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>> good evening again. the timing for tonight's program is president as is always the case at the port library as we are on the verge of seeing who the current nominees for the presidency will select as their running mates. some of you picked up copies of an article from the wall street journal recently as you entered the auditorium. it's on the impact of the vice presidential nominee on election results. for those of you who didn't pick up copies were having extras run right now. we will have them for you after the program. tonight we are going to discuss not just the electoral process but the evolving role of the vice presidency. and we have the honor of hosting professor joel goldstein, the author of a newly-released book, the white house vice presidency, the path to significance from a mondale to biden. doctor goldstein is a either respected scholar of the vice presidency, the presidency and it constitutional law. having written widely in all three areas. he is consistently sought out

by national and international media outlets for commentary and insight, especially during the presidential campaigns. in fact in a 2012 article in the new york times he was quoted as saying, my wife says i'm an exotic plant that blooms every four years. [laughs] professor goldstein is best known for his work on the vice presidency. it came out of his doctoral work, his dissertation, and led to his first book which was the modern american vice presidency, the transformation of a political institution. over the years he has also authored numerous book chapters and articles on the executive branch, constitutional law and admiralty law. he received a doctorate in political science at oxford university where he studied as a road scholar. and a law degree from harvard law school where he was a note editor for the harvard law review. after law school he was a law

clerk for a federal judge in massachusetts. and practice admiralty law for 12 years at st. louis. he joined the st. louis university school of law in 1994. was associate dean of the faculty for three years. and it was awarded defense and professor ship in 2005. one scholar commented that the american vice presidency is long overdue for a robust reevaluation. joel goldstein, the premiere chronicle or of that special office, has done a brilliant job in this perceptive, wide-ranging book. i'm gonna vote for that. please help me join professor goldstein to the ford presidential library. [applause] >> thank you very much. doctor didier, thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. i'm delighted to be back at the ford library.

i did research here for my book. it's wonderful to have the opportunity to be here. when most of you think about president ford you probably think about him as a 38 president, a man who served nearly 25 years in the house of representatives, the minority leader of the house of representatives for eight years, and it was a good and decent public servant. when i think about him i think about the fact he was our 40th vice president, a position he held for nine months, and was probably the least happy period of his public service. but he was an important figure in the vice presidency. he was the first vice president appointed to the positions of the 25th amendment which became part of the constitution in 1967. he was a second person to make an appointment of vice president under the 25th amendment. he was the ninth, the most recent, vice president to succeed to the presidency

following an unexpected presidential vacancy. the only one of those people to follow -- to succeed following the presidential resignation. he is the only president in our history to seriously consider serving as vice president after he had already served as president. although president ford's presidency and vice presidency really came before the period i've called the white house vice presidency, he played an important part in developing, creating the office we have. we live in a period now where we have a very robust vice presidency. but is so striking about that, in addition to the rather checkered history of the vice presidency for most part, for most of our history, is that the vice presidency has grown to its current importance at a time when many of our other major political institutions are being met with increasing

dissatisfaction. if you think about the current situation, vice president biden is completing the final year of a very consequential and involved vice presidency. if you look at what he has done, simply in the past week or so, he traveled to iraq to meet with its prime minister, to support the military mission against the islamic state. he went to italy, he met with officials of the italian government, he met with officials at the vatican. including pope francis. he spoke at a vatican conference on combatting disease. he's met privately with president obama on numerous times during the past week. including receiving the presidents daily briefing. each day. he has a private lunch with the president today, did two other events with him. he joined the presidents meeting with secretary carey. within the last week he met with the leaders of el salvador, guatemala, honduras and panama

to discuss how do advanced security and economic matters in central america. if you recall, vice president biden's predecessor, dick cheney, who first came to national attention as president forwards chief of staff, during his vice presidency many people said that they thought the vice presidency and become too powerful. they spoke of an imperial vice presidency. although i think that vice presidents cheney was exaggerated, and the sense that i think he never was president, he never was co-president, and that his influence declined during the second term of president bushes administration, he clearly was a very, very significant vice president. but it didn't start with biden and cheney. in fact the last six vice presidents over the last 40 years, ever since walter mondale was vice president, have really performed

significant positions within the executive branch. the change in the vice presidency is institutional, not personal. the vice presidency has now become one of our governments most important and contributing institutions in the executive branch. not simply as a first presidential successor but as a critical instrument of the presidency on an ongoing basis. well it was not always this way. first vice president john adams said that my country has and its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the imagination of man contrived, his imagination conceived. i can do neither good nor evil. woodrow wilson was a political scientist before he was president. and in 1885 he wrote that the chief embarrassment, the disk gusting of the vice presidency is that when you say how little there is to be said about it you said all there is to say. [laughs]

his vice president was thomas marshall. mister marshall said in retirement i do not want to work anymore. but i want to mind being vice president again. [laughs] when president ford became vice president, sworn in to that position on december 6th, 1973, he referred to, quote, the limited powers and duties of the vice presidency. his vice president, nelson rockefeller, disparaged his final office as quote, simply standby equipment. that was a 1976. so how did we get from the office of president ford, the one he called the limited powers of duty a vice presidency, and a rockefeller referred to as simply standby equipment, in the mid 1970s to the very different robust office we have today? but i want to do in the next few minutes is give a brief overview of the vice presidency

as it existed for most of our history. then to sketch the office as it exists today. but i call the white house vice presidency. and to make a few suggestions as to what i think we can learn of the transformation. it was created for reasons that are now obsolete. >> the founders were concerned after george washington it would be impossible to elected national president. they were worried that parochial considerations would force electors in the different states to vote for their states favorite son, rather than to elect and national president. in order to combat that concern, they created the original presidential election system. they gave each elector to vote for president. but they required that one of those votes had to be cast for

somebody who is not from the electors home state. what they hoped would happen is that the second vote, the vote that was not going to the home state favorite son, it would actually produce a national consensus of presidents. in essence they created the vice presidency to provide an incentive for electors to vote seriously so. there would be a consequence to their vote. there will be somebody who be elected to the second office. hugh williamson from north carolina, a delicate to the philadelphia convention, said the vice presidency was not wanted, it was created simply to facilitate a valuable mode of presidential election. alexander hamilton, who recently has experience something of a resurgence. he wrote in federalist 68, that the presidential electoral system, including the vice presidency, is if not perfect,

at least excellent. i hesitate to take mr. hamilton on given his current standing, but i think history would demonstrate that he was wrong in that or at least in that judgment. by 1796, national parties had begun to form. what they were doing is slating tickets of one candidate for president, one candidate for vice president. in 1800, thomas jefferson and aaron uber-were running together with the understanding that jefferson's presidential candidate, and burr was the vice presidential candidate. but all of the jefferson, burr electors voted for each one of them. they ended up in a tie. the jefferson's vote were really for president, and uber was for vice president, it resulted in a tie. it took a house of representatives 36 ballots to break the tie. and to elect jefferson as the president. after after that the

jeffersonian's were afraid that in the future they could bargain who with was ever jefferson's running like to make a deal with them. and they would have jefferson's vice presidential running mate as president. so they arranged after the 12th amendment to the constitution, that separated the election of president and vice president. so the electors would vote not twice for president, but once for president and wants for vice president. that changed and that really eliminated the reason to have the vice presidency and the discussions over the 12th amendment. some people said we really should get rid of the vice presidency now, but they decided it was simpler to keep it rather than get rid of it so the vice presidency continued. and it continued entirely as a legislative office. the vice president's sole responsibility was to preside over the senate. at the philadelphia convention,

roger sherman from connecticut said if the vice president is not the president of the senate, he will not have anything to do. they agreed that the vice president would be the president of the senate, and that is what the vice president really was up into -- who was truman's vice president. they spent most of their professional time, presiding over the senate. the senate didn't elect the vice president. and they could not remove the vice president. so the senate was never interested in living the vice president how much control. so the vice president would preside but really have no power over the senate. of course the other function of the vice president, was to serve as a presidential successor. but that was an entirely contingent role. so for most of our history, the vice presidency was pretty insignificant. vice presidents had little to do, so they look for other things to keep themselves busy.

richer johnson who was martin van buren's vice president, he spent much of his time running a tavern in washington. henry wilson, who was ulysses grant second vice president, he wrote history books during his vice presidency. and theodore roosevelt, who really didn't want to be vice president, and said he would rather be just about anything that vice president, and it was too little work for a man of only 42 years old, he thought he might spend his vice presidency going to law school. get the, in the 19th century and up until the first third of the 20th century, the presidential candidate did not choose his running mate. the convention chose the running mate. they often generally chose the running mate in order to balance the ticket. either on ideological grounds, and sometimes you would have

presidential candidates and vice presidential candidates who disagreed or were on opposite sides of major issues of the day. sometimes the vice presidency was used as part of a deal to secure the presidential nomination for a candidate. sometimes a politician from the swing state, was chosen as the vice presidential candidate. between 1904, and 1916 there were eight vice presidential candidates, five of them were from the state of indiana. oftentimes the vice presidential candidate in the 19th century were really distinguished people. chester arthur, who was james garfield's vice president before he succeeded president garfield and before he became vice president, the highest position he ever held was the collector of customs in the port of new york. derek hobart who was mckinley's

vice president, he had never held any public office other than state legislature in the state of new jersey. william king who was pierces vice president, did he did have a lot of experience, but he was very sick when he was chosen to be vice president, so sick that he resigned from the senate, because he could not continue to perform his role in the senate. and he died soon after his election. being vice president was not a good career move for somebody in during most of the 19th century. only three 19th century vice presidents were elected to a second term. none after 1836. although five presidents, in the period from 1820 to the 19 hundreds worse elected to a second term, but none with the same vice president. the four vice presidents who

succeeded to the presidency in the 19th century, none were elected to their own term as president. the vice presidency was not a good presidential springboard. when webster was offered a position, on the 1848 ticket with zachary taylor, he refused saying i don't proposed to be buried until i'm dead. it wasn't the wisest move of his career, he always wanted to be president, but some months later zachary taylor died and fillmore became president. but from 1836, one martin van buren was elected as sitting vice president, to succeed andrew jackson, until george h. w. bush was elected to ronald reagan, no vice president are know sitting vice president was

ever elected to the presidency. other than john breckenridge in 1856, none was nominated to seek the presidency by a major party until richard nixon was in 1960. so the beginning of the 20th century was a common joke it was told about the parents who had two sons, one went off to see, the other became vice president. neither was ever heard from again. at the beginning of the 20th century, the vice presidency began to take some sort of baby steps forward and towards the executive branch. warren harding invited his vice president, calvin coolidge to come and the move was controversial at the time, but vice president coolidge did meet with harding's cabinet, and that became something of a tradition. franklin roosevelt used garner

as a liaison and sentiments on foreign trips before they had a falling out during the second term. president roosevelt used his second vice president, henry wallace as the head of the economic warfare during world war ii. but wallace ran into controversy with fdr's cabinet, and soon lost that position. that was in 1944 he was dropped on that ticket. harry truman the third vice president, had limited contact with president roosevelt during president truman's vice presidency. and in fact president truman, was not told about the manhattan project until some days after he succeeded president roosevelt when one of his advisers took him aside said mister president i think there's something you need to know about. the changes in american government and in politics were associated with the new deal

and with world war ii and ended up having an effect on the vice presidency. it strengthened the presidency, it weaken the political parties and had an effect of pulling the vice presidency into the executive branch. as expectation of the presidency increased, during the nuclear age in quote cold war the president was expected to conduct a more robust foreign policy, and his this technology made foreign travel more possible, the vice president's began to be sent on diplomatic missions. they began to take on other tasks in the executive branch. beginning in 1940, the president got the power to designate who his running mate would be at the convention. so the office really began to move into the executive branch, beginning with the vice presidency of richard nixon in 1953. vice president nixon's office

was still the capital building, but unlike his predecessors nixon spent most of his time and almost no time presiding over the senate. he spent most of his time going to meetings for the executive branch. for national security, and taking foreign missions for president eisenhower. oftentimes he would go for a month or two months for a foreign trip. doing political work for the president, and so forth. and vice president nixon's successors, lyndon johnson, spiral aga new, gerald ford at nelson rockefeller, they followed the nixon model. they moved their office moved into the executive office building. they took on more functions in the executive branch, sharing permissions and making trips for the president, and doing political work. other than vice president agony i think all of these people were really among the leading

political fields of their political generation. and they became it became a vice presidency became attractive to label people for that reason. it became a springboard to the presidency. nixon and humphrey were went to seek the presidency. and there were gallop polls were spirit at new cars -- but until we have to leave office. but from nixon to rockefeller, there's still work limitations. the primary role of the presidency of the vice presidency was to provide a successor to the presidency. the vice presidents were not part of the presidents inner circle. and vice presidents tended to feel pretty frustrated at under utilized in their positions. president eisenhower he wanted to dump vice president nixon

from the ticket in 1956, and suggested to him he might charge his own course and his political future might be brighter if he took a cabinet position. but vice president nixon had no desire to leave the vice presidency. later in august of 1960, when vice president nixon was running for president, it was suggesting that there was a reason that people should vote for him instead of john kennedy. and also was because he had such extensive experience as vice president. the president eisenhower was asked at a press conference if he could name a single idea that president nixon vice president nixon gave to the administration, and vice president or president eisenhower he said i don't know if you give me a week and might think of one. i don't know. good but in the first presidential debate, vice president nixon was asked about this, because more than a week

had passed, and the president had not come forward. and suggested any ideas. but lyndon johnson said, that president kennedy treated him well, but he said he hated every minute that he was vice president. every time he was in president kennedy's presence he felt like he was a raven hovering around. can president johnson made sure that vice president humphrey had a miserable time as vice president. after vice president humphrey early on expressed some disagreement, some different views about how the united states should and a matters in vietnam. president johnson stopped inviting him to meetings to discuss vietnam. some of you may recall there was a political satirist named tom earlier who wrote a song called whatever became of you hubert. mike everett line from the song

was when something like second fiddles is a hard part i know when they don't even give you a bow. president nixon detested's pirro act knew. early on there would be conferences where president nixon would be talking to bob haldimand, they would say that agony wants to meet with you. and president nixon would say the president doesn't meet with the vice president that is not how it works and it's not his job. it's not part of the deal. president forwards nine months as vice president were probably the least happy time of his public service. he took on some commission work in the executive branch, commission of privacy. he did legislative liaison. he spent many of the years travel around the country,

trying to help republican candidates who are being heard by the watergate scandal. and staying is far from it as he could. then when he's designated nelson rockefeller as his vice president president ford really wanted to try to do somethingui. he liked nelson rockefeller. he admired his ability. he wanted to make use of him. he wanted to make vice president rockefeller staff feel welcome. he felt the ford vice presidential staff had not been included and he wanted to make sure that was not repeated. yet it did not work out that way. aide, governor rockefeller, at his request, president ford made governor rockefeller vice president rockefeller the head of domestic council. and vice president rockefeller thought if he was the head of the domestic council he would be to domestic affairs wet henry kissinger was to foreign

policy. but there were all sorts of problems. the domestic cabinet officials did not want to report to the president through the vice president. chief of staff donald rumsfeld thought that it henriquez center was running foreign policy, nelson rockefeller was running domestic policy, why did that leave for the president? and and there were other problems in terms of the staff of the domestic council. they had to report through the regular channels and not just through the vice president. so the whole experiment of having the vice president running the domestic counsel did not work. vice president rockefeller, notwithstanding the good relationship between president ford and vice president rockefeller, was not consulted on many important matters. and ultimately he was dropped from the ticket in 1976.

the last time that a vice president hasn't been asked to run for reelection, or election with the president. well it's worth pausing to think about why didn't the vice presidency really develop as it later did under the ford rockefeller regime? because president ford, unconvinced, very much wanted to have it. i don't think it happened and then in part because they started off with the wrong vision of the office. vice president rockefellers idea was that he could be powerful if he had a particular piece of the government to run. and yet by taking that view of the office he really ended up buying a bunch of problems for himself. he created competition with the presidents staff. he put the president in a position where if the vice president took an action that

the president was not comfortable with it created an awful awkwardness for the president. i think a second reason that the vice presidency didn't develop during the ford administration was that vice president rockefeller really wasn't cut out to be number two. he was an able person but had never been a number to. he had been governor of new york for 14 years. and he wasn't suited by his experience or temperament to be a follower. third, the politics of the two of them were wrong. although they were personally compatible, politically he was not compatible with president ford on many major initiatives. at a time when president ford was trying to cut the deficit, to rein in spending, vice president rockefeller was proposing ambitious spending

proposals. on top of that president ford was challenged in the republican primaries in 1976. but governor reagan. the conservatives and republican party had no use for vice president rockefeller going way back to the 1964 campaign. so vice president rockefeller really became a serious political liability for the president. on top of that there was conflict between the vice president and presidents staff. vice president rockefeller became convinced that the chiefs of staff, donald trump spelled and dick cheney, we're out to get him. when the vice president's residence was opened in 1975, 1976. vice president rockefeller had a series of parties to introduce people to the news vice presidents residence.

supposedly everybody intent was invited to one of those parties except for the chief of staff dick cheney. the other problem that the ford ministration had was that vice president rockefeller was not there for the first four months of the ford administration. he was undergoing confirmation proceedings before the house and senate. so he was not able to participate at the ground floor of the planning in the early stages of the administration. by the time he came into the administration relationships had already been formed. patterns of dealing had already been set. it was too late. the change in the vice presidency really came with jimmy carter and walter mondale in 1977. this was the creation of whatever called the white house vice presidency. governor carter thought of himself as a fiduciary for the american people. as a businessman, a small businessman he thought the vice

presidency had been a wasted asset. it was a shame to have a senior official and not be putting him to use. he also thought it was a moral for a vice president not to be engaged in preparing. he was haunted by the experience of president truman, of not having been included in discussions during the roosevelt presidency. governor carter secured the nomination early on. actually it was early june of 1976. about five weeks before the democratic convention. and he took this election of a running mate seriously. he engaged in a serious and vetting process. he had his closest confidant, charles corriveau, an atlanta lawyer, that vice presidential candidates. he decided he needed to run with a senator or congressman. to sort of balance off his own lack of experience in the federal government. although he initially had reservations about walter

mondale, thought it was too liberal, was bothered by the fact that mondale had pulled out early from the presidential race, when they met in early july about eight days before the democratic convention they headed off. and carter became very impressed with walter mondale. and he thought mondale had the experience, the resources that carter needed. he was popular. he knew his way around the district of columbia. he was popular and congress. he was popular with the liberals. president carter, governor carter, took an inclusive approach to mondale and his campaign team. even during the campaign. in the 1976 presidential campaign governor carter, president ford, agreed to debate. they invented for the first time the idea, the institution of a vice presidential debate. which we've had in every presidential election since. except for 1980. in the vice presidential debate

mondale was deemed to have done much better than senator bob dole. afterwards carter's campaign manager said that mondale added about 3% to carter's ticket. carter in his speeches, the closing few weeks of the campaign, almost invariably mentioned mondale as an asset. as a signal of the kind of decision-making he was capable of. and during the presidential transition, for the first time in history, carter involved mondale in the transition. he had evolved him in a meeting with cabinet officers, in setting policy for the administration. so forth. he went out of his way to signal that mondale would be in a important part of the administration. well given he had picked a running mate who he was personally compatible with, given he added pick a running mate who he felt ideologically compatible with, given he picked somebody who he thought could add needed resources to

his administration, given he had picked somebody who he thought was able, boat a leader and a follower, i think the other thing that was critical was the vision of the vice presidency that vice president mondale came up with. it was really about 180 degrees from the vision that nelson rockefeller had had. whereas vice president rockefeller's view was that everything about the vice presidency turned on the fact the vice president was the first presidential successor. but vice president mondale trying to do was the emphasized the fact he was the first presidential successor. to think about ways in which he could make the vice presidency an ongoing substantive position there was not focused on providing a successor to the president but in helping the president succeed. that step really changed the whole psychology of the relationship between the

president and vice president. even more important between the presidents staff and vice president. vice president mondale's vision was that instead of taking apart the government he would be in charge of, he would run and own, he wanted simply to be a general adviser and troubleshooter. where he would advise the president on matters across the board. he would take on assignments for the president. but he did not want to own anything. he thought that if he owned a part of the program that he would alienate. who was giving up that part of the program. presidents tended to give a vice presidents relatively trivial manners to be in charge of. because if things went bad the consequences of taking them away were reduced. and he was if he took on ongoing assignments it would divert his time and attention

from advising the president and helping the president on matters that were central to the presidency. in order for the vice president to succeed in this way vice president mondale, president carter, concluded the vice president needed to have a new set of resources. he needed to have access to the presidency. he needed to have access, the same information that the president had. including the national security briefings. he needed to be part of the decision-making process. the staff needed to be part of the decision-making process. he needed to have adequate support from the vice presidential staff and presidential staff. so that they would respond to his requests. and he needed to have the presidents visible and consistent support. president carter agreed to everything vice president mondale asked. they developed a pattern of having a weekly, private lunch.

