Who Are The Five Greatest Vice-Presidents?

Anyone? Anyone?


*Crickets*


I think we can identify some really bad ones , but has any Vice-President been a great vice-president? I think folks would have trouble naming five Vice-Presidents, let alone naming five great Vice-Presidents.

This is why I wonder, what does Hillary get from being Vice-President, and why would a Hillary supporter want her to be Vice-President, rather than a powerful member of the Senate or a nominee to the Supreme Court . I don't see what Hillary gets out of it. Also, with Obama's agenda largely mirroring her own, shouldn't Hillary stay in the Senate to help maintain a majority to pass this agenda?

He didn't have a chance to show how 'great' he might be but the prospect of him as president in the late 40s and early 50s ( which prospect we missed by historical *inches*) instead of Truman is one of my favorite historical 'what if's'.

... of Cold and not-so-cold war.

Both potentially avoidable with better leadership... i.e. leadership that was willing to resist the kneejerk and simplistic anti-communism that was driving American politics in the era.

Also, FDR inflicted far more damaged on Germany and Japan before he died than the nuclear weapons did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Is he pure evil too?

But, I'll do one.

Henry Wallace. Roosevelt actually gave him a job. He's probably the highest stationed liberal ever to serve in American government.

But even with that, you're point is made. Being Vice President made him a lot of enemies, and as much good as he did while in the office, his service there probably lessened his effectiveness afterward.

Johnson, Gore & Jefferson would be on my list.

When scientists working on The Bomb needed someone in Washington to talk to, they went to Eleanor, not Harry.

20 January - 12 April 1945.

At least in modern times... JFK, and now either Obama or McCain... yet we've had many VPs become President (sometimes via election, other times due to the death of the President) - Ford, Bush Sr., LBJ, Truman, etc.

1) John Adams - Became the second president.
2) Thomas Jefferson - Became the third president
3) Chester Arthur - Became the 21st prsident and though he had come up through the political ranks via the patronage system, enacted many reforms of the patronage system.
4) Adlai E. Stevenson - His work as a statesman on the international scen can never be discounted.
5) Al Gore - 'nuff said.

And yes, I am counting Al Gore, who I would argue did his greatest work following his Vice-Presidency, but was pretty inconspicuous during the Bill Clinton presidency. Numbers 1, 2, 3 you name based on them becoming president, not what they did as VP. I don't think Hillary needs the VP slot as a crutch to run for President some day.

Jefferson accomplished much on the floor of the Senate as Veep.

Garfield came to office as a benefactor of patronage, so you have to recognize that he altered his thinking as Veep.

Gore was never president.

He was one of the more effective VP's, and the best should have been President we have ever had.

He didn't have time to do anything as Vice President, but when the time came, he stepped in, held the country together and was a very effective president.

such as Burr and Cheney.

Gore would be on the good list.

Up until Mondale, they didn't do much except go to funerals. Can anyone tell what Alben Barkley or Hubert Humphrey did as VP? What they did was based on what the president allowed them to do. FDR, famously, kept his VPs out of the loop on everything. John Nance Garner often bitched about his job.

Much of what previous VPs did was rather vague. The president chooses what to do with them and what duties he doles out. And picking a VP for what they did later as president is a cop-out.

That being said, it's much easier to single out the bad ones (Agnew) than to pick the really good ones. Otherwise, one would be likely to put someone like Nixon on the list, since he fulfilled his role to what was expected of him (I thought the 'Kitchen Debate' was rather humorous).

That all being said, I guess I'd have to go with Gore, since Clinton gave him unprecedented power to shape policy. And begrudgingly George H.W. Bush, since he was polite enough not to overstep his authority. Again, picking a 'best VP' is tough, since most people didn't know what the hell they actually did.

Again, this is all from a history perspective, nothing to do with ideology.

" It's time for the human race to enter the solar system."
Quote: Dan Quayle

one of them ran away to sea.

The other one became Vice President of the United States.

Nothing was every heard of either of them again.

Most VPs do very little, they are simply there in case they need to take on the Presidential duties down the road. Because most of them have never had to fulfill their primary duty it is really difficult to say that they have been effective, but you can't say they are ineffective either.

Now of course a person like Cheney has done far more than wait to take over the office, he has played a very active role in the government. Cheney is one of the only VPs who we actually have a long record to judge him on, and of course that record makes him by far the worst VP this nation has ever seen.