Biden, Sebelius had different views of veep

In a New Yorker profile of Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, a discussion of Barack Obama’s vetting of Biden reveals that another contender “would be very happy,” in Obama’s words, “if I assigned them to reorganize the government.” That contender apparently was Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Biden rejected that possible assignment, also declining to act as a shadow secretary of state. Biden told the magazine he liked the model of Vice President Lyndon Johnson: “I would see one of my jobs as essentially being the president of the Senate in the sense of actually not presiding as much as interacting, continuing to interact, talking to Harry Reid every day or talking to Nancy Pelosi,” Biden said, referring to the Senate majority leader and the House speaker. “Johnson actually husbanded the relationships as vice president. He’d have senators down to his home. People knew – as they know about me now – that he understood politics in the broad terms of Congress, and he understood the detail of the legislation.”

8 Comments

  1. JWink
    Posted October 20, 2008 at 6:09 am | Permalink

    The Vice President is constitutionally independent of the President. The President has no power to assign the Vice President to do anything. Their offices and staff are separate.

    Hopefully, they have a dual interest in accomplishing comparable goals.

  2. lindainks55
    Posted October 20, 2008 at 8:50 am | Permalink

    It could have been good that McCain finally brought someone in who isn’t part and parcel of those who have run our country into the ground. Having his entire campaign — those he counts on to get him elected — be lobbyists and loyalists from the bush administration, is not change and is not improvement. He compromised his principles to further his ambitions.

    To have made the newcomer a positive decision he could have chosen someone with knowledge, someone with education, someone who gave America confidence. He didn’t. He made a politically calculated move that proved he doesn’t put the best interests of America first.

  3. lindainks55
    Posted October 20, 2008 at 8:52 am | Permalink

    Since Palin thinks the Constitution is flexible with regard to the power of VPOTUS, and McCain has proven incompetent even in running a campaign, what powers would a Sarah Palin take? I’m certainly not willing to chance it!

  4. TomPaine
    Posted October 20, 2008 at 12:02 pm | Permalink

    breaking a tie in the Senate, and waiting for the prez to die or get incapacitated is about all the VP does. Whether the VP gets to sit in on cabinet meetings, offer advice, etc is purely at the discretion of the Pres.

  5. Phantom
    Posted October 20, 2008 at 12:15 pm | Permalink

    Hey Joe, tell me it ain’t so! The founders wrote in great flexibility, so you can make of the position whatever you want!

  6. Phantom
    Posted October 20, 2008 at 12:17 pm | Permalink

    I think Joe will be a presidential liaison between the Oval office and the solid dem majority in congress. Great job for him.

  7. Monkeyhawk
    Posted October 20, 2008 at 12:44 pm | Permalink

    The authors of the Constitution originally thought it’d be a good idea if the guy who came in 2nd would be the Vice-President.

    That didn’t work out.

    And the patch on the Constitution didn’t resolve a lot of the problems. Patches, really, since the Veep question has required a couple of amendments.

    The only-est thing that remains is the Vice-President is there to take over if something dreadful happens to the President.

    If the Vice-Presidential candidate is worth anything at all it just makes since that person should be an important contributor to the administration of government. Of course it wasn’t always that way. No one voted for Abraham Lincoln’s 2nd term with the thought Andrew Johnson might come into power.

    Lyndon Johnson was a pretty bad President but he was probably the best damned Senator that chamber ever hosted. (Re: The Peter Principle)

    George Herbert Walker Bush chose Dan Quayle because he was cute. (And, now that we’ve met Sarah Palin, Danny seems relatively smart.)

    Gore picked Lieberman because Lieberman expressed outrage at Bill Clinton’s bl*w job. Not a particularly enlightened decision on Gore’s part, frankly.

    But that brings us to John S (for Senile) McCain the Third (for Shrub’s 3rd term) deciding the Moose-Dresser is the second-best qualified person on the planet to lead the Free World.

  8. mxyzptlk
    Posted October 20, 2008 at 1:02 pm | Permalink

    “I think Joe will be a presidential liaison between the Oval office and the solid dem majority in congress. Great job for him.”

    And I’m hoping Joe Lieberman ends up as the bathroom attendent. On second thought, ya can’t trust him there either!