president carter directed the vice president to get every document he got. he directed the vice president mondale to have the right to come into the oval office whenever he wanted without an invitation. you could attend any meeting on the presidents schedule. his staff, he pointed it members of his staff to the domestic council. he went beyond it. he gave vice president mondale things he hadn't asked for. for the first time, really, he gave the vice president in office and the west wing of the white house. he sent over a floor plan of the west wing. he said pick any office you want other than the oval office. and he also told his staff to things. he said that you should always treat a request from the vice president as if it's a request from the president. and if anybody ever cuts the vice president they will lose

their job. well the carter mondale term really brought the vice president, for the first time, into the white house. both physically and into the inner circle of the presidential decision-making. because president carter was seen to value because vice president mondale others valued vice president mondale. president carter value president mondale, others valued him, they knew he had access, they knew he had influence with the president. they knew that if they could convince the vice president that they had a better chance of convincing the president. and because other people dealt with the vice president in this manner the spread of students value to the president increased as well. they adopted a similar model. nearly all of the vice presidents from bush on have

followed essentially the model that president carter and vice president mondale established. vice president bush after having competed with president reagan. after having chosen despite the fact the reagan's had misgivings about him developed a very good relationship with president reagan after the assassination attempt on president reagan's attack on his life in 1931. president bush is viewed by even president reagan's closest people to have handled himself with the greatest sensitivity and attacked and competence. he took on a number of important diplomatic missions for the president. he became a close presidential advisor. he really subordinated his ambitions. especially during the first term to the presidents. and throughout the administration was extremely loyal to the president. when he became president, he

set up the same type of relationship with vice president dan well, he met up with the president every day for his national security small needing, and then for a small meeting with the chief of staff he had the weekly lunch, and he served as a valuable legislative and political advisor and operator for president bush. our gore became president clintons persist adviser for his presidency and in addition took on some significant portfolios during the clinton presidency. he was involved in communications, we inventing the government which was a initiative that was very important to president clinton. he chaired a commission with the prime minister of russia, at a time when there was concern that he was unstable. it was thought that it was important to develop relations

that other levels so the commission became the place where a lot of the commission was done. vice president cheney started off his term with some unique advantages. unlike the other vice presidents during this period he had really served in major positions as chief of staff, under, ford secretary of defense, secretary bush, in the house of representatives on both the house leadership ladder under the reagan presidency. in addition, he had a close relationship with president bush that developed both because he had worked with the second president pushes father. but also he chaired the vice presidential selection and the chair the selection. after 9/11, cheney became more

influential. played a leading role with respect to national security matters, with respect to the war on terror, with respect to energy and economic matters. this power i think declined during the second term for a variety of reasons. but there are out his two terms he was somebody who was among the people that the president listened to. vice president biden has continued the pattern. and really has assisting the level of influence for two terms that i think is really unprecedented in our history. at the beginning of the administration he was charged with implementing the recovery act. the disengagement from iraq. he then negotiated various budget deals with senator mcconnell. has continued to be a close adviser to the president. has taken on numerous missions

for the president. so all of this vice president during this period, from mondale to biden, properly functioned as across the board, presidential advisers and trouble suitors, some have accessed some activities. diplomacy. others have sized other activities. perhaps legislative work. but they have all taken on was to try and help the president on the ongoing basis. let me suggest in closing, some lessons from this history. the first lesson i think is that the vice presidency now matters. the vice presidency is the ongoing position of significance. it's not primarily a presidential successor although it serves that function. but it is a long going position of importance and across the board advisor of political skills. a high-level troubleshooter. someone who can give the president the help that the

president needs. it provides the president with a invaluable asset to make his for her administration succeed. second, because of the significance of the vice president, it now matters who is the vice president, and who the vice presidential candidates are. i haven't talked much about the vice presidential selection, and of course that is part of the national conversation. who's elected as the vice presidential running mate is enormously important now. and the factors that ought to be considered are, whether or not there somebody who has the leadership ability to be president, not someday, but now. whether they can enhance the administration by the quality that they would bring to it. not all of the political considerations that are talked about. third, the change in the vice presidency is i think

institutional, and during, and constitutional innocence. and what's significant about this is the change that the vice presidency doesn't really depend on any amendment in recent times or changes in constitutional law. it's a change in behavior. and it's a example of establishing behaviors in them mondale -- improving them, strengthening them, fourth, in order to make institution, to improve institutions the way the vice presidency has been improved leadership matters. it is not enough to want to improve something. it's also critical that you really come to understand the institution that you're trying to understand to improve.

