America's 10 Most Controversial Vice Presidential Candidates

In the early days of the U.S., the first Vice President John Adams described his position as "the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived". Which is better than the description John Nance Garner, one of FDR's revolving door of VPs once gave the office. "Cactus Jack" as the irascible Garner was known, said the office "wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit" according to the sanitized version of the quote. Actually, "spit" was a substitute for "piss" but the press in those days wasn't about to print that. Garner was said to have derided the reporter who used the tamer "spit" for being a "pantywaist". Can you imagine Garner in today's "politically correct" climate? That would be fun.

The point Adams and Garner were making was that throughout most of our nation's history, the office of Vice President was part Maytag Repairman, part Witness Protection Program. However, much has changed since World War II, and the role of the office of Vice President, and Vice Presidential candidates has changed drastically. Whether that's a "change we can believe in" or not, there is no doubt that the role of running mate is much different than it was then. There's also no doubt that Al Gore and Dick Cheney have been arguably the two most powerful VPs ever. Here is a look at the 10 most controversial Vice Presidential candidates of the modern era, thus the most controversial in the nation's history, in chronological order.

10. In the campaign of 1952, September 23, 1952 to be exact, rumors abounded that Dwight Eisenhower's running mate, Richard Nixon, was about to be replaced on the ticket due to questions about gifts Nixon had received. On the night of Sept. 23, less than 6 weeks before the election, Richard Nixon delivered what became known as the "Checkers" speech. In the long, rambling defensive speech, the man known as "Tricky Dick", fearing that Ike was about to dump him from the ticket, justified his many gifts received and ethical lapses by talking about his difficult childhood and other topics. In conclusion, after much caterwauling, Nixon got around to one gift in particular, a dog given to Nixon for his daughters, a cocker spaniel named "Checkers". Nixon defiantly declared he wