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vice presidents

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    8/3/2021

    Is Kamala Harris Really the Least Popular VP in a Half-Century?

    The right has seized on the argument, which is based on shoddy interpretation of polls and ignores the fact that net favorability ratings for current officials are much more affected by partisan polarization than for their predecessors decades ago. 

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    4/22/2021

    Fritz Mondale and Decency

    by Kai Bird

    Jimmy Carter thought the vice presidency was "a wasted national asset." He gave Walter Mondale the charge and the freedom to redefine the role. 

  • SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
    4/22/2021

    Walter Mondale Remade the Vice Presidency

    by Stuart E. Eizenstat

    "Walter Mondale created the modern vice presidency out of a position that was an afterthought at the Constitutional Convention. Mondale was a great public servant and a decent man, and his death comes at a time when his progressive politics have gotten a second breath in the Democratic Party."

  • SOURCE: Perspectives on History
    1/19/2021

    Why is Charles Curtis's Legacy So Complicated?

    by Kiara M. Vigil

    VP Charles Curtis advocated for policies toward Native American nations that today seem steeped in paternalist and assimilationist values, but in the context of the 1920s his legacy should be seen as part of debate among Native leaders about the tension between preservation and incorporation of modern American society.

  • 9/6/2020

    Can Biden Beat Van Buren's Curse?

    by Robert Schmuhl

    In 1840, Democrat Martin Van Buren ran for re-election without a running mate, having never embraced the eccentric Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky, the man chosen by Senate Democrats to serve as his Vice President. Beginning with Johnson's failed bid for the presidency in 1840, only two of sixteen Democratic Vice Presidents became President, and none came to office by election. 

  • SOURCE: Smithsonian
    8/10/2020

    The Woman Who Paved the Way

    Here, compiled from sources including Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro’s memoir, contemporary news clippings and interviews with players who were part of this history, is a look back at Ferraro’s exhilarating, much-scrutinized path to becoming a political standard-bearer.

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    8/10/2020

    The Measures of a Successful Vice-Presidential Pick

    by Michael Beschloss

    Now that Joe Biden has announced Senator Kamala Harris will be his running mate, readers can decide how well the pick meets Michael Beschloss's criteria for a beneficial choice. 

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    8/10/2020

    History’s Lessons For Joe Biden

    The anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the circumstances of Roosevelt's failing health should be reminders of the significance of Joe Biden's choice, even beyond the campaign.

  • SOURCE: HNN staff
    5-10-13

    Doug Brinkley makes cover of Rolling Stone for Joe Biden interview

    Douglas Brinkley, the prolific Rice University historian who has already twice graced the cover of Rolling Stone (first for his interview of Bob Dylan in 2009, then for his interview of Barack Obama in 2012) has done it again.Brinkley's interview with Vice President Joe Biden made the cover of the most recent issue of Rolling Stone.A taste:There is a keen Kennedy-like vigor to Joe Biden that overwhelms any room. As was once said of Theodore Roosevelt, he, too, wants to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. Unlike President Obama, who speaks in interviews with Hemingway-esque sparseness, Biden rambles like Thomas Wolfe, painting a robust picture of an ever-changing America where coal miners will soon be working in clean-tech jobs, gun-safety laws will be tougher and China will be reined in by the White House from poisoning the planet with megatons of choking pollutants....