the terrible workable vision of the institution. that the implementation process of the vision be done sensitively, and successfully, and that it be transmitted to successors. and finally, i would say that the story that i would tell of the modern vice presidency, is really the story of my book, is really a hand up the mystic one if you can think there are obvious that has been the most disparaged office in our history, at a time when many of our other institutions are suffering ahead losing public confidence. who has this office been becomes significant for the first time in our history as it has over the last 40 years, that perhaps there is some hope that we can turn some of our other institutions into a way that is more pleasing to us, so they better serve our needs. i'd be happy to take any questions or to hear any

thoughts of people have. there is a microphone in the back. >> what happens to vice president after they leave office? >> the question was what happens to vice president after they leave office? it depends on each person is a different story. vice president mondale lost in 1984. in 1980 he practiced law and ran for president. but president bush became president. vice president where wardrobe tries to run for president unsuccessfully. vice president gore lost to the presidency. won a nobel prize. vice president cheney left

office and became a public critic of the administration, and remain vocal and visible figure in the national discourse. so i think they have done different things. some of the seeded vice presidential candidates. -- became chief justice of the united states. paul ryan became speaker of the house. and she became secretary of state. it's really been arranged. many of them have been very distinguished for their careers. >> my question deals with some of the things that you mentioned about the 25th amendment in chapter 13. and i would like to respond to what i have heard of two criticisms of the 25th amendment. what, the second section of it allows for having a president and vice president, neither of whom are elected, which of

course has happened. that's criticized. but also section four. some critics would say in spite of, back in one of your sentences here, one of president is unconscious yet ripping power the vice president and the cabinet will likely act only under clear and compelling circumstances. in spite of, that some critics would say it's unwise that we put into the constitution anyway for the vice president and the cabinet, and, yes a secondary role to congress to overthrow a president. if you can respond to those two criticisms plays. sure. the 25th amendment section two is the provision that says that where there is a vice presidential vacancy for any reason, the president can nominate the vice president and the vice president takes office upon come information from the house and the senate. so during the ford

administration of course president ford became vice president of the 25th amendment and then president rockefeller became the president of the 25th amendment of the criticism was that neither of them had run in the national election. i think that certainly throw. by the first token they received an awful lot of scrutiny. the theory behind the 29th amendment is that the president is entitled to somebody who reflects his or her ideology. the theory was. many liberal democrats voted for president ford on the theory that even though they disagree with him politically, they felt that his these were consistent on most issues president nixon so that he reflected the election of 1972.

then his appointment of rockefeller suggests the same trend. the idea is that sanders and the congressman served as a surrogate for the electorate. it's hard to come up with the perfect system. the alternative would to have special elections, that has a whole host of problems. i think that most people thought that the 25th amendment in 1973, 1974, walked quite well because given that you had a democratic speaker at the time, and you had president nixon facing impeachment that it would have been more difficult to remove the president if you could not put in a vice president who is from the same party. with respect to section four, section three provides a system whereby the president can voluntarily turn power over to the vice president of the president is disabled. section four deals with section where if the president is

unwilling or unable to declare his own inability the vice president and the cabinet can say that the vice president is disabled and then the vice president acts as president. until the president is able to return to power. sure, there is a risk of the vice president, and the cabinet throwing the president out. on the other hand, there is a risk, you need to have some system, the 25th, section four was really viewed as putting a moral check on the vice president, by having the cabinet participate in a process. before that the people thought that the vice president would have the unilateral power to declare the presidents. in fact, president eisenhower who took these issues very seriously following his disability wrote a letter to vice president nixon and basically said if i ever become disable to the point where i cannot clear my own disability it is your decision as to

whether or not i am disabled. i will retain the right to come back when i think i'm able again. but if a group of doctors say i'm not able then you should assume the presidency including moving into the white house. so in some ways, i think joining the vice president with the president's cabinet. the people the president has appointed the office should give the president a fair amount of security. so it's hard to come up with a perfect system. at some point, one has to rely on people to act as patriots, and use good judgment, and hopefully that is what will happen. >> welcome. >> thank you. >> my question deals with the cost of making a questionable choice for a vice president. and i'm thinking really of john mccain, with a very honorable, heroic military career.

he, long dedicated, determined legislative career and legislation. picking someone like sarah palin who was really a light weight in the political world. and i just wonder if you think that is going to be held against mccain's record were just seen as a crazy blip in his career. >> i mean i think that it is clearly part of his biography. i think it is something that he has been criticized for. i think that he thought that in order to have a chance for election, his advisers apparently told him that he needed to pick a woman. we really very much wanted to pick senator liebermann and as his running mate apparently, but he became convinced that first he couldn't get lieberman through the republican convention. and second, that lieberman

would lose. and so, he thought that governor palin might help him to energize the base of the republican party, attract women to vote, who were disgruntled because they felt that senator clinton had been treated by the democratic party. and my than the attractively palin candidacy. i think it was a miscalculation by senator mccain. i think it was really bad politics as well. i think ultimately, the best politics is to choose somebody, who people can visualize serving as president. i mean if you cannot visualize somebody sitting in the oval office, then it's likely to hurt. it may hurt only at the margins, but the only other way in which it hurts and i think in a way that political scientists really aren't very good at measuring is that it is part of,

its forms part of our opinion of this elector. so when people choose their running mate. particularly if they are new. when they choose their running mate, this is their first presidential decision. if they choose someone who is not viewed as being presidential, or they choose their if assets that is not viewed as being presidential it sends a message about their values and decision-making that can be troubling. so i think it was a mistake on his part. their reasons why presidential candidates may not just people who are not qualified in the future including the vice presidential debate, and the fact that it is hard to hide a vice presidential candidate these days. >> thank you for coming. that was actually going to be my question. so i'm going to ask another question. obviously we're in a election year this year, one like

probably no one in this room has seen. with hillary clinton, probably going to be getting the democratic nomination. i sort of have an idea of the vice president would pick. probably someone in washington. i'm really, really curious who you think that donald trump will choose as his vice presidential pick. and that you think that he's got it to someone from the inside. someone who has senator experience or professional experience, or to -- lack of public policy knowledge. >> i don't have a clue who he is going to pack. but you know, also, if you went back on may 5th of any presidential election year and

you try to protect the presidential candidate would be, maybe you all would be better predictors than i would be but i would be wrong virtually every time i think. it is hard to her picked for a number of reasons. one is that you don't know with the context is going to be. you don't know what the selections are going to be made. the selections will probably be made in july, sometime before the two conventions. and so we don't know with situation will be. to what extent will the republican party this unified? we also don't know who's going to be available in the pool of candidates. what will mr. trump's options be, what will he proceed as his greatest needs, to what extent can he fulfill those needs by picking one of the options. so it's really difficult to figure out. he said as you pointed out he

would pick someone who is a politician. a pattern that has really developed is political outsiders, outsiders to washington, governors, general like general eisenhower, always pick washington senators. the last time we had to governors run together was in 1940, eight thomas dewey, since then, every governor has picked someone either who had served in congress, or who served in the executive branch. so based on, that one would expect that perhaps mr. trump would follow that pattern. that would also be a way of bringing the national security credentials of the check-in. one of the difficulties that he has is that there's one member of the senate. the berkeley, members of the house, representative ryan made

the clear choice. representatives are not taken. when they are taken. it tends to, with exception of the rights election, it tends to indicate that the ticket as a weaker to get. a senator, executive branch leader, executive,, try to answer, i don't have a color. >> thank you very much. former vice president and u.s. senator, walter mondale, that on april 19th at the age of 93. coming up on c-span's american history tv, we'll take a look at his life starting with a 2017 conversation he had with former president, jimmy carter, after that mr. mondale's

democratic national convention acceptance speech when he ran for president against juan reagan. next. a 2015 conversation between walter mondale and former president, jimmy carter, who served together from the white house from 1977 to 1981. this program was part of a tribute to the former vice president. hosted by the university of minnesota's humphrey school