Does the US really need a vice-president?

There is an old joke that goes something like this: A woman had two sons. One went off to sea, the other became vice president of the United States. Neither was ever heard from again.

That more or less summed up the way many Americans long felt about the nation’s number two job — not that relevant.

But in recent decades, the narrative has shifted. Vice presidents have become more visible, and have much better access to the Oval Office.

As Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton battle for the White House in November, and choose running mates — Trump has selected Indiana Governor Mike Pence — the debate on the role, and usefulness, of an American vice president is raging again.

The US constitution offers the vice president a limited role: it says he should preside over the Senate, but only vote in the event of a tie.

Of course, the other major role is to take over as president, should the sitting president be unable to serve or resign.

Examples are Lyndon B. Johnson’s accession to the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and Gerald Ford’s after Richard Nixon resigned over the Watergate scandal.

Over the years, people have described — sometimes with humour — the frustrations generated by this singular position.

For a long time, “the office was sort of a political dead end,” says Joel Goldstein of Saint Louis University School of Law.

Before George H.W. Bush won election to succeed Ronald Reagan in 1989, the last vice president to be elected to the highest office in the land was ... Martin Van Buren, in 1836. But the job has changed dramatically. “After World War II and with the Cold War and the nuclear age, presidents saw that there were a lot of demands on them and that people wanted the VP to be in the loop in case the president died,” Goldstein explains.

Harry Truman, who assumed the presidency in 1945 after the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt, learnt only after taking office of the existence of the Manhattan Project — the code name for America’s nuclear weapons research programme.

For a long time, the vice president was even physically distant from the seat of executive power — his office was in the Senate.

The turning point for the vice presidency came under Jimmy Carter (1977-81), who made space for his number two, Walter Mondale, in the West Wing of the White House.

Since that time, no one has changed the layout: the vice president has an office between the chief of staff and the national security adviser.

In practical terms, the modern American vice president is a “super adviser” to the president. He is part of the inner circle. For President Barack Obama, Joe Biden is that guy.

Reagan largely relied on the foreign policy knowledge of George H.W. Bush, a former CIA director and US envoy to the United Nations.

Bill Clinton counted on Al Gore to help him in many political battles.