vice Presidency: Institutions and Politics.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 38.3: 369-5. Goldstein, Joel K. Personal interview. 22 Mar. 2009.

Harbaugh, William Henry. Power and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore

15

Roosevelt. New York: n.p., 1961.

“Just Walk In and Buy a Gun.” New York Times 7 Sept. 1988: A30. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. ProQuest. Katharine Brush Library, Windsor, Connecticut. 12 Jan. 2009 .

Kriner, Douglas. “Institutional Change and the Dynamics of Vice Presidential Selection.” Presidential Studies Quarterly 38.3: 401-21.

Light, Paul C. Vice Presidential Power: Advice and Influence in the White House. Baltimore, Md: Press, 1984.

Mondale, Walter. Address by Vice President Walter Mondale. The Leader’s Lecture Series . United States Senate. 4 Sept. 2002. 15 Jan. 2009 .

Morison, Elting E. The Letters of . Vol 2. The Years of Preparation. N.p.: Cambridge, 1951.

Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention. Proc. of Constitutional Convention. N.p.: W. W. Norton & Company, 1987.

Picket, Kate. “America’s Worst Vice Presidents: Dan Quayle.” Time Magazine. 8 Mar. 2009

Raymond, Allen, and Ian Spiegelman. How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative. N.p.: Simon and Schuster, 2008.

Reston, James. “Bush: A Hit, An Error.” The New York Times (1857-Current file) 22 Aug. 1988: A19. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. ProQuest. Katharine Brush Library, Windsor, Connecticut. 12 Jan. 2009 .

Rothman, David J. Politics and Power: The United States Senate, 1869-1901. Cambridge, MA: n.p., 1966.

Safire, William. “The Bush Dilemma.” The New York Times (1857-Current file) 22 Aug. 1988: A19. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. ProQuest. Katharine Brush Library, Windsor, Connecticut. 12 Jan. 2009 .

- - -. Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History. N.p.: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004.

16

2009 Historians Survey of Presidential Leadership. c-span.org. CSPAN. 19 Mar. 2009 .

Whitcover, Jules. Crapshoot: Rolling the Dice on the Vice Presidency. New York: Crown, 1992.

- - -. Very Strange Bedfellows: the Short and Unhappy Marriage of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. N.p.: Public Affairs, 2007.

Wilson, James Q. American Government. Comp. Peter Wallace and Kenneth Hollman. Ed. Paul Smith, Karen Wise, and Margaret Roll. 5th ed. N.p.: D.C. Heath and Company, 1992.

17