Vice President Dick Cheney, wife Lynne and daughter Liz step off Air Force Two upon arrival in Ankara, Turkey, today, wrapping up a nine-day tour of war zones and the Middle East. Cheney said of his active vice presidency today: “George Bush really is the one who has made this possible.” Photo by Paul J. Richards / AFP/ Getty Images)
by Mark Silva
That time is soon approaching when we will meet a couple of new candidates: The nominees for vice president.
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, already is being asked about his “short list.” Will it include Mitt Romney of Massachusetts? It will include many, he has said, refusing to publicly rule out any names proferred in interviews.
And supporters of Democratic Sens. Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton have spent a lot of time shooting down talk that one of them might become the other’s running mate when their marathon campaign for the party’s presidential nomination is finished – in a sort of “dream team” arrangement. It’s not happening, party leaders say flatly.
Dick Cheney has carved a new model for the role during his two terms – an adviser who conducted a nationwide search for George W. Bush’s running mate in 2000 that ended with Cheney himself, a vice president who at times has seemed more influential than anyone in the White House save for the president himself, a No. 2 who has at times faded into the background, but at other times asserted the No. 1 most forceful voice of the administration in the face of criticism over the war in Iraq and other matters.
Lately, Cheney has even joked about his acquired nickman: “Darth Vader.”
In conflicts with Congress and the bureaucracy, he has both asserted the executive privileges of the presidency and asserted, in refusing to divulge just how much material his office has classified and declassified, that he is not really a part of the executive branch. He may draw his power from the White House, but draws his pay from the Senate.
Cheney, reminded at the close of a tour of the Middle East this week that he has been more actively involved than past vice presidents, was asked if he might have established a precedent, if he has shown us a trend – or if the office will become less visible again.
“George Bush really is the one who has made this possible,” Cheney said during an interview today with American reporters in Israel. “It’s a very sort of personal kind of thing, with the president, the time in which he governs,” Cheney said in a roundtable interview in Jerusalem with reporters following the vice president’s journey through Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the West Bank in the past week.
“George Bush really is the one who has made this possible, who wanted me not because he was worried about carrying Wyoming,” he said. “He was going to get Wyoming whether or not I was on the ticket.
“But as he said at the time, he wanted me to sign on as a member of the team, somebody who would be an active participant in the governing process, and he’s kept his word,” Cheney said. “He’s been great at it, and the relationship has prospered now for more than seven years because of the understandings we came to. There’s no contract, job description, being vice president.
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“I think since the Mondale era, when he was Carter’s vice president, there’s been an expansion of the role of the vice president,” he said. “Mondale was the first one to have an office in the West Wing. That helped, that sort of helps integrate you with the operation.
“You talk to Jerry Ford, as I did many times, he always expressed to me the view that the worst nine months of his life were the ones he spent as vice president, he just hated the job,” said Cheney. “You can conceive of a situation in the future where, for various reasons, we’ll end up with a more conventional kind of arrangement. It will depend upon why the vice president is selected, what qualities it is the president is looking for, the time in which they govern.
“I’m reluctant to say it’s a trend,” he said. “What I’m struck by, going back all the years now — it’s almost 40 years since I came to Washington — is the extent in which each administration is different, and each administration — the nature of it and the way these things work out is driven by two major factors: One, who is the president, and what their wishes and desires are, the personalities, and secondly, the times in which you govern.
“And those two things drive it more than anything else, more than the institutional arrangements. And if you look at obviously the history of the office, it can go either way.”