How Picking the Vice President Has Changed—and Why It Matters During the past three decades, two important things have changed about the U.S. vice presidency: the rationale for why presidential candidates choose particular running mates, and the role of vice presidents once in office. This is the first major book focusing on both of those elements, and it comes at a crucial moment in American history. Until 1992, presidential candidates tended to select running mates simply to “balance” the ticket, sometimes geographically, sometimes to guarantee victory in an must-carry state, sometimes ideologically, and sometimes for all three reasons. Bill Clinton changed that in 1992 when he selected Al Gore as his running mate, saying the experience and compatibility of the Tennessee senator would make him an ideal “partner” in governing. Gore's two immediate successors, Dick Cheney and Joe Biden, played similar roles under Presidents Bush and Obama. Mike Pence seems to also be following in that role as well, although the first draft of history on the Trump Administration is still being written. What enabled this change in the vice presidency was not so much the personal characteristics of recent vice presidents but instead changes in the presidential nomination system. The increased importance of primaries and the overwhelming need to raise money have diminished the importance of “balance” on the ticket and increased the importance of “partnership”—selecting a partner who can help the president govern. This book appears as Joe Biden prepares to choose his own running mate. No matter who wins the November 2020 elections, what Elaine Kamarck writes will be of interest to anyone following current affairs, students of American government, and journalists whose job will be to cover the next administration.

Dealing with the vice presidency since 1953, this book recommends Walter Mondale's vice presidency as a model for future occupants of the office. The author considers the selection, campaign roles, and electoral impact of vice-presidential candidates. Originally published in 1982. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

"I am nothing, but I may be everything," John Adams, the first vice president, wrote of his office. And for most of American history, the "nothing" part of Adams's formulation accurately captured the importance of the vice presidency, at least as long as the president had a heartbeat. But a job that once was "not worth a bucket of warm spit," according to John Nance Garner, became, in the hands of the most recent vice presidents, critical to the governing of the country on an ongoing basis. It is this dramatic development of the nation's second office that Joel K. Goldstein traces and explains in The White House Vice Presidency. The rise of the vice presidency took a sharp upward trajectory with the vice presidency of Walter Mondale. In Goldstein's work we see how Mondale and Jimmy Carter designed and implemented a new model of the office that allowed the vice president to become a close presidential adviser and representative on missions that mattered. Goldstein takes us through the vice presidents from Mondale to Joe Biden, presenting the arrangements each had with his respective president, showing elements of continuity but also variations in the office, and describing the challenges each faced and the work each did. The book also examines the vice-presidential selection process and campaigns since 1976, and shows how those activities affect and/or are affected by the newly developed White House vice presidency. The book presents a comprehensive account of the vice presidency as the office has developed from Mondale to Biden. But The White House Vice Presidency is more than that; it also shows how a constitutional office can evolve through the repetition of accumulated precedents and demonstrates the critical role of political leadership in institutional development. In doing so, the book offers lessons that go far beyond the nation's second office, important as it now has become.

A widespread perception exists among political commentators, campaign operatives and presidential candidates that vice presidential (VP) running mates can deliver their home state's electoral votes in a presidential election. In recent elections, presidential campaigns have even changed their strategy in response to the perceived VP home state advantage. But is the advantage real? And could it decide a presidential election? In the most comprehensive analysis to date, Devine and Kopko demonstrate that the VP home state advantage is actually highly conditional and rarely decisive in the Electoral College. However, it could change the outcome of a presidential election under narrow but plausible conditions. Sophisticated in its methodology and rich in historical as well as contemporary insight, The VP Advantage is essential and accessible reading for anyone interested in understanding how running mates influence presidential elections.