I was sitting in my office a few days ago when I noticed the King County Sheriff’s helicopter flying around the building. This is always a sign that something exciting was going on. Since it wasn’t a news chopper, I knew the building wasn’t on fire, a good sign.
But there were sirens and a lot of commotion on the street below. I guess the 40 police motorcycles lining the street in front of the hotel next to our building should have been an additional hint. Someone famous was in town.
I knew it wasn’t the President. His every move is recounted and reported endlessly, so I know where he is most of the time. No, it was someone else, someone 40-motorcycle important, but not presidential.
Finally, I found the cause of the commotion. The Vice President was in town. Yes, Jumpin’ Joe Biden and his wife Jill had come to Seattle and he was next door at the Westin Hotel for a little political fundraiser.
Of course, I had to check it all out. I went downstairs and sure enough, Seattle police had blocked the sky bridge to the hotel that connects my office and the Secret Service were standing outside the hotel, looking very hot in their dark suits. I guess they didn’t know it was 80 degrees that day in Seattle. Whoever does expect that, really? But really, you’d think the Secret Service would know everything.
This got me thinking. How cool would it be to be the Vice President of the United States? What a great gig. You get a nice office, some staff, a lifelong pension and a bunch of guys who have signed on to die for you if necessary.
In exchange for being the second guy on the totem pole, you get invited to a lot of dinners and parties, you fly around in Air Force Two, you are rarely asked to do anything significant and you get to hang occasionally with the President of the United States.
This seems like a plum role, certainly a better one than being President where everyone continually takes pot shots and real shots at you, calls into question your character, blames you for everything ill in the world and still don’t believe you were really born here.
Joe? No one cares what Joe’s opinion really is or what he does on a day-to-day basis. The only way he can get attention is to mouth off and say something inappropriate, shocking or controversial. Hell, I can do that! His crazy comments get a few lines in the press, maybe a sound bite, and then the media is back on their game, bird-dogging the President
I mentioned to my son that I would make a good Vice President. He thought so, too. He said he’s vote for me, if he was old enough. The only problem here is that you don’t really get to run for Vice President these days. You have to know someone, like the guy who wants to be President.
As you know, this can be a pretty hard angle to work. Even if I had known John McCain four years ago, I couldn’t have been VP. He didn’t win. Even if he had a running mate that was normal (sorry, Sarah, you’re still a whack), the person running for VP couldn’t get into office without John.
That’s a crying shame, too. I think a lot of very good men and women could be Vice President, but unfortunately, they have to hitch their political wagon to a candidate that has virtually no chance of winning the presidency.
It’s even worse for the guys that aren’t Republican or Democrat. Remember James Stockdale? Of course you don’t. I voted for him, well, indirectly. He was H. Ross Perot’s vice presidential partner in the 1992 election. James never had a chance of coming even close to being VP. I don’t even think he earned a single Secret Service guy to protect him. Who would want to off James Stockdale?
Let’s face it, few people even remember Walter Mondale, and he was the Vice President. People only remember George W. Bush’s VP because he couldn’t spell. He joins the long list of other don’t knows – VPs Thomas Hendricks, Hannibal Hamlin, Charles Curtis, William King, George Dallas and Alben Barkley.
You won’t exactly be seeing a commemorative bust of Hannibal or Alben in any hallways of Congress. They are mere footnotes in history, a Wikipedia oddity. But still, they got to be Vice President and enjoy all the perks of the office.
My son wondered aloud what kind of perks there are as the #2 man in the government. I told him what they were. He shot back, “That would be so cool dad. You could just announce in the middle of the night that you were going out for a pizza and everyone would freak out. Someone would end up getting you a pizza just so they didn’t have to wake up the Secret Service.”
That is the beauty of being Vice President, I said. You can be completely crazy in the head and as long as something doesn’t happen to the President, you can have a great four or eight years where you’re not really called upon to do much of anything importance.
That’s when the illusion briefly fell apart. It seems my son does pay attention in history class.
“What about Truman, Daddy-O?” He was VP until Roosevelt died. Then he became the President. He had to decide whether or not to drop the atom bomb on a bunch of civilians.
“He did?” I said. “Oh yeah, that’s right, millions were killed in New York, weren’t they?”
“Nagasaki and Hiroshima, dad. The Japanese. World War II, remember?”
Thankfully, a VP isn’t required to stick with the facts. They don’t have to know much world history. Hell, they don’t even have to know how to spell potatoe, uh, potato.
Hey, if Dan Quayle or Jumpin’ Joe can be a Vice President, so can I.
In the Emerald City, wishing I was a Mormon woman so I could run for Vice President this year,
– Robb