Republican running mates: a brief history

By Mike Ferullo/CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Every four years, the news media and a number of Americans immerse themselves in a national parlor game of predicting who the major party presidential nominees will choose as their vice presidential nominees.

During the lull between the primaries and the conventions, the names of potential running mates float among print and television media outlets across the United States. The hopefuls are promptly examined, discussed, and usually cast aside -- only to re-emerge in subsequent rounds.

The candidates are tight-lipped about the process, and often fuel the media frenzy by refusing to rule anyone out of contention in what has become known as the "veepstakes." Potential running mates are equally coy about the process: Often, those with most to say aren't serious contenders for the ticket.

This year's Republican nominee, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, has charged former White House chief of staff and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney with leading his talent search for the ideal running mate. No fewer than 20 names have been floated as contenders for the position, including Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating; Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge; Michigan Gov. John Engler; outgoing Florida Sen. Connie Mack; Ohio Rep. John Kasich; and New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.

The process is a fairly recent one. Before 1940, the task of choosing a vice presidential nominee was left to party leaders and convention delegates, who awarded the second spot as a consolation prize to disparate factions who lost out during the presidential selection process.

Such selections were intended to balance the ticket, both ideologically and geographically, without the risk of impeding the nominee's agenda if he was elected to the White House. The vice presidency is assigned just one responsibility under the Constitution, the largely ceremonial role of presiding over the Senate and casting the seldom-needed tie-breaking vote -- a legislative rather than executive function.

For many Republicans, a dead-end job

In the 19th Century, the vice presidency proved to be a dead end for many Republicans. For others, it served as an unexpected stepping stone to the White House.

Distinguished Republicans such as Hannibal Hamlin, Abraham Lincoln's first vice president; Schuyler Colfax, who served in the first term of Ulysses S. Grant; and William Wheeler, who was vice president to Rutherford B. Hayes, were seldom heard from during and after their vice presidencies.

Hamlin, an influential anti-slavery senator from the state of Maine, caused a national stir in 1856 when he abruptly announced his resignation from the Democratic Party and joined the fledgling Republicans.

The Republicans nominated Hamlin for vice president in 1860, believing that as an Easterner and former Democrat, he would balance Lincoln's presidential nomination. But that same affiliation caused Hamlin to be dropped from the ticket in 1864 in favor of Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the only southern senator to remain loyal to the Union during the Civil War.

With Lincoln's assassination in 1865, Johnson was the first of four vice presidents who found themselves unexpectedly thrust into the national spotlight.

New York machine politician Chester Arthur became president in 1881 after President James Garfield was assassinated by a disgruntled office-seeker. But Arthur was dumped by his own party in 1884, after completing Garfield's term.

In 1900, New York Gov. Teddy Roosevelt's popularity as both as reformer and a hero of the Spanish-American War easily secured him the vice presidential nomination in President William McKinley's re-election effort.

Roosevelt won the position over the objections of McKinley's campaign manager, Ohio Sen. Mark Hanna, who warned the convention, "Don't any of you realize that there's only one life between this madman and the White House?" Six months into his term, an anarchist's bullet felled McKinley in Buffalo, and Roosevelt took office.

Two decades later, Republicans rallied around another politician with national prominence for the vice president's job -- Massachusetts Gov. Calvin Coolidge.

Known as "Silent Cal," his claim to fame was putting down the 1919 Boston policemen's strike by declaring "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time." He assumed the presidency after President Warren Harding died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 1923.

Nominees take control

It was not until 1940 that the presidential nominees began choosing their own running mates. Franklin Roosevelt threatened to decline the Democratic nomination unless the convention agreed to Henry Wallace as his running mate. Roosevelt's Republican opponent, Wendell Willkie, pushed his choice for the vice presidential nomination -- Oregon Sen. Charles McNary -- through the GOP convention.

Willkie's successor in 1944, New York Gov. Thomas Dewey, was also defeated by the popular Roosevelt, but seemed poised to lead the Republicans back to the White House in 1948 against Harry Truman. Dewey enticed California Gov. Earl Warren, who rebuffed vice presidential offers in 1944, to take the No. 2 spot by promising him a major role in his administration.

But Dewey cut Warren out of major campaign decisions during the 1948 election, dampening the running mate's enthusiasm during the race. After Truman's surprise victory in November, Warren told reporters that the defeat "feels like a hundred-pound sack has been taken off my back."

Although the loss was the only one Warren ever suffered during his political career, it paved the way for his appointment as chief justice of the Supreme Court four years later by President Eisenhower.

Eisenhower had defeated the more conservative Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio for the GOP nomination in 1952, but offered an olive branch to the party's right wing by selecting Sen. Richard Nixon of California as his running mate.

Although Nixon has served just six years in Congress, he quickly established himself as a fervent anti-communist -- mainly as a result of his high-profile role as a member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Nixon took further advantage of the McCarthy-era political climate by painting his 1950 Senate opponent, popular liberal Democrat Helen Gahagan Douglas, as a communist sympathizer.

But Nixon found himself the target of new criticism after it became known that a special campaign fund, financed by close political friends, had been set up to underwrite his political expenses during his Senate term. Republicans urged him to withdraw from the 1952 race, and Eisenhower considered dropping Nixon from the ticket.

But Nixon saved his spot on the ticket by delivering an impassioned plea of innocence on prime-time national television, including an account of how the Nixon family came to own their dog, "Checkers." He urged the audience to call or wire the Republican National Committee on whether or not he should be dropped from the ticket. Nixon stayed.

In 1960, Nixon became the first sitting vice president to win his party's nomination since Martin Van Buren in 1836. Nixon selected former Massachusetts Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. as his running mate.

On the surface, it appeared to be an odd choice. Lodge had had lost his seat in 1952 to John F. Kennedy, the Democratic presidential nominee. But Lodge, who established himself as an expert on international affairs in Congress and served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Eisenhower, brought Cold War expertise to the Nixon ticket in 1960.

However, Lodge also proved to be a lackluster campaigner in the closest election in U.S. history. He once told reporters that the Nixon camp had asked him to campaign morning, noon and night, but that he only saw fit to grant them two out of the three requests.

Recent running mates

Nixon again emerged as the Republican presidential candidate in 1968 and surprised many by tapping Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew for the running mate position. Agnew has been an early supporter of Nelson Rockefeller for the nomination before switching to Nixon.

Although he proved to be an active campaigner on behalf of Nixon in both 1968 and 1972, Agnew came under investigation in a bribery scandal involving building contractors back in Maryland. Facing allegations he took bribes as governor, Agnew pleaded no contest to a charge of failing to report income and resigned from office October 10, 1973. Just months later, the Watergate scandal would force Nixon's resignation as well.

In 1976, President Gerald Ford fended off a strong challenge from former California Gov. Ronald Reagan to secure the nomination and chose Kansas Sen. Bob Dole as his running mate. Dole, a former chairman of the Republican National committee, was a pragmatic conservative with an established reputation as an effective, sometimes vicious campaigner.

"He's the first man we've had around here in a long time who will grab the other side by the hair and drag them down the hill," said Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee in 1964. Dole did prove to be an excellent campaigner, although the Ford ticket lost narrowly to Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter in 1976.

By the time the Republicans regrouped in 1980, Ronald Reagan, a staunch conservative, was clearly the consensus candidate. At the GOP convention in Detroit, speculation mounted that Reagan would choose Ford as his running mate. But Ford removed himself from consideration, and Reagan picked primary rival George Bush.

Bush, considered a moderate Republican, proved to be a loyal subordinate to Reagan during his eight years in office. He used those years to position himself for the Republican nomination in 1988.

Bush wrapped up the nomination far in advance of the GOP convention in New Orleans and waited until the final day of the gathering to unveil his running mate, Sen. Dan Quayle of Indiana.

The selection of Quayle, who was much younger and had far less government experience than Bush, caught many Republicans and journalists off guard. Quayle, just 41, faced on immediate barrage of questions about his background and preparedness for the presidency that continued to dog him throughout his four years in office.

While many Republicans viewed Quayle as a conservative hero mistreated by the mainstream media, others in the party tried to dump him from the ticket during the months leading up to 1992 convention. Bush resisted such efforts and remained committed to the decision he made four years earlier.

Sources: Grolier's Online
Congressional Quarterly Guide to U.S. Elections
Encyclopedia Britannica Online
Southwick, Leslie. Presidential Running Mates and Also Rans. 1980. Houghton-Mifflin.