VEEP STATS We, in a general way, pay very little attention to the men we select to become Vice-President of our nation.
The choice comes about largely because we grant the newly nominated individual for the office President to "choose" the man or woman he thinks might serve him well in the office of Vice-President. It becomes decision, then, to name someone he feels will work closely with his own plans and ideals; someone who is capable of backing him up as Presiding officer of the Senate. The ones named ought to exemplify the leadership qualities which will make him or her a likely candidate for a future presidential race. The choice made will, no doubt, be heavily weighted with demographic considerations to gain support of certain groups of “special concern.” The choice of a person who can - and will - work closely with the new president becomes less assured the more career-centered stalwarts of the president's own political party are consulted, it seems.
I, like most Americans, I fear, am woefully ignorant of which Vice President served with whom and when. I keep a typed list of thirty-two of them...Aaron Burr (Jefferson) to Richard B. Chaney (George W. Bush). The proper placement of names such as Colfax, Morton, Fairbanks, King, Tompkins, Sherman and others may give me trout if I am called upon to pair them up with their presidential cohorts.
I always know one such Pres-Veep team, but for the wrong reason, I suppose. Garret A. Hobart was President William McKinley's Vice-President. I know that paring well, not because of anything either of those two fine men ever did for our nation, but because in our family possessions we happen to have a four-inch, cast-iron representation of a handsome housefly. It shows it was, at one time, covered with a heavy coat of gilt paint which identifies it as an election souvenir – the wings fold out – an ash tray. The heavy letters cast into the the metal and gold covering made it “The Gold Bug” of the 1907 McKinley-Hobart election.
Now, all I seem to need to become proficient concerning which “Veep” served what “Prexy” is a score or so of election souvenirs.
The ways we find to ignore our Vice-Presidents are marks against us in somebody's Little Black Book.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 9-5-06 [c-404wds]
