Who gets to be Veep?

It is one of the ironies of the 2008 campaign that probably the most popular Democrat and the most electable Republican are both ineligible to run for the presidency. The 22nd Amendment bars Bill Clinton from a third election to the office of president, while the original Constitution renders Arnold Schwarzenegger ineligible for the presidency because he is a naturalized rather than a "natural-born" citizen.

But what about the second position on the national tickets? Could the Republicans and Democrats avail themselves of the charisma and experience of these two leaders by nominating them for the vice presidency? (Please e-mail your clever double-entendres to the address below.)

Let's start with Gov. Schwarzenegger. Fearful of foreign influence over the new nation, the framers of the Constitution included in Article II, Section 1 the directive that "no person except a natural born Citizen ... shall be eligible to the Office of President." They said nothing about the citizenship of the vice president. Thus, under the original Constitution, Schwarzenegger could have been elected vice president, but he could not have ascended to the top job on the death or removal of the president.

This anomaly was but part of the framers' incomplete explication of the vice presidency -- a failing that has manifested itself in a variety of forms, from John Adams' lament that the Constitution created "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived" to Dick Cheney's assertion that he occupies an office that stands apart from the three branches of U.S. government. The best explanation of the framers' failure to state qualifications for the vice president lies in the election process they devised: The candidate with the most votes in the electoral college would be president and, "after the choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of votes of the Electors shall be Vice-President." In other words, the framers assumed anyone elected vice president would meet the qualifications for the presidency because he would have run as a candidate for that office.

The framers' incorrect electoral assumption was of no consequence in the first two elections, in which George Washington became president by acclamation and John Adams (competing against a variety of other candidates) was elected vice president. Then, with Washington's retirement and the rise of national political parties, chaos ensued.