DON’T RUSH ME NOW, I’M THINKING ABOUT IT

By Edwin Cooney

Look, I know it’s late and I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I’m thinking about running for Vice President. No, I’m not sure which party ticket I even want to run on, but I’m out of a job and I think I’d enjoy being Vice President of the United States.

Of course, it’s not the same as being President, but who’d want that job? People expect so much of presidents. John Kennedy, when asked once why he enjoyed being President, is reported to have replied: “The pay’s good and I can walk home for lunch.”

Well, being Vice President wouldn’t afford me that luxury, but riding back to the Vice Presidential mansion in my big limousine could be quite thrilling. It wouldn’t be like going from the Oval Office upstairs for lunch via the presidential elevator, but what can I expect? I’m only Vice President.

Okay, I know, it’s time for getting to specifics instead of dreaming about my limousine. Let’s see now: what has life been like for other Vice Presidents?

Well, there was New York’s Aaron Burr, Vice President under Jefferson (1801-1805). While he was Vice President, he had time to run for and lose the governorship of New York and, at a later date, he would shoot former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Next, Burr -- while wanted for murder in New Jersey and New York -- took time to preside over the only impeachment trial of a Supreme Court justice ever held in the U.S. Senate. Not only did Burr have the satisfaction of seeing Jefferson’s hope for Justice Samuel Chase’s conviction thwarted, he was able to squeeze federal appointments out of Mr. Jefferson for two deserving Burr family members in the newly created Louisiana territory.

Then, there’s the case of Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky. His backers got him on the 1836 ticket with Martin Van Buren touting him as the man who had slain the great Indian leader Tecumseh. RMJ was elected Vice President, but he had so much time on his hands that he managed a hotel one summer. Of course, the Democrats were so embarrassed by him that they actually didn’t even nominate a Vice Presidential candidate when Van Buren ran unsuccessfully for re-election in 1840.

Ah! You say I’m going back too far? Okay! There was Indiana’s Thomas Riley Marshall under Woodrow Wilson in the twentieth century who, when he wasn’t presiding over the Senate, spent most of the time wishing for things like a good five-cent cigar. He also told wonderful stories such as the one about the couple who had two fine sons: one son went off to sea and the other became Vice President… and neither was ever heard from again!

Then there was the case of one of the more really accomplished Vice Presidents, Illinois’s Charles Gates Dawes. He was America’s first ever Director of the Bureau of the Budget—a very strenuous job you can be sure. In 1924, he was chosen to run with Calvin Coolidge. Dawes accepted. He was a songwriter in addition to being a hell of a banker. One of his songs actually became a hit in the late 1950s. It was called “All in the Game”. I don’t know whether he wrote that song while he was presiding over the Senate as Vice President, but it’s possible. I do know, however, that he was napping one afternoon and missed a chance to break a tie in the Senate on the nomination of a good Republican businessman Charles Beecher Warren as Coolidge’s Attorney General. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when Dawes explained it all to President Coolidge.

I’m told that Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey got more talking in while he was Vice President (1965-1969) than any of his predecessors. Additionally, Maryland’s Spiro Agnew and Indiana’s Dan Quayle played a lot of tennis and golf with big name celebrities while they served under Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush, respectively.

The next question is whether I should offer myself to John McCain or Barack Obama. True, I’m no longer a Republican, although I once was. I could pull in the independent vote as Senator McCain’s chief “flip-flopper”. My flip-flopping would take the spotlight off of his flip-flopping.

I could offer myself to Barack Obama as…let’s see now…oh, yah!...as his “old white male candidate”. I have a record of years and years of shooting my mouth off on both domestic and international issues that would make any red-blooded American proud. After all, I’ve had such heroes as Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, J. Edgar Hoover, Billy Martin (Billy wasn’t a politician, but he was definitely a winner) and Elvis. I loved Elvis, you know.

As I admitted at the beginning, I know it’s late but there’s still time: in 1972, former Democratic Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody (1963-1965) ran for Vice President in the primaries. Peabody’s idea was that the delegates and not the bosses should pick the next Vice President. He made his announcement early enough for the 1972 New Hampshire primary. So, what did the Democrats do? They nominated Missouri Senator Tom Eagleton whom they later dumped in favor of R. Sergeant Shriver of the Kennedy family.

I may well run you know. Okay, it’s true that I don’t play either golf or tennis. No one, not even I, can talk like Hubert could. I seldom take afternoon naps. My occasional cigar costs way more than a nickel. I’ve never managed a hotel and I can’t shoot straight—not even as straight as Wyoming’s Vice President Cheney.

Ah! Maybe I’d better not. It’s been fun dreaming about it, though!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY