Who’s for vice?

Ken Concannon
Published: April 13, 2008

Republican pundits these days have begun to prognosticate on who the presumed Republican presidential nominee-to-be John McCain will select as his running mate. Among the names bandied about are former Massachusetts governor and presidential contender Mitt Romney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, all with sufficient gravitas to serve as president should duty call. 

Typically, vice presidential nominees are selected not because of their gravitas, nor because they will make good presidents in the event something tragic happens to the president. They are selected to provide balance to the ticket, to attract a constituency or a region, that will help win the election.  This year, if I were John McCain I would add one more factor to the long list of vice president criteria — entertainment value.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but John McCain, though apparently a decent fellow, is not all that funny. And neither of his probable Democratic opponents, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, is likely to tickle your funny bone anytime soon. They’re all deadly serious. And something tells me that by the time the Democratic Party figures out who its presidential nominee will be, this presidential campaign will have proven to be the longest and nastiest of the modern era.

We need a break. We need someone to fill the humor void.  Why not the Republican vice presidential nominee?

I’m not talking about a clown, but an individual who can lighten the atmosphere in a room full of hostile media. I long for another John Kennedy. To date, I have not seen anyone handle the White House press corps as effectively as John Kennedy did nearly fifty years ago. He did it with good-natured humor, something that’s been seriously lacking in presidential politics these days.

I wouldn’t even mind another Spiro Agnew (without the criminal charges). Can you say “nattering nabobs of negativity” three times real fast? 

Spiro Theodore Agnew served as our 39th vice president from 1969 to 1973, when his criminal activities as governor of Maryland caught up with him. He resigned as vice president to plead no contest to tax evasion and money laundering charges left over from his short but exciting political career in Maryland. Elected governor of Maryland as a Republican in a state that normally voted Democrat, Agnew earned a reputation as a moderate Republican and a reformer, working with the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature to pass tax and judicial reforms, anti-pollution laws,  Maryland’s first open-housing laws and the repeal of the state’s anti-miscegenation law. He also earned a reputation, in the construction community of Maryland, as someone whose approval of state construction projects could be bought for the right fee.

Spiro Agnew was a crook, vice president to a president, Richard Nixon, who looked like a crook, sounded like a crook and sometimes acted like a crook, but may not have been any more dishonest than most other politicians. 

However, for one brief shining period during the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration, Vice President Agnew provided comic relief. He did it with alliteration. Using phrases such as “nattering nabobs of negativity,” “pusillanimous pussyfooters,” and “hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history.” (the four H’s), to characterize the Nixon administration’s political opponents — the media, anti-Vietnam War activists — Agnew gave us something to laugh at when we needed relief.

Sadly, we’re not getting any levity from today’s candidates for national office. And that’s not good!

Ken Concannon is a resident of Prince William County. E-mail him at .