KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE
— Former President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday coinciding with the vice presidential debate today is fitting, given the important role Carter played in elevating the stature of the vice presidency.
— Carter giving his vice president, Walter Mondale, a greater and more well-defined role (which Mondale sought) helped create the more visible and impactful modern vice presidency.
— VP debates are typically low profile, although the possibility that tonight’s clash between Tim Walz and JD Vance could be the final debate of any kind before the election does potentially raise the stakes.
Carter’s 100th birthday and his connection to the VP debate
There are two significant political events happening today (Oct. 1, 2024): The vice presidential debate between Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) and President Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday. Because of Carter’s role in defining the modern vice presidency alongside his vice president, the late Walter Mondale, it is quite appropriate for an even-higher-stakes than usual VP debate to be coinciding with the centennial celebration of the birth of The Man from Plains.
To explain the importance of the Carter-Mondale administration in defining the modern vice presidency, we have to go back to 1976… and really, to the 1960s.
As a senator from Minnesota, one of Mondale’s key mentors was fellow Democratic Minnesota U.S. senator and former Vice President Hubert Humphrey. In fact, with HHH’s support, Mondale was appointed to fill Humphrey’s Senate seat upon his elevation to the vice presidency.
Humphrey had been mistreated as Lyndon Johnson’s vice president—as Johnson felt he had been by President Kennedy—and encouraged Mondale to clearly define his role as vice president in the Carter administration.[1]
As a result, Mondale wrote a memo to President Carter shortly after the Carter-Mondale ticket won the 1976 election in order to define his role in the vice presidency, to which Carter acceded. For example, this memo included the expectation that Mondale would receive regular intelligence briefings (something Humphrey had particularly emphasized as being important) and specific regular meetings with President Carter (not a guarantee for VPs before this memo). In total, the memo goes for seven pages and also emphasizes that Mondale could help Carter, who was not a creature of Washington, with congressional relations, and concludes with asking that Mondale still be able to devote time to his home state of Minnesota and for a role for his wife, Joan, with the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities.[2] (My presidency students this semester will be writing a memo in the style of the Mondale memo!)
In the 48 years since this memo was written, vice presidents have played a much more important role in presidential administrations since Mondale, as frequent Crystal Ball contributor Joel Goldstein wrote in his book The White House Vice Presidency.[3] For example, George H.W. Bush became Ronald Reagan’s rival-turned-partner in government, Bill Clinton and Al Gore ran as a team with a common philosophy, and Dick Cheney was often criticized by Democrats for being the most powerful vice president in history (in particular on foreign policy issues) during the George W. Bush administration. President Biden goes out of his way to refer to the “Obama-Biden” and “Biden-Harris” administrations.
Returning to today, another Minnesotan—Tim Walz—is about to face Vance in the only scheduled vice presidential debate this election cycle tonight in New York City. The first VP debate occurred between Mondale and Sen. Bob Dole (R-KS), Gerald Ford’s running mate. Since 1984—when Mondale’s running mate, Rep. Geraldine Ferraro (D-NY) debated Vice President George H.W. Bush—vice presidential nominees have traditionally debated once per election cycle (there was no 1980 debate between Bush and Mondale).[4]
Political science generally holds that debates matter less than conventional wisdom holds in determining final election outcomes. VP debates in particular are generally relatively low profile (indeed, the late 90s and early 00s television show The West Wing devotes an entire episode to how Democratic VP nominee Leo McGarry’s expected poor performance in a debate won’t matter all that much). One possible exception was then-Vice President Biden’s performance in his 2012 debate against Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), as he provided an enthusiasm boost for Democrats disheartened by President Obama’s widely panned performance in the first presidential debate the week before.
This year’s debate, however, could matter more than previous vice presidential debates because it is possible, if not likely, that the Sept. 10 presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will be the only presidential debate to take place, making this debate the last debate. With this VP debate occurring under unique circumstances that make it more notable than usual alongside the heightened role of the vice presidency since the Carter-Mondale administration, it is quite appropriate that the 100th birthday of our longest-lived president coincides with a debate for an office whose importance he helped to elevate almost half a century ago.
Endnotes
[1] Robert Caro’s fourth volume on LBJ covers this period and his frustration in the vice presidency. New Yorkers can visit a special exhibition on Caro and his writing process at the New York Historical Society Museum and Library through February 2025.
[2] CNN had an excellent documentary on the vice presidency in 2020 that discusses the Mondale Memo in detail. PBS also has a documentary on The American Vice President coming out today.
[3] Larry Jacobs at the University of Minnesota is also a leading expert on Mondale, with whom he co-taught a course at the Humphrey School for many years.
[4] Ferraro’s papers are available from Fordham Law School (from which she was an alumna) here.