QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: Can Kamala Harris escape the ‘Hubert Humphrey problem?’
That marginal role applied to all vice presidents before the modern era. It was captured in the most famous quote about the office, uttered by one of FDR’s previous vice presidents. The job, John Nance Garner said, wasn’t “worth a bucket of warm piss.” (That quote used to be bowdlerized for public consumption as “warm spit.”)
Since Garner’s day, the bucket has been removed and the VP’s job increased markedly. This new, more prominent role influenced the VP’s run for the top office in 1960, 1968, 1976, 1984, 1992, 2000, and now 2024. In each of those, the party holding the White House nominated the vice president (or, in 1984, the party’s last sitting last vice president) for the top spot. The exception was 2016, when Barack Obama passed over his vice president, Joe Biden, and gave the nod to Hillary Clinton. Biden has been furious at both Obama and Clinton ever since, all the more so since Clinton lost (and, of course, he figured he would have won).
What changed in the modern era, making the vice president so likely to become the next presidential nominee? Beyond the detailed reasons (listed below), there is one overarching change: the vice president’s job has become much more important and visible as the national government has grown so vast. The Executive Branch, with its myriad of regulatory agencies, is too big and complex for the president and a small staff to control. He needs a much larger staff and a second-in-command who can handle whatever major tasks he assigns.
With the vice president’s larger role come four major advantages in becoming the party’s next nominee. Today’s vice presidents have:
- much higher name recognition than their predecessors
- political backing from the outgoing president (except in 2016 and perhaps now)
- strong ties to the party’s elected officials, campaign consultants and donors across the country, and
- a sure way to tap into the party’s fundraising apparatus, essential for today’s campaigns
Those advantages make it likely, though not certain, the vice president can not only win the nomination but win it without a damaging primary battle.
Incumbent vice presidents have one more advantage, or rather they have it if their administration is popular near the end of the term, as Bill Clinton’s was. The VP can credibly claim a share of that success. The recurrent theme is, “I not only supported all these great policies, I help devise and implement them, right alongside the (popular) president.”
If the administration is unpopular, the vice president never utters those words.
Until now:
Host: “Would you have done anything differently than Biden the last 4 years?”
Harris: “There is nothing that comes to mind…I’ve been a part of most the decisions that have had an impact.”
— Cabot Phillips (@cabot_phillips) October 8, 2024