As curiosity, if not genuine concern, mounts over the running-mate selections of Barack Obama and John McCain, it's remarkable how the vice presidency itself has been elevated, thanks in part to the performance of incumbent Dick Cheney.

Whether you believe he has been the strong right arm of George W. Bush or the menacing Darth Vader of a calamitous administration, Cheney's tenure has demonstrated how far the job has come from its early days, when it was little more than an afterthought of the Founding Fathers.

The post originally went to the runner-up in the presidential election, until the third one produced a factional split with John Adams as president and a factional foe, Thomas Jefferson, as vice president. The dilemma led first to efforts to abolish the second office entirely, and then a constitutional amendment providing separate voting for the two offices.

Through most of the nation's history, the vice presidency was regarded as a powerless appendage. It had one foot in the executive branch and the other in the legislative; its occupant's only specified role was as president of the Senate, with power to break a tie vote.

Once Harry Truman took office upon the sudden death of Franklin D. Roosevelt and learned for the first time of the advanced development of the atomic bomb, it became clear that the vice president could no longer be kept in the dark about vital executive activities.

Presidents began to bring their constitutional stand-ins into greater administration involvements, particularly Jimmy Carter with Walter Mondale, Bill Clinton with Al Gore and most emphatically the current president with Cheney.

In one of the central thrusts of this administration, Cheney took the lead in reaching for greater executive power, providing the philosophical base of "the unitary executive" — the president's unlimited powers in wartime as commander in chief. It was invoked in the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and the legal overreaching manifested in the treatment of "enemy detainees" and the permissive definitions of torture.

Cheney became perceived as so powerful that the 2008 selection of running mates has been raised to a level of interest arguably never reached in the past. The matter of how a vice presidential nominee might perform in office has been highlighted, with greater awareness that placing him or her a heartbeat from the presidency should no longer be a frivolous choice, as in the senior George Bush's selection of the hapless Dan Quayle.

In the running-mate vetting by the Obama and McCain campaigns, the names that have surfaced have for the most part been those of substantive and seasoned political figures. The McCain speculation has focused on former Gov. Mitt Romney, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Congressman and Bush budget chief Ron Portman and others. The Obama vetting has spotlighted Sens. Joe Biden and Birch Bayh and Govs. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Bill Richardson of New Mexico.

No matter which of them, or others, are selected by McCain and Obama, the chances are neither will risk making a choice such as Quayle that will invite doubt and ridicule. Cheney, if nothing else, has demonstrated that a vice president, if his benefactor so chooses, can have a significant and even dominant role in the course of the nation.

None of this means, to be sure, that the practical political considerations that have customarily gone into the running-mate selection will be overlooked. The age and geographical base of the anointed ones, and the desire to adhere to or broaden the ideological coloration of the ticket, all will be factored into the choices.

Despite Cheney's tenure as perhaps the most powerful vice president in American history, it's likely that voters will continue to look to the top of the ticket in casting their votes on Nov. 4. But in making that decision, prudence dictates that they consider the judgment of the presidential nominees in picking their running mates.

John Adams as George Washington's vice president wrote to wife Abigail: "In this I am nothing, but I may be everything." That, however, was more than 200 years ago, before Dick Cheney got the job.

In one of the central thrusts of this administration, Cheney took the lead in reaching for greater executive power, providing the philosophical base of "the unitary executive" — the president's unlimited powers in wartime as commander in chief.


Jules Witcover's latest book, on the Nixon-Agnew relationship, "Very Strange Bedfellows," has just been published by Public Affairs Press. Reach him at juleswitcover@earthlink.net.