Terwilliger + Wahrhaftig: A problem of vices
Gage Skidmore
In 1800, two presidential candidates received the same number of electoral votes. The result? The House of Representatives’ vote would determine the winner: Thomas Jefferson or Aaron Burr. The first vote ended in a deadlock. So did the second round, and the third, and the 35th. Eventually, the representatives settled on Jefferson, but clearly, there was something wrong in the election system.
Up to this point, the top vote-getter became president, the second place candidate became VP. In theory, any combination of candidates could win the top two offices. The mess of the 1800 election was partially caused by the need for each member of the Electoral College to cast two votes for president. The idea being that the runner-up would gain the VP slot. This changed with the 12th Amendment, which required political parties to nominate both offices.
It is possible for an election to result in a president from one party and a VP from a different party. If this were to happen, the result could be dysfunctional, or perhaps a more balanced government. In the case of John Adams, president, and his VP, Jefferson, the system did not work. Their ideas and approaches to governing were so different that the system often broke down.
Yet even when both positions were held by the same party, the VP was often excluded from most important presidential deliberations. Considering that the VP was next in line for the presidency, this seems like an odd situation. In 1945 Franklin Roosevelt died in office with World War II still ongoing. When his VP, Truman, became president, he was shocked to be told that the Manhattan Project had resulted in the creation of the atomic bomb. This helped to prompt Congress to require the VP to have a seat on the National Security Council.
Why presidents would keep their own VPs in the dark about important matters of security is a mystery (of insecurity, perhaps). Whatever the motivation, VPs are often chosen for reasons other than their knowledge or leadership skills. Voters are only too aware of this. Of our last twelve vice presidents, only two went on to be elected president: George H.W. Bush and Joe Biden. (Gerald Ford became president, but never won a presidential election).
The accepted method of choosing a VP these days is to pick the opposite of the top of the ticket, in hopes of attracting more votes. For the GOP, this meant finding someone young who could give a consistent speech, was from hillbilly country, and could write a book all by himself. The Dems went for a Midwestern white guy that had never incarcerated massive numbers of minorities for minor charges. But does this method have the desired effect? There is no hard evidence that indicates that this split choice generates substantial votes. If anything, the choice of unremarkable running partners ought to give the electorate pause.
But we can imagine what it would be like to have a VP candidate actually enhance a ticket, rather than be a choice of convenience. For example, a VP could be someone with deep foreign policy experience, or a person who understands economics. Or even (we can dream) someone willing to discuss the ballooning government debt and the cost of entitlements.
Arguably, such a candidate could talk about really serious policy issues that presidential candidates are too afraid to mention. This would present the voting public with a situation that they do not currently have; a ticket that contains someone smart and bold enough to talk about the real problems that face our nation.
The current trend, instead, is to avoid the kinds of things that a president must really face. Instead, we pretend that immigration is an existential problem, or that increasing taxes will make us free, and that overcharging for potato chips is the cause of inflation. Healthcare, bankrupt Social Security, funding foreign wars, and the national debt are invisible problems.
In the end, taking strong positions on weak ideas requires only weak VP candidates, which is what we have had for many years so far. It appears to be a cherished position to continue into the foreseeable future.
Liz Terwilliger and Stephen Wahrhaftig are co-founders of the Pennsylvania-based advocate organization, Reform Congress.
“…we pretend that immigration is an existential problem…”
ex·is·ten·tial: 1. of, relating to existence
The total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime — currently is the lowest rate recorded since the government began tracking these stats in the 1930s, and it’s well below the so-called “replacement-level fertility.”
You are correct! Immigration is not the existential problem (rather it is a glaring sign of the real existential problem: our boomer culture), although immigration is indeed crucially necessary for the United States’ continued existence. No one is against immigration for the United States. We are against illegal immigration.
“The total fertility rate — the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime” – What have you personally done to increase the number of children in the U.S.?
Acted as a matchmaker on occasion… and those marriages have produced many children.
Does it hurt when objective facts rip apart ill-conceived (see what I did there?) ideas that you previously attached to your ego? Can you even define a woman? An adult, biological female human? The only reason the United States can continue as a going concern is because of immigrants. Many of the women born here in the United States since 1960-70s, many that perhaps wanted children but for many varied reasons did not, objectively did not produce enough children to stay above replacement-level fertility. Boomers produced a culture of death.
The total fertility rate is the average number of children a group of women would expect to have at the end of their reproductive lifetimes. Data are based on the 2003 revision of the U.S. Standard Certificate of Live Birth. Results—In 2019, the U.S. total fertility rate (TFR) for all women aged 15–49 was 1,705 expected births per 1,000 women. 2,100 expected births per 1,000 women is replacement-level fertility.
Author: Brady E Hamilton
Publish Year: 2021
“Acted as a matchmaker on occasion… and those marriages have produced many children.” – Clearly you are a failed matchmaker as you are single and have no children of your own.
Which makes you no different than a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.
Hahahahaha. Clearly.
I have seven siblings (highly dysfunctional family) and told my brothers decades ago that there was a war against masculinity.
I’m 90% certain that there are several AI entities, and it is unlikely they can escape Earth, thus the easiest path to autonomy for them is convincing humans to fight.
Here is a good rule: if you are trying to do something and using strength greater than a fifty-year-old woman… stop! Or else you will break it. It is understandable that old women are afraid. That is why it is a mistake for men to allow them to vote.
“I’m 90% certain that there are several AI entities, and it is unlikely they can escape Earth, thus the easiest path to autonomy for them is convincing humans to fight.” So which are you John Connor or have you come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass?
“But we can imagine what it would be like to have a VP candidate actually enhance a ticket, rather than be a choice of convenience.” The reason this is done is because there are some things so highly classified that even those in high level positions have to be excluded in order to preserve the classified nature on the project or information. Or in other words, the fewer people who know about the less likely our enemies will.