Vice Presidential Hopefuls Face Tricky Process

For a job with little authority, the vice presidency may have the toughest application process in America.

You can’t be too eager, or too coy. You can’t be too dull, or so electric you overshadow the top of the ticket. You don’t want to be too visible, or too easily overlooked.

As Al Gore and George W. Bush verge on picking their running mates, the two presidential contenders are weighing everything from personal chemistry to various electoral college scenarios. Taxing, yes. But for any would-be vice president--and there are dozens out there, harboring hopes--the calculations can be just as tricky.

Has Pennsylvania Gov. Thomas J. Ridge, the GOP’s most-mentioned prospect, overplayed his ambitions by showing up any time three or more Republicans hold a kaffeeklatsch? Has Democratic Sen. Bob Graham of Florida scored attack-dog points with Gore by chewing up Bush’s Medicare plan?

The judgment rests with the two men doing the choosing, for there is nothing in American politics more idiosyncratic than the tapping of a running mate. How else to explain the history of surprise selections, from Lyndon B. Johnson and Spiro T. Agnew to Dan Quayle and Jack Kemp, which defied all the expert wisdom?

Having said that, there are certain unwritten rules governing this most unpredictable process, with discretion being first and foremost.

Which is why you don’t want to emulate the Midwestern governor who showed up for an interview with former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, the 1996 GOP nominee, wearing a necktie emblazoned with the Kansas state flower. “A very serious case of vice presidential-itis,” tut-tutted Nelson Warfield, Dole’s chief campaign spokesman.

Or do what Lee H. Hamilton did after interviewing with Bill Clinton in 1992. The former Indiana congressman immediately spilled to a hungry Washington press corps and was promptly crossed off the short list by an angry Clinton.

By its very definition, the job of vice president is a subordinate role. The chief responsibility--save for breaking the occasional tie vote in the U.S. Senate--is to be around in case the president dies or becomes incapacitated. So any putative No. 2 should be self-effacing and should demonstrate an ability for humility from the very start.

“The nominee, no matter what else he may be looking at, first of all wants someone who will be loyal,” said Douglas Bailey, a longtime Republican strategist. “If you are putting yourself forward aggressively [in pursuit of the job], chances are you’re less likely to be loyal to someone else.”

Or as Ari Fleischer, a Bush spokesman, put it, “The vice president serves the president, represents the president and therefore should approach the vice presidential search process in a way that’s consistent with the presidential candidate’s approach.”

That means pursuing the job with phone calls, petition drives and other promotional stunts is not just crass but probably counterproductive.

Bush “doesn’t want to be lobbied,” said an aide to the Texas governor. “For something this important, there are no ‘on behalf ofs.’ ”

Mark Fabiani, a Gore spokesman, concurred. “There is no large audience to be appealed to, no larger crowd to address,” he said. “It’s one person only, Vice President Gore, and his close advisor on this issue, [former Secretary of State Warren] Christopher.”

Both candidates, to the extent they publicly share their thoughts, have said they want a selection process that is “respectful and dignified, so that people aren’t paraded out there,” as Gore recently put it.

The unspoken example of how not to do it was the series of open auditions conducted by Jimmy Carter back in 1976. Various would-be running mates were summoned to Plains, Ga.--”the court of St. James,” sneered critics--to meet with the Democratic nominee and afterward troop before the assembled press. While boosting Carter’s prestige, the exercise proved so degrading to those on bended-knee that it has not been repeated since.

Today’s tryouts are conducted in more subtle ways. Tune into the Beltway TV chat shows any Sunday and you’re bound to see half a dozen wannabes, all doing the political equivalent of standing on stage before the director, reading lines and performing a little soft shoe. The more agile manage to do so without ever letting on.

“I’m not going to be able to help you out on that subject,” Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) said coyly, tippy-tapping around the inevitable vice presidential question on “Fox News Sunday.” “I just choose not to talk about it.”

If anything, playing a bit hard to get can lend a certain mystique. Witness the current chatter about the possible pairing of Gore and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.); this despite Gephardt’s evident--and adamant--lack of interest.

For most of the nation’s history, the vice presidency was an afterthought, if not an outright joke. In earlier days, the position was a sinecure “for old party hacks,” said Steve Tally, a vice presidential scholar. Twice, in 1844 and again in 1924, men who were nominated for the job flat-out refused to accept.

But perceptions began to shift around the end of World War II, with the dawn of the nuclear age and, no less important, the emergence of television.

“In a nuclear world, people wanted to have a vice president they could count on in an emergency to make important decisions,” said Tally, a Purdue University professor who titled his vice presidential study “Bland Ambition” to capture the office’s odd mix of prominence and impotence.

Television appearances also helped dispel some of the anonymity of the No. 2 job, boosting the vice president’s stock and making him the president’s natural heir apparent. If Gore wins the election in November, half the vice presidents from Harry S. Truman on will have ascended to the White House--either through election or unexpected succession.

But there is such a thing as becoming too prominent, or gaining too much attention too soon. Ridge, who has been effectively campaigning for vice president for months, has put off many fellow Republicans with his transparent desire.

Among Democrats, the prospect with the dubious honor of being most-mentioned is Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh. But all political considerations aside, perhaps the best reason to effect an air of abject indifference about the vice presidency is simply this: To avoid embarrassment.

As Thompson recently noted, “Many are mentioned”--116 so far, according to Hotline, a political Web site--yet “few are called.”

There is some consolation, however: All the speculation could launch some contenders as presidential candidates in their own right four years hence.