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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us March 15, 2006 Food & History Vice-presidential comments Jeff Cheek We Americans have a marvelous Constitution. This amazing document guarantees our rights but is also capable of recognizing and correcting its own errors. The selection of the vice president is an example. The original document said the man who received the most Electoral College votes would be the chief executive; the one with the second highest total vice president. This created a situation whereby bitter political rivals held the two senior executive positions. President Jefferson had to accept Aaron Burr as his VP. Burr is the only vice president to have a warrant for his arrest, for murder, issued during his term of office. He was a fugitive for several months. The 12th Amendment, ratified June 15, 1804, corrected this glaring error. The president and the vice president run on the same ticket and must be residents of different states. After living in Texas for years, VP Cheney returned to his home state, Wyoming, to qualify. In the early years of our republic, the position of vice president was unimportant. He was like a spare tire, an innocuous nonentity unless the president died. Teddy Roosevelt was a moderate crusading Republican governor of New York. The conservative party leaders pushed him into the vice presidency to muzzle him. Roosevelt told his friends: “I expect to be a dignified nonentity for the next four years.” Republican power broker Mark Hanna boasted that he had made Roosevelt “take the veil,” like a Catholic nun. When McKinley was assassinated he wailed, “Now look at the mess we are in! That damned cowboy is President.” By law, the vice president presides over the Senate and votes only to break a tie. Few of the early veeps had any illusions about their position. “I am the most unimportant man in Washington,” said VP Hannibal Hamlin of Maine. He was Lincoln’s vice president for his first term. In 1864 Lincoln needed a partner who could appeal to northern Democrats. He dumped Hamlin for Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. Thomas Marshall was Woodrow Wilson’s VP for both terms, 1913-1921. The Democratic Governor of Indiana recognized his lack of political clout. “Indiana is the mother of vice presidents, the home of more second-class men than any other state.” Dan Quayle, VP under President George H.W. Bush, was a Hoosier. When he judged a children’s spelling contest, Quayle misspelled potato (potato is singular, potatoes is plural). “Never trust a man who has only one way to spell a word,” he quipped, quoting Mark Twain. The Republican national convention selected William Almon Wheeler as running mate for presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes after a long and contentious floor battle. Hayes wrote his wife, Lucy: “I am ashamed to admit it, but who is Wheeler?” George H.W. Bush was President Reagan’s vice president before being elected president in 1988. He told reporters that he had to eat broccoli as a child. Now, as president, it would not be served in the White House. Perhaps he would have liked this Mushroom-Broccoli Salad. Ingredients 2 pounds fresh broccoli, cut into bite sized pieces 1 cup mayonnaise Juice of one half lemon 1/2 cup anchovy paste 1 small red onion, sliced thin 1 pound fresh mushrooms Preparation Cook broccoli in boiling water three minutes, plunge into cold water, then drain. Mix mayo with lemon juice and anchovy paste. Mix broccoli, onion and mushrooms, then toss with dressing. Chill for at least an hour before serving. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams