the white house vice presidency, that calf to significance to biden. this event took place in 2016 at the gerald our ford presidential library in and harbor michigan. >> good evening again, at the timing for tonight's program is precious, as is always the case at the ford 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 enter the auditorium. it's on the impact of advice presidential nominee on election results. for those of you who didn't pick up copies, we're having extras run right now and will have them for you after the program. tonight, we're going to be discussing not just the electoral process, but the evolving role of the vice presidency. and we have the honor of hosting professor joel goldstein who is the author of a newly-released book, the white house a vice presidency, the path to significance from mondale to biden. doctor goldstein is a highly respected scholar of the vice presidency, the presidency and constitutional law. having written widely in all three areas. he 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

that i am an exotic plants that blooms every four years. 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 -- he received a doctorate in political science at oxford university where he studied as a road scholar. and then a law degree from harvard law school where

brilliant job in this perceptive wide-ranging book. and i can vouch for that. so please help me join professor goldstein to the for the presidential library. [applause] >> 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 and it's wonderful to have the opportunity to be here. when most of you think about president ford, you probably think about him as hour 38 president, a man who served

nearly 25 years in the house of representatives, was the minority representatives leader for the house of representatives for a years where and was a decent of public several. when i think about him, i think about the fact that he was our 40 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, who he was the first vice president appointed to the position of the 25th amendment which became part of the constitution in 1967. he was the second person to make an appointment of a vice president under the 25th amendment. he was the ninth in the most recent vice president to succeed to the president to the presidency following an unexpected presidential vacancy. and only one of those people to succeed following a presidential reckoning resignation. he was the only president in our history to seriously

consider serving as vice president after he had already served as president. and although president ford's presidency and vice presidency really came before the period that i've called the white house for us presidency, he played an important part in developing and creating the office that we have today. we live in a period now where we have a very robust vice presidency. and what's so striking about that, in addition to the rather checkered history of the vice presidency 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 evolved 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 and his support the military mission against the islamic state. he went to italy where he met with officials of the italian government and he met with officials at the vatican, including pope francis. he spoke at a vatican conference on combatting disease. these met privately with president obama on numerous times during the past week, including receiving the presidents a daily briefing. each day, he had private lunch with the president today and did two other events with him. he joined the presidents meeting with secretary carry within the last week. he met with the leaders of el salvador, guatemala, honduras, panama to discuss how to advance security and economic matters in central america. and if you call vice president biden's pre-predecessor, dick cheney, who first came to national attention as president ford's chief of staff, during

his vice presidency, many people said that they thought that the vice presidency had become too powerful and spoke of it imperial vice presidency. and although i think that vice president cheney's power was exaggerated, in the sense that i think he was never president or he never was cool president, and that his influence declined during the second term of president bush isn't administration. he was clearly a very significant vice president. but it didn't start with biden and cheney. in fact, the last six vice presidents since walter mondale have really performed significant positions within the executive branch. the change in the vice presidency is institutional, not personal. the vice presidency has become one of our government's most important and contributing

institutions in the executive branch, not simply as the first presidential successor but as a critical instrument of the president on an ongoing basis. it was not always this way. our first vice president, john adams, said my country and its wisdom has contrived for me the most in significant office that ever the imagination of man can conceive. i can do neither good nor evil. woodrow wilson was a political scientist before he became president, and in 1885, he wrote the chief embarrassment in discussing the vice presidency is when you've said how little there is to be said, you've said all there is to be said. his vice president was thomas marshall. in retirement, mister marshall said i don't want to work anymore, but i wouldn't mind being vice president again.

[laughs] and when president ford became our 43rd vice president on december 6th, 1973, he referred to the limited powers and duties of the vice presidency. his vice president, nelson rockefeller, disparaged his final office as simply standby equipment in 1976. how did we get from the office that president ford called limited powers and duties of the vice presidency and rockefeller saying standby in the mid 1970s to the different, robust office we have today? what 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 sketch the office as it exists today, what i call the white house vice presidency, and then make a few suggestions as to what we can learn from

the transformation. the vice presidency wasn't one of the founding fathers great successes. it was created for reasons that are now obsolete. the founders were concerned that after george washington, it would be impossible to elect the national president. they were worried parochial considerations would force electors in the different states to vote for their state's favorite son, rather than to elect a national president. so in order to combat the concern, they created the original presidential election system and gave each elector to vote for president, but they required that one of those votes had to be cast for somebody who wasn't from the electors home state. what they hoped would happen is the second vote, the vote that wasn't going to the home state favorite son, would actually produce a national consensus

president. 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, someone who would be elected to the second office. hugh williamson from north carolina, a delegate to the philadelphia convention, said the vice presidency wasn't wanted. it was created simply to facilitate a valuable mode of a presidential election. alexander hamilton who has recently experienced something of a resurgence, rhoden 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 it's law in that judgment.

what they were doing was slating tickets of one candidate for president, one candidate for vice president. an 1800, thomas jefferson and four were running together on the understanding that burrow was the vice presidential candidate. but all the electors voted for each of them, so they wound up in a tie, although jefferson's votes were for president and birds were for vice president. it resulted in a tie. it took the house of representatives 36 ballots to break the tie and to elect jefferson as the president. after that, the jeffersonian's were afraid that the federalist in the future could bargain with whoever was jefferson's running mate to make a deal with him and there by elect jefferson's vice presidential running mate has the president.

the arranged to have the constitution amended and add the 12th amendment, which separated the election of president and vice president so the electors would vote not twice for president but would vote once for president and once for vice president. that change really eliminated the original reason to have the vice presidency and discussions about the 12th amendment. they decided it was simpler to keep the vice presidency then get rid of it, so the vice presidency continued. it continued entirely as a legislative office. the vice president saw 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 the vice president would be president of the senate and that is what our

vice president up until truman did. they spent most of their professional time presiding over the senate. the senate didn't elect the vice president. they couldn't remove the vice president. so the senate was never interested in letting the vice president hold much control. so the vice president would reside 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 wasn't entirely contingent. for most of our history, the vice presidency was pretty and significant. vice presidents had little to do so they looked for other things to keep themselves busy. martin van buren's vice president spent much of his time when he wasn't presiding over the senate running a tavern in washington. henry wilson, who was ulysses

grants second vice president, 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 other than vice president because it was too little work for a man of only 42 years old, thought he might spend his vice presidency going to law school. in the 19th century and up through the first third or so of the 20th century, the presidential candidate didn't choose his running mate. the conventions chose the running mate and they often chose the running mate in order to balance the ticket either on ideological grounds or geographical grounds. sometimes, you'd have presidential candidates and vice presidential candidates who disagree and we're 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 a swing state was chosen as the vice presidential candidate. between 1904 and 1916, they were eight vice presidential candidates. five were from the state of indiana. oftentimes, the vice presidential candidates in the 19th century war really pretty and distinguished people. chester arthur, who was james garfield vice president before he succeeded garfield, before he became vice president, the highest position he had ever held was as the collector of customs in the port of new york. president mckinley's first vice president had never held any public office other than state legislature in the state of new jersey. william king was franklin pierson's vice president and 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 to perform his role and died soon after his election. being vice president wasn't a good career move for somebody in most of the 19th century. only three 19th century vice presidents were elected to a second term. and nine after 1836. although five presidents in the period from 1828 to 1900 where elected to a second term. none with the same vice president. the four vice presidents who succeeded to the presidency in the 19th century, none of them were reelected or elected to their own term as president. and the vice presidency wasn't a good presidential springboard. when tanya webster was offered a position on the 1848 take it

with zachary taylor, he refused saying, i don't propose to be buried until i'm dead. who wasn't at the wisest move of the great webster's career, he always wanted to be president. some months later, zachary taylor died and fill more instead became president. but, from 1836 when martin van buren was elected as the city vice president to succeed andrew jackson, until 1988 when george h. w. bush was elected to succeed ronald reagan, no vice president was -- no sitting vice president was ever elected to the presidency. and other than john brechin bridge in 1856, none was nominated to seek the presidency by major party until richard nixon was in 1960. and so, at the beginning of the

20th century, there was a common a joke that was told about the parents who had two sons, one went off to see, the other became vice president. neither was ever or heard from again. but, at the beginning of the 20th century, the vice presidency began to take some sort of baby steps forward in toward the executive branch. president harding evaded his vice president, calvin coolidge to meet with the cabinet. the move was a controversial at the time but vice president coolidge did meet with harding's cabinet and that became something of a tradition. franklin roosevelt used john gardner as a legislative liaison and sent him on some foreign trips before they had a falling out during the second term. president roosevelt used his second vice president, henry wallace, made him the head of board of economic warfare

during world war ii. but, wallace ran into a controversy with numbers of fdr's cabinet and soon lost that position and was dropped from the 1944 ticket. president roosevelt third vice president, hurry truth and very limited contact with vice president roosevelt in the early days of president truman's vice presidency. and in fact, the president truman wasn't told about the manhattan project until some days after he succeeded president roosevelt when one of his advisers took him aside and said mister president i think there's something you need to know about. the changes in american government in politics that were associated with a new deal and with world war ii ended up having an effect on the vice presidency. the strength in the presidency, they weekend the political parties and they had the effect of pulling the vice presidency into the executive branch.

as the expectations of the presidency increased in a nuclear age and in the cold war as the president was expected to conduct a more robust foreign policy and as technology made foreign travel more possible, vice presidents 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. and so the office really began to move into the executive branch, beginning with the vice presidents the of richard nixon in 1953. vice president nixon's office was still at the capitol building, but unlike his predecessors, nixon spent most of his time -- spent almost no time presiding over the senate, he spent most of his time going to meetings in the executive branch, meeting with president eisenhower's part cabinet, national security, counsel,

taking foreign missions for president eisenhower oftentimes he would go for a month or two months on a farm trip during political work. between having executive branch commissions and so forth. and vice president nixon successors, lyndon johnson, hubert humphrey, spirit canoe, gerald ford and nelson rockefeller essentially followed the nixon model. their office moved into the executive office building, they took on more functions in the executive branch, sharing commissions, making trips for the president, doing political work. other than vice president act new, i think all of these people were really among the leading political figures of their political generation. and the vice presidency be again better presidential springboard and became attractive to enable people for that reason. nixon and hubert humphrey were nominated to seek the presidency and spiral akron was

the front runner for 1976 in polls at least until he had to reside from office. but even so, with this growth during the period from nixon to rockefeller, there still were limitations. the primary focus of the vice presidency was on providing a presidential successor. the executive branch work to the presidents to con, tended to be at episodic, it tended to be peripheral. the vice presidents weren't part of the presidents inner circle. vice presidents tended to feel pretty underutilized and pretty frustrated with their positions. president eisenhower wanted to dump a vice president nixon from the ticket in 1956, he suggested to him that he might chart his own course and his political future might be brighter if you took a cabinet position. but, vice president nixon had no desire to leave the vice

presidency. later in august of 1960 when vice nixon was running for president and was suggesting that reason that people should vote for him instead of senator jon kennedy from massachusetts was that he had such extensive experience as vice president. president eisenhower's asked that oppressive press conference if he could name a single idea that vice president nixon, contributed to the administration and vice president -- president eisenhower got sort of irritated. he said, i don't know if you give him me a week, i might think of one. i don't know. at the first presidential debate, vice president nixon was asked about this because more than a week had passed and the president hadn't come forward and suggested any ideas. lyndon johnson said that president kennedy treated him well but, he said that he hated every minute that he was vice president. every time he was in president

kennedy's presence, he felt like he was a rave and hovering around his head. hubert humphrey perhaps because president johnson had a miserable time as vice president, president johnson made sure that vice president humphrey had a miserable time as vice president after vice president humphrey expressed expressed disagreement president johnson stopped inviting him to meetings to discuss vietnam's and some of you may recall the recent political name tom or whatever became of you hubert and my favorite line from the song was when something like second fiddles, is the hard part i know when they don't even give you a bulb. president nixon this tested

sparrow at new. julián, there will be conferences were president nixon would be talking to bob haldimand and john are lichtman and they would say that acne wants to meet with you and president nixon would say, the president doesn't meet with the vice president. that's not how it works. that's not his job, that's not part of the deal. president ford's nine months as vice president was probably the least happy time of his public service. he took on some commission work and the executive branch. he did some legislative liaison, but he spent much of the time traveling around the country, trying to help republican candidates who had been -- and dying as far from it as he could. and then, when he designated nelson rockefeller as his vice

president, president ford really wanted to try to do something with the vice presidency. he liked and 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 that the ford vice president general staff had not been included and he wanted to make sure that that wasn't repeated. yet, it didn't work out that way. gather rockefeller requested that president ford be the head of the domestic council. vice president rockefeller thought if he was the head of the domestic council, he would be to domestic affairs will and re-kissinger was awesome to foreign policy. but there were all sorts of problems. domestic cabinet officials didn't want to report to the president through the vice president. the chief of staff donald

rumsfeld thought of henry kissinger was running foreign policy and nelson rockefeller was running domestic policy, what did that leave for the president? there were other problems in terms of the staff of the domestic council had to report through the regular channels and not just the vice president. the whole experiment of having the vice president running the domestic counsel didn't work. vice president rockefeller, now understanding the good relationship between president ford and vice president rockefeller was not consulted on any important matters and he was dropped from the ticket in 1976. that's the last time a vice president hasn't been asked to run for reelection with the president. >> it's worth pausing to think

why didn't the vice presidency really develop the way it later did under the ford rockefeller regime? president ford very much wanted it to happen. i think it didn't happen then in part because they started off with the wrong vision of the office. vice president rockefellers idea was he could be powerful if he had a particular piece of the government to run. he at, 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 wasn't comfortable with, they created an awful awkwardness for the president. the second reason the vice presidency didn't develop during the forward

administration was the vice president rockefeller really wasn't cut out to be number two. he wasn't able person, but he had never been a number to. he was governor of new york for 14 years and he was not suited by his experience or by his temperament to be a follower. third, the politics between the two of them were wrong. although they were personally compatible politically, he was not compatible with president ford on many major initiatives. they were trying to rein in spending. vice president rockefeller was proposing ambitious spending proposals. then, on top of that, president ford was challenged in the republican primaries in 1976 by governor reagan. the conservatives in the

republican party had no use for a vice president rockefeller going way back to the 1964 campaign. vice president rockefeller really became a serious political liability for the president. on top of that, there was a conflict between the vice president and presidents staff. vice president rockefeller became convinced the chiefs of staff, donald rumsfeld and dick cheney, or out to get him when the vice presidents residents was opened. vice president rockefeller had a series of parties to introduce people to the new vice presidents residents, and supposedly, everyone in town was invited to one of those parties except for the chief of staff, dick cheney. the other problem the ford administration had was that vice president rockefeller

wasn't there for the first four months of the ford administration. he was undergoing confirmation proceedings before the house and senate, so he wasn't able to participate in the early stages of the administration. by the time he got into the administration, relationships had been formed and 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 what i call the white house vice presidency. governor carter thought himself as a dignitary for the american people. he was a small businessman who thought the vice presidency was 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 and prepared. he was haunted by the

experience of president truman not having been included in discussions during the roosevelt presidency. governor carter secured the nomination early on. this was early june of 1976, about five weeks before the democratic convention. he took the selection of a running mate seriously. he engaged in a serious process with his closest confidant, an atlanta lawyer. he decided that he needed to run with a senator or congressman to balance off his own lack of experience in the federal government. he initially had reservations about walter mondale, that he was too liberal, bothered by the fact that mondale had pulled out early from the presidential race. when they met in early july, about eight days for the democratic convention, they hit

it off. carter became very impressed with mondale and he thought mondale had the experience and resources that carter needed. he was popular and knew his way around the district of columbia. he was popular in congress. he was popular with liberals. and governor carter took an inclusive approach to mondale and his campaign team, even during the campaign. did the 1976 presidential campaign, carter and forward didn't agree to debate and they invented the idea of a vice presidential debate, which we had in every presidential election since. and the vice presidential debate, mondale was deemed to have done much better than senator bob dole. afterwards, carter's campaign manager said mondale added 3% to the ticket, and carter in

his speeches in the closing few weeks of the campaign almost invariably mention mondale as an asset and a signal of the kind of decision making he was capable of. and during the presidential transition, for the first time in history, mondale was involved in the transition, involved in meeting with cabinet officers and so forth. and he went out of his way to signal that mondale would be an important part of the administration. given that he picked a running mate he was compatible with, given he was ideologically compatible, given that he picked someone he thought could add needed resources to his administration, and given that he had picked someone who he thought was able and both a leader and follower, the other thing that was critical was the vision of the vice presidency

that vice president mondale came up with. it was really 180 degrees from the vision nelson rockefeller had had, whereas vice president rockefeller's view was everything about the vice presidency turned on the fact that the vice president was the first presidential successor. one vice president mondale tried to do was the emphasize the fact that he was the first presidential successor and think about ways in which he could make the vice presidency and ongoing, substantive position that was not focused on providing a successor to the president, but in helping the president succeed. that step really change the whole psychology of the relationship between the president and vice president, and even more important, between the presidents staff and vice president.

mondale simply wanted to be the general advisor and troubleshooter, where he would advise the president on matters and take on assignments for the president, but he didn't want to own anything. he thought if he owned a part of the program that he would alienate whoever was heading up that part of the program. presidents tended to give vice presidents relatively trivial matters to be in charge of. and he was afraid that if he took on ongoing assignments, it would divert his time and attention away from advising the president and from helping the president on matters that were central to the presidency. in order for the vice presidency to succeed in this way, mondale and carter

concluded that they needed to have a new set of resources. they needed to have access to the presidency and have the same information the president had, including the national security agreements. he needed to be a part of the decision-making process and the staff had to be part of the decision-making process. he needed to have adequate support from the vice presidential staff and from the presidential staff so they would respond to his request. and he needed to have the presidents visible and consistent support. president carter agreed to everything vice president mondale asked. president carter said mondale would get every document he got. he directed that vice president mondale had the right to come into the oval office whenever he wanted without an

invitation. he could attend any meeting on the presidents schedule. he'd appoint members of the vice presidents staff to the national security council. and then he went beyond it. he gave vice president mondale things he hadn't asked for. for the first time, he gave the vice president and office in the west wing of the white house. pick any office you want other than the oval office. and then he also told his staff to things. you should always treat a request from the vice president as if it's a request from the president, and if anyone undercuts the vice president, they will lose their job. the term really bought 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 seemed to value vice president mondale, others valued vice president mondale. they knew he had access and they knew he had influence with the president. they knew if they could convince the vice president, they would have a better chance of convincing the president. because other people dealt with the vice president in this manner, is value to the president increased as well. subsequently, the vice presidency has adopted a similar model. all vice presidents from bush on have followed essentially the mondale and carter method. vice president bush, after competed with resident

[interpreter] -- despite the fact that the reagan's had misgivings about him, developed a good relationship with president reagan after the assassination attempt march 30th, 1981. vice president bush was viewed by even president reagan's closest people to have handled himself with the greatest sensitivity, tacked, and competence. he took on a number of important missions for the president. he became a close presidential advisor. he really subordinated his ambitions, especially in the first term, to the presidents. throughout the administration, he was extremely loyal to the president. when he became president, he set up the same relationship with vice president dan quayle. quayle met with the president every day for his national security meeting and then for a small meeting with the chief of staff. he had the weekly lunch and

served as a valuable legislative adviser for president bush. gallagher became president clinton's closest advisor probably for most of his presidency. in addition, he took on some significant portfolios in the clinton presidency. he was in charge of the environment, telecommunications. he was in charge of reinventing the government, which was an initiative that was very important to president clinton. there was concern that boris yeltsin was unstable in russia, and it was thought it was important to develop relations at other levels, and so the commission became really the place where a lot of business for the soviet union was done.

cheney, unlike other vice presidents during this period, he had really served in major positions in the executive bra inch and the house of representatives and on the house leadership ladder during the reagan presidency. in addition, he had a close relationship with president bush that developed both because he had worked with second president bush's father, but also because he chaired the vice presidential election and chaired the transition. after 9/11, vice president cheney became even more influential. he played a leading role in the administration with respect to national security, the war on terror, energy, economic matters. his power declined during the

second term for a variety of reasons. throughout his two terms, he was someone who the president listened to. vice president biden has really continued and has sustained a 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 of disengagement from iraq. he negotiated budget deals with senator mcconnell. he has continued to be a close adviser to the president, taking on diplomatic missions for the president. all of these vice presidents during this period, from mondale to biden, have really functioned across the board as presidential advisers and troubleshooters. some have emphasized some

activities of diplomacy. others have emphasized legislative work. they have all taken on roles to try to help the president on an ongoing basis. let me suggest in closing some lessons from that history. the first lesson is the vice presidency matters now. the vice presidency is an ongoing tradition of significance. it's not primarily presidential successor, although it serves that function. it's an ongoing position of importance and across the board advisor with political skills, a high-level troubleshooter, someone who can give the president help the president needs. it provides the president within valuable asset to make his or her administration succeed. second, because of the significance of the vice

presidency, it now matters who is the vice president and who the vice presidential candidates are. but who is selected as the vice presidential running mate is enormously important now, and the factors that ought to be considered are whether or not there's somebody who has the leadership ability to be president, not someday, but now. third, the change in the vice presidency is institutional, and during, and constitutional and a sense. what's significant about this is the change in the vice presidency has not depended on any change in constitutional

amendment in recent times. i'm it's been an example of establishing behaviors during the carter mondale administration largely and others improving on them and strengthening them. fourth, in order to make institutions improve the way the vice presidency has been improved, leadership matters. it's not enough to want to improve something. it's also critical that you really come to understand the institution you are trying to improve. you must have a workable vision of the institution. the implementation process has to be done sensitively unsuccessfully and be transmitted to successors.

the story i would tell of the modern vice presidency and the story of my book is really an optimistic one. if you can take the office that has been the most disparaged office in our history, and at a time when many of our other institutions are suffering and losing public confidence, if this office can improve and become significant for the first time in our history, as it has over the last 40 years, then perhaps there is hope we can turn some of our other institutions into a way that's more pleasing to us to better serve our needs. i would be happy to take any questions or hear any thoughts that people have. there is a microphone at the back. >> -- after they leave office?

>> the question was what happens to vice presidents after they leave office. it depends on each person has a different story. vice president mondale lost in 1984. vice president bush became president. vice president will looks tried twice to run for president unsuccessfully. vice president gore lost the presidency. vice president cheney left office and became a public critic of the administration and remained a vocal and visible figure in the national discourse.

so i think they have done different things. some presidents defeated vice presidential candidates. earl warren became chief justice of the united states. paul ryan became speaker of the house. >> my question deals with some of the things you mentioned about the 25th amendment and chapter 13. i would like you to respond to what i have heard, two criticisms of the 25th amendment. one is that the second section of it allows for having a president and vice president, neither of whom are elected, which of course has happened, and also section four that some people say, if i can quote one of the sentences here, when a president is unconscious yet

remains power, the vice president and cabinet will likely act only under clear and compelling circumstances. in spite of that, critics would say it's unwise that we've put into the constitution away for the vice president and cabinet and congress to overthrow the president if you can respond to those two criticisms. >> the 25th amendment section two is the provision that says where there is a vice presidential vacancy for any reason, the president can nominated vice president and the vice president takes office won confirmation by the house and the senate. during the forward administration, president ford became vice president to -- rockefeller became vice president through the 25th amendment and the criticism was that neither them had run in the national election.

that's true, but they both received an awful lot of scrutiny. the theory behind the 25th amendment is that the president is entitled to choose somebody who reflects his or her ideology. so the theory, and many liberal democrats voted for vice president for it on the theory that even though they disagreed with him politically, they thought that his views were consistent on most issues with president nixon so that it reflected the nixon election of 1972. his appointment of rockefeller then reflects the same trend. i think the idea is that the senators and congressman are serving as a surrogate for the electorate.

it's hard to come up with a perfect system. the alternative would be to have special elections and that has a whole host of problems. most people thought the 25th amendment in 1973 worked quite well, given that you had a democratic speaker at the time and you had president nixon facing impeachment, it would be more difficult to remove a president if you put in a vice president from the same party. with respect to section three, it provides a system whereby the president can voluntarily turn power to the vice president. it also deals with a section where if the president is unwilling or unable, the vice president or cabinet can say the president is disabled and the vice president acts as president.

there is a risk of the vice president throwing the cabinet out. on the other hand, section four was viewed as putting more of a check on the vice president by having the cabinet participate in the process. before then, some people thought the vice president would have the unilateral power to declare the presidents disability. president eisenhower, who took these issues very seriously following his three disability, wrote a letter to vice president nixon and basically said if ever i become disabled to a point where i can declare my own disability, it's your decision as to whether or not i am disabled. i will retain the right to come back when i think i'm able to, but if a group of doctors say that i'm not able, you should assume the presidency including

moving into the white house. in some ways, joining the vice president with the presidents cabinet 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 to use good judgment, and hopefully that's what will happen. >> my question deals with the cost of making a questionable choice for vice president. i'm thinking of john mccain with a very honorable, heroic military career, a long, dedicated, determined legislative career and a reputation picking someone like sarah palin who was a real lightweight in the political world.

i just wonder if you think that will be held against mccain's record or just seen as a crazy blip in his career. >> i think it's clearly part of his biography. it has been something he has been criticized for. his advisers told him he needed to pick a woman. he very much wanted to pick senator liebermann, but he became convinced first that he couldn't get lieberman through the republican convention, and second, a mccain lieberman ticket would lose. he thought back governor palin might help him energize the base of the republican party, attract women to vote who were

disgruntled because senator clinton had been mistreated by the democratic party. i think it was a miscalculation by senator mccain, and i think it's really bad politics as well. ultimately, the best politics is to choose somebody who people can visualize serving as president. if you can visualize someone sitting in the oval office, then it's likely to hurt. it may hurt only at the margins, but the 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's part of our opinion of the electorate. when people choose their running mate, particularly if they're new, when they choose their running mate, this is the first presidential decision. if they choose someone who is

not viewed as being presidential, or if they choose through a process, it sends a message about their values and decision-making. there are reasons why presidential candidates are not unqualified -- it's hard to hide a vice presidential candidates. >> thank you for coming. i was actually going to ask that's why i'm glad i had a backup. we are in an election year this year like no one in this room has seen. with hillary clinton probably going to be getting the democratic nomination, i kind of have an idea.

i think it will be someone in washington now. i am really curious who you think donald trump is going to choose as his vice presidential pick. do you think he will choose someone from the inside? someone that has congressional experience, which he has indicated, to sort of make up for his, and i don't want to be offensive, lack of public policy knowledge? >> i don't have a clue who he is going to pick. [laughs] [laughs] [applause] [applause] also, if he went back on may 5th of any presidential election year and you tried to predict to the vice presidential candidate would be, maybe you would be better predictors than i would, but i would be wrong virtually every time i think. it's hard to predict for a number of reasons. one, you don't know with the

context will be of when the selection will be made. this election will probably be made in july sometime before the two conventions. we don't know what the situation will be. to what extent will the republican party be -- . we also don't know who will be in the pool of available candidates. what will mr. trump's options be? what will he perceive as his greatest needs, and to what extent can he fulfill the needs by picking one of the options. so it's really difficult to figure it out. he said, as you point out, that he is likely to pick someone who is a politician.

outsiders to government always pick washington insiders. the last time we had to governors run together was in 1948, thomas dewey and earl warren. since then, every governor has picked someone either from congress or who served in the executive branch. based on that, one would expect that perhaps mr. trump would follow that pattern. that would also be a way of bringing a national security credential on to the ticket. typically, representative ryan was a fair choice, but representatives are not taken. when they are taken, with the exception of the ryan selection, it tends to indicate that the ticket is a weaker ticket and couldn't get a senator,

executive branch official, or governor. going back to the short answer, i don't have a clue. [applause] thank you very much. [applause] [applause]. had more ahead, we still talk about the role we play it on the front lines of the cold war. the space race was a major initiative within the cold war. >> we are on the campus of the