By Edwin Cooney
Republican conventions have nominated twenty-one men and one woman for the vice presidency since 1900. Like Democrats, vice presidents have been selected for all of the traditional ticket balancing reasons for which Democrats choose theirs. A total of twelve of the twenty-two GOP vice presidential candidates have been elected — which makes the score of those actually elected twelve to ten in favor of the Republicans over the past 120 years.
Before listing GOP vice presidential winning versus losing candidates, it's interesting to note that at least two of the candidates, Theodore Roosevelt (1900) and Earl Warren (1948), became GOP anathemas later on in their careers. Teddy ran against President Taft in 1912 and Warren as Chief Justice became the object of GOP impeachment considerations late in his fifteen-year tenure.
Of course, 1900 was the year that the likable William McKinley sought a second term. His first Vice President, another very likable man from New Jersey named Garret A. Hobart, died of a heart attack on Tuesday, November 21st, 1899.
As badly as President McKinley needed a running mate in 1900, that’s how badly New York State GOP leaders wanted political and social reform-minded Governor Teddy Roosevelt out of the state governorship. The best place to put him, they concluded, was the vice presidency where he'd be powerless even if he did scold the party and the nation about the need for reform. Thus, in 1900, it would be McKinley and Roosevelt for the GOP vs. Bryan and Stevenson for the "Dems."
In 1904, the GOP nominated Indiana Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks as TR's running mate. Neither Roosevelt nor Fairbanks liked one another very much. Fairbanks was a conservative and was opposed to many of TR's "Square Deal" ideas such as food and drug regulations and mass conservationist legislation. During the McKinley administration, Fairbanks had served on the commission that settled the boundary between Alaska and Canada. Thus, the city of Fairbanks, Alaska was named for him.
In 1908, as Vice President Fairbanks sought the presidential nomination for himself, Republicans nominated William Howard Taft, TR's Secretary of War, and James Schoolcraft Sherman. Sherman and Taft were elected, but Vice President Sherman, a former mayor and congressman from Utica, New York, died suddenly during the 1912 campaign as he and President Taft struggled against Democrat Woodrow Wilson and Progressive Theodore Roosevelt. By 1916, the GOP was reunited and Charles Evans Hughes chose former Vice President Fairbanks as his running mate. They lost in an exceedingly close race to Wilson and Thomas Marshall who was famous for observing that "what this country really needs is a good five cent cigar!"
There were three rather interesting GOP vice presidents nominated during the 1920’s: Calvin Coolidge in 1920, Charles Dawes in 1924 and Charles Curtis 1928-1932. (Note: what Coolidge, Dawes, and Curtis appear to have in common was their general disregard for their running mates.) Coolidge succeeded to the presidency on the death of President Harding in the wee small hours of the morning of Friday, August 3rd, 1923. His father John Coolidge (a notary) swore his only son in as President of the United States at the Coolidge homestead in Plymouth Notch, Vermont. Charles Gates Dawes (some called him "Hell and Maria Dawes” due to his colorful language) was a financier, an administrator and a substantial musician. Dawes was the first director of the Bureau of the Budget during the Harding administration. Despite the fact that they shared similar administrative views, Dawes and Coolidge never really got along very well. Charles Curtis was an exceedingly affable gentleman although, as Senate majority leader, he vigorously opposed the nomination of Herbert Hoover at the 1928 GOP convention. Once he was offered the vice presidency by Hoover, he immediately altered his attitude! Curtis was the vice presidential nominee in 1932 even though on the first ballot of that sad convention he was short of the needed votes to get the nomination. He made up for it, though, on the second ballot.
Frank Knox was the 1936 GOP vice presidential candidate with Kansas Governor Alfred (Alf) M. Landon. A native of Boston, Massachusetts, Knox rode up San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War of 1898. At the time he received the vice presidential nod from the GOP, he was publishing The Chicago Daily News. In 1940, seeking to be more electable as they competed against FDR's bid for a third term, the Republicans nominated business executive Wendell Willkie for president, and Senator Charles McNary, an Oregon progressive, for vice president. In 1944, vice presidential nominee John W. Bricker of Ohio was the conservative end of the ticket. New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey was regarded as more liberal, although one could never convince FDR of that! (As son Jimmy noted when he assisted the president to bed on election night, FDR comment even after receiving Dewey's congratulatory telegram was: "I still think he's a son-of-a-bitch!” California Governor Earl Warren was Tom Dewey's 1948 pick as the vice presidential candidate. Years later, as Chief Justice of the United States' Supreme Court, Warren would become too progressive for many Republicans.
Richard Nixon (1952-1956) and U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge (1960) would be chosen to be the Vice Presidential picks followed by New York State Congressman William E. Miller in 1964 and Spiro T. Agnew (1968-1973). Miller had just completed two years as GOP National Committee Chairman. In July 1964, when he was nominated to run with Barry Goldwater, he was labeled by Goldwater as someone "who drives Lyndon Johnson nuts!" Originally a "Rockefeller Republican,” Spiro Agnew, definitely was not a "household name" when he was picked by RMN in 1968. By 1972, Mr. Agnew was known in every American abode!
By the summer of 1976, our Bicentennial, America's president Gerald R. Ford had reached the ultimate office through the vice presidency although he did not have the GOP Convention to thank for his preeminence. He asked the 1976 GOP Convention to nominate Kansas Senator Robert Dole to that position. (Note: Former California Governor Ronald Reagan became the first potential president to choose his running mate, Pennsylvania liberal Senator Richard Schweiker, prior to the opening of the convention in Kansas City, Missouri.)
George Herbert Walker Bush was selected by Mr. Reagan in 1980 and 1984 despite his Eastern political pedigree. (Bush's father, Prescott Bush, was formerly a progressive Republican senator from Connecticut.) True blue Conservatives never really “trusted” Yale scholars just because they wore cowboy hats! As for Indiana Senator Dan Quayle, nominated for vice president in both 1988 and 1992, his pedigree was solidly conservative enough, but his hawkish military convictions were subject to sincere ridicule — as was his spelling and articulation! In 1996, Jack Kemp, the former Buffalo Bills and NFL quarterback, was considered a "true blue conservative" with a progressive social conscience. He was a far more successful professional football player than he was a national campaigner!
Richard B. Cheney a resident of Wyoming via Nebraska and Texas (where he was a resident at the time of his 2000 vice presidential nomination) was a Republican politician with a business executive’s soul. Many believe (falsely, I think) that as vice president he was the real power behind the throne!
Alaska Governor Sara Palin, who was picked in 2008, was an attractive candidate for about a fortnight! Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the GOP 2012 vice presidential choice, turned out to be all potential with little substance. Many expected Ryan to make mincemeat out of Vice President Joe Biden during their 2012 debate, but Joe survived nicely!
Michael Richard Pence, still another Republican Indianan, is a true believer in his religious and political faiths! Pence represents bedrock Midwestern “moral majority conservatism!"
At the outset of this musing, I said that twenty-one men and one woman were nominated by the Republican Party between 1900 and 2016. Twelve of these were actually elected vice president of the United States. Additionally, two vice presidential nominations were confirmed outside the GOP party politic. In fact, with Democrats in control of both houses of Congress, Gerald R. Ford and Nelson A. Rockefeller had to have Democratic votes to become vice president and both certainly got them! Hence, a total of fourteen Republican men have served as vice presidents.
Few simultaneously serving presidents and vice presidents came from more divergent backgrounds. Jerry Ford, the only Eagle Scout to become President of the United States, was a small town Chamber of Commerce type. Nelson Rockefeller was a product of wealth, privilege and sophistication However, they had one thing in common above anything else. They were both men of practicality even more than they were men of politics! If you ask me, practicality is ultimately more patriotic than ideology!
What say you?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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