The vice presidency has come a long way since John Adams called it “the most insignificant office” ever conceived, and John Nance Garner referred to it as “not worth a bucket of warm p-.”
For more than four decades, most vice presidents have received significant presidential assignments. For most, however, efforts to elevate their standing politically have brought mixed success. More lost later presidential races than won them, and the elder George Bush is still the only sitting vice president elected president in the last 184 years.
The recent difficulties of the current vice president, Kamala Harris, illustrate how hard it will be for the first Black woman to hold the office to establish a record that could help her one day be elected president.
For one thing, President Joe Biden has asked her to manage two areas, immigration and voting rights, where the underlying problems are so substantively complex and politically intractable that success may prove elusive.
For another, in carrying out her mandate to tackle the issues at the root of the immigration problem, the vice president has shown some of the same lack of political deftness that marked her brief but unsuccessful 2019 presidential bid.