Which OTL Vice-President Would Have Made The Worst President?

I just recalled a popular humor writer during the ACW describing men who would not be subject to the draft in 1862.

Among those spared would be incessant lunatics, habitual lecturers and anyone who deliberately voted for John Tyler.:D
 

sprite

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Wallace and Garner, both FDR VP's both terrible, but for entirely opposite reasons.

I guess Truman proves third time's a charm.
 
The vice-presidency was for most of its history not "worth a bucket of warm piss" as Garner said. It was Nixon who created the modern vice presidency: political guru, uber-partisan attack dog, heir to the incumbent, automatically nominated. Before Nixon, it was unheard of for an incumbent VP to seek the presidential nomination. After Nixon, it was unheard of for an incumbent VP not to seek the nomination (excepting Rocky and Cheney).
 
Pre-1900 (Historic): You all need to have a closer look at John Breckenridge; he would never have sat idly by as Buchanan did and allowed the Union to disintegrate - he actually had a bit of Lincoln in him in that regard (they came from approximately the same area and were related by marriage). Perhaps the ultimate irony, Breck was the States-Rights, pro-Slavery candidate in 1860 while he privately opposed the expansion of slavery.

Breck actually was a Unionist from a border state who did not join the Confederate cause until he saw what he perceived as Lincoln usurping the Constitution, and "willful destruction" of the Union by his actions. He was expelled from the Senate in 1861 for denouncing Lincoln's Administration on that very issue. His enemies denounced him as being pro-Southern at the time of his expulsion from the Senate, and he had some real concerns that he might be arrested by the Union authorities for sedition.

He decided to join the Confederates not because he was from a Confederate State, but because he saw what Lincoln was doing as corrupting the Constitution. In doing so he ran a very serious risk of being hung as a traitor (for unlike Lee, Davis or Jackson he was what we would call an actual defector).

It's hard to chose one as worst from this period, because apart from those who did become President in the early years of the Republic, they were a pretty mediocre lot -- including Tyler, Filmore, Johnson and Arthur. Breckenridge was actually a step above this crowd.

Andrew Johnson is, IMO, the worst case scenario lived out for this period of the Presidency. Of course if he had been removed and Ben Wade had become acting President, now that could have been a dark chapter too.

Post 1900 (Modern): #1 Spiro Agnew. I've got a time-line on that point; he was an extremely weak and ill-informed person; highly susceptible to being influenced by others and yes, he was a crook long before he became Vice President.

# 2 Dick Cheney. Richard III without the page-boy hair cut. One of the most dangerous persons ever to hold high public office, more dangerous than Nixon on many levels.

# 3 Dan Quayle. Sarah Palin in an empty suit. Like Agnew, too easily influenced by others because his own level of understanding was limited.

# 4 Richard Nixon. Wasn't ready to be President yet in the 1950's. His experiences in the 1960's made him a better President (and dragged him down, the proverbial double-edged sword).

It's not clear what the Vice Presidency was ever supposed to be. Reading the Constitution, it kind of looks like a spare official who could run things if needed. Going by the original design of the Electoral College it looks like it might have been second prize in the election - a sort of consolation prize for the # 2 candidate, but if that was ever the case, it didn't work out that way.

The political role developed with the political parties; but prior to 1945 Presidents were not given to using their Vice Presidents too much even in this role, except during elections. They were simply put, unimportant and, as Daniel Webster observed, men who were buried before they were dead.

Harry Truman was the first Vice President to have a bodyguard, no one though a Vice President needed one before that point. Lincoln never actually met his first term Vice President Hannibal Hamlin until after they had both been elected to office in 1860. Franklin Pierce's Vice President William R. King died very early in their term, having never set foot in Washington as Vice President. No one missed him.
 
I disagree somewhat on Nixon, and will agree to disagree on Cheney. By 1958-9 some commentators thought (somewhat justifiably) that Ike was becoming doddery, and even Drew Pearson thought Ike should resign and allow Nixon to become President. If he becomes POTUS in Ike's second term it doesn't matter: the 1960 race was on by early 1959, even if no one publicly announced as in 2007.
 
After a Quick Read...

... my short list (post-1900 only) would have included:
  • Charles Dawes - appeared to have been promoted beyond his competence - and it takes real talent to honk off everybody in Washington
  • Henry Wallace - well enough covered by others
  • Lyndon Johnson - not because I disagree with his policies but because he seemed to make a lot of decisions based on politics and on personal benefit
  • Spiro Agnew - same as Dawes, but with a criminal record - notice that they did not touch Nixon until Agnew had resigned - reduced the role of the VP to "bulldog"
Some who did not make my short list:
  • Richard Nixon - trying not to judge Eisenhower's VP by the actions of the Watergate President - Nixon in the late 50's / early 60's might have been a different man - probably more ideological but perhaps also with less of a chip on his shoulder
  • Dan Quayle - really needed some executive experience to have been a good President, but not the bumbling idiot of pop culture; probably would have a consistent set of policies but might not work well with a Democratic Congress
  • Al Gore - would have made my short list but for the fact that life was pretty good in the 90's and in the absence of a flat-out crisis would skate through
  • Dick Cheney - actually, had he come into the Presidency at a younger age, I think he would have been one of the better ones. Consistent policy, decisive, good experience with the Congress, and (despite the alledged Big Business ties) he made the effort to avoid making policy just for personal gain
  • Joe Biden - I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until the end of his term
  • Sarah Palin (just 'cause she's mentioned in some other posts) - no judgement yet based on the duration of her (in this case hypothetical) term, but she has better qualifications than does Biden, and she probably does not swear in public.
 
I'd have to say Wallace for the 20th century, and Breckinridge/Tyler for the 19th.

Sorry, Drew, but I'm not going to let "Lincoln's disregard for the Constitution!" sway me from picking the highest-ranking civilian leaders of the United States to ever be guilty of treason as being the worst vice-presidents.

I think Quayle, Cheney, and Agnew are soaking up a lot more hate than they deserve, but that's to be expected. For instance, I'd throw Richard Mentor Johnson, Van Buren's veep, into the mix before any of them. While being considered a raging alcoholic during the 19th century is already saying something, getting left off your party's ticket without replacement during your president's reelection bid because you're such a huge liability in an era when no vice-president had ever even succeeded to the Presidency is saying something about how qualified you are to be a heart attack away.
 
The posters on this thread are very unfair to Wallace. He was the first modern vice president. He was a member of FDR's War Cabinet and he headed the Bureau of Economic Warfare and was one of FDR's advisors on the Atomic Bomb. In contrast, FDR didn't bother to tell Truman about the Atomic Bomb and Truman didn't find out about it until after he was president.

Wallace went on a good will tour of Latin American countries in 1943 and he learned Spanish before the trip so that he could converse with the common people in their own language. His tour helped to persuade 12 Latin American countries to declare war on Germany. He convinced the BEW to add Labor clauses to contracts with Latin American producers, requiring producers to pay fair wages and to provide safe working conditions to their workers.

Most Democrats wanted Wallace to remain on the ticket in 1944 but the big city bosses and the future Dixiecrats pressured FDR to drop Wallace because Wallace was too honest and was such a strong proponent of Civil Rights.

Wallace would have a better chance of averting a Cold War then Truman did because he wouldn't have made such blunders as canceling Lend Lease to Russia after VE Day or refusing the Soviet request for a loan to help rebuild the their country. Wallace was never a Soviet apologist or advocated appeasement towards the Soviets. He criticized the Soviet Union on several occasions, and only thought that serious negotiations and give and take would be the only way to prevent a third world war. Such negotiations under a Wallace Presidency, would have been no different from the negotiations that took place between Nixon and Brezhnev and Reagan and Gorbachev. Here is a Wallace's Madison Square Garden speech, which caused Truman to fire him. http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw28.htm

When Wallace opposed the Truman Doctrine, he wasn't alone. Former Braintruster Rexford Tugwell and Elliot Roosevelt, FDR's son, share his views. If Wallace had become president, the U.S. would have sided with colonies trying to get their independence instead of with the colonizers. Disastors such as the Vietnam War would have been avoided.
 
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In order of terribleness for modern VPs

Henry Wallace
Al Gore
Walter Mondale
Spiro Agnew
Joe Biden

The dark legends of Quayle as a fool and Cheney as an evil genius are stories made up by the media, thus they would have made pretty good Presidents.
 
Uh... Quayle was Palin in a Brooks Brothers suit. If you wanted someone from Indiana, why not Dick Lugar? You know, someone who's actually eminently qualified (and an ideological GHWB clone) to become POTUS?

Wallace: agreed 100%.

Gore: he was DPOTUS, though the Gore-Hillary wars left that title in dispute. I don't see how he was terrible as VP.

Mondale: again, DPOTUS but average. Not terrible, not great either.

Spiro Agnew: agreed 100%. Should've picked Ford at the outset.

Joe Biden: all he does is provide a daily headdesk-worthy gaffe. More amusing than terrible.
 
In order of terribleness for modern VPs

Henry Wallace
Al Gore
Walter Mondale
Spiro Agnew
Joe Biden

The dark legends of Quayle as a fool and Cheney as an evil genius are stories made up by the media, thus they would have made pretty good Presidents.

Terribleness? By what criteria? Their attitudes, personalities, deeds, table manners?

One word and a list doesn't make a convincing argument for or against.

The media made-up stories therefore they would have been good Presidents? There's no logical connect - the one has no bearing on the other.

Making-up stories about someone doesn't prove the opposite to be true (or false), it only proves that the author is willing to make-up stories, which says something about the author, but nothing meaningful about the person or subject being targeted.

Sean Mulligan said:
would have been no different from the negotiations that took place between Nixon and Brezhnev and Reagan and Gorbachev.

If Wallace had a Brezhnev or a Gorbachev to negotiate with maybe. But he and his contemporaries had Stalin, and he was a different sort altogether.
 

Goldstein

Banned
I'm sorry, but I'm a foreigner and I still don't get some of the subtle details of American politics: When it comes to the worst alternate POTUS, the name of Dick Cheney appears very often. My question is: What's the reasoning behind the premise of his presidency being different, or worse, than the George W. Bush one? Af far as I was getting used to hear, Dick Cheney is sort of an intelligent clone of Bush, and it's not hard to assume that Dick Cheney influded a lot in the Bush administration.
 
If Wallace had a Brezhnev or a Gorbachev to negotiate with maybe. But he and his contemporaries had Stalin, and he was a different sort altogether.

How so? The Soviet Union allowed western zones in both Vienna and Berlin, despite the fact that both cities were in the Soviet occupation zones of Germany and Austria. In the context of World War II, it is unrealistic to expect that Soviet Union wouldn't expand in Eastern Europe due to the large role the Soviet Union played in the defeat of Germany and the removal of pro Nazi governments in Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary. In 1944, Stalin made an arrangement with Churchill about British and Soviets spheres of influence in Eastern Europe.
 
ok let me list the VPs


Theodore Roosevelt- Became President, and did a damn good job.

Charles W. Fairbanks- a repeat of the Republics of the 1880-1900, McKinley 2.0

James S. Sherman- dying of gallstones through the whole term, up to dying days before the 1912 election in OTL, the stress of the job may kill him sooner

Thomas R. Marshall- a good Progressive that took notes from Debs, my kind of guy, won't of been the racist SOB Wilson was

Calvin Coolidge- became President, and that did not work out well

Charles G. Dawes- a man with fire in his soul, and a hard-on against the Senate and really anti-coolidge.

Charles Curtis- First Indian President? likely some what better than Hoover

John Nance Garner- God help us! Hoover as a southern good old boy but worse!

Henry A. Wallace- a boob all around, likely soft on the USSR and just all around weirdness out of the President

Harry Truman- became President, did a damn good job

Alben Barkley-much the same as Truman, but with less spit-fire in his soul

Richard Nixon- was President in OTL, becoming president earlier would cut out some of the crazy

Lyndon Johnson- became president, did good and bad

Hubert Humphrey- Johnson-clone on domestic, more peace oriented though

Spiro Agnew- take everything bad about Nixon, take out all the good and POW you got Agnew

Gerald Ford- became president, did a good job over all

Nelson Rockefeller- a tough old bird and a good leader, but he's an old man and very hated by the GOP

Walter Mondale- an old school lefty like Humphrey, very different late 70s tell you that

George H. W. Bush- became president did a good job, a Bush 80s would be much better than the Reagan 80s

Dan Quayle- I think that man had a potatoe for a brian

Al Gore-likely much like Clinton, most likely has a better time with Congress then Bill did and some more Green and Tech

Dick Cheney- oh good Lord! "Civil liberties? what Civil liberties?"

Joe Biden- open mouth put in foot, however better at working Congress than Obama.
 
Dick Cheney supported South African apartheid. 'Nuff said.

Just out of interest, how are people getting their information on who Henry Wallace would or would not have had in his Cabinet as President?
 
Nixon - Sadly, became president
Johnson - Became president
HHH - Wouldn't have been too bad, but was on the left of the party.
Agnew - Corruption levels that make Greece look like a paragon of transparency and Tricky Dick look like an honest man.
Ford - Became president.
Rockefeller - If anything, a serious contender for best potential POTUS out of this little lot.
Mondale - Wasn't popular when it came to being elected under his own steam, but probably would be rather average.
Big Bush - Sadly, became president
Quayle - Spoke Biden-style nonsense (but not in Biden's Boris Johnson-esque loveable way). He would have swung from blunder to blunder, the bloke can't even spell.
Gore - Not much difference to Clinton.
Cheney - I'm not sure what's worse, Bush with intelligence or his civil liberties record.
Biden - Wouldn't have been that bad a president, even though he is gaffe-prone.

I'd suggest we are talking about a toss up between Agnew, Quayle and Cheney for worst, and Rockefeller followed by Gore, Mondale and Biden for best.
 
Historic presidency

* Rufus King. Exactly what the nation needed during the turbulent 1850s: an Alabaman in the White House.

Excuse me for answering so late...
You mean Pierce's VP, William Rufus DeVane King, right?
Well, in that case you don't get an Alabaman in the White House. You get an Alabaman at home in his Alabama (or even worse, on Cuba) that probably either dies without getting to know he was president or dies on his way to White House. Anyway, as MBR already mentioned, his successor is Atchison, who is (apparently) even worse.
(By the way, given that story about Atchison and 1849, you probably also get a lot of people later on arguing whether King ever was president (and thus, which presidential number Atchison and later presidents have). Especially so if Pierce's death happens either before March 24 (King's inauguration as VP) or in mid-April (days before King's death)...)


...So what, how?
January First-of-May
 
for those who think henry wallace wasnt naive WRT Stalin, i give you this

http://entertainment.timesonline.co...tainment/books/non-fiction/article4396888.ece

In 1944, Henry A Wallace, Roosevelt's vice-president, visited the gold-mining labour camps of Kolyma as part of a grand initiative to invest American money in the Soviet Union. Wallace was completely fooled by the Potemkin Village specially arranged for his visit (with healthy, happy, singing prisoners played by guards and actors from a Cultural Brigade). The ambassador returned to Washington with nothing but praise for his NKVD hosts. In a radio broadcast, he argued that the labour camps were helping to “develop” Siberia on a “patriotic” and “voluntary” basis, much as the pioneer settlers had developed America.
 
Gore... I don't know if its ASB but he might be more arrogant and self indulgent than he is out of office... his lack of charisma and appeal could see him getting slaughtered in '96 if the repubs pick someone who has a pulse... government shutdown might last longer also

I doubt it. My reading of Gore is that he is a smart, concerned politician, much like Clinton but with a lot more care for environmental issues (he's been on those for over 20 years by now). He's not an idiot, he won't pick fights with the Republicans if they control Congress (now, that doesn't mean Republicans won't pick fights with him).
 
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