TAKING ON TRADITION
As Kamala Harris becomes the first female US vice president. Marion McMullen looks at some other memorable Veeps
TRAILBLAZER Kamala Harris made history this week by becoming the first female, black and Indian-American vice president.
New president Joe Biden has praised the 56-year-old Californian, pictured left, saying: “Kamala knows how to govern. She knows how to make the hard calls. She’s ready to do this job on day one.”
JOE BIDEN was himself Barack Obama’s (below with Biden) choice of VP and served from 2009 until 2017. Biden became one of the youngest senators in history when he was elected at the age of 29.
MIKE PENCE, below, was Donald Trump’s vice president and led the White House coronavirus task force. The former radio show host and father-of-three also served as governor of Indiana for four years.
A TOTAL of 14 vice presidents have become president. Lyndon B Johnson, right, was John F Kennedy’s running mate and was sworn in as president aboard
Air Force One in Dallas, following JFK’s assassination in 1963. He once said: “John F Kennedy was the victim of the hate that was a part of our country.”
THE first vice president was John Adams who served George Washington. He later became the first president to live in the White House and said: “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”
TEDDY ROOSEVELT, below, was vice president to William McKinley and became president in 1901 after McKinley was assassinated – the fifth vice president to succeed a dead president. At not quite 43, he became the youngest president in US history and is known for steering America more into world politics. One of his favoured proverbs was: “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
RICHARD NIXON had two veeps during his time in office – Spiro Agnew, top, and Gerald Ford.
Ford himself became president in 1974 when Nixon resigned. Ford had been a male model in his early years and featured on the front cover of Cosmopolitan magazine in 1942.
VICE presidents used to live in private residences until 1977. Walter Mondale was the first to move into the governmentowned Naval Observatory with his family, and it has been home to vice presidents ever since.
DICK CHENEY, right, was VP to George W Bush from 2001 to 2009. He was acting president for just over two hours when Bush underwent a colonoscopy in 2002. Cheney’s autobiography is called In My Time: A Personal And Political Memoir. The controversial 2018 movie satire Veep saw Christian Bale star as the politician.
AMERICAN lawyer Aaron Burr was Thomas Jefferson’s vice president and came out with the phrase “Go West, young man”. However, he is better known for shooting and killing his political rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1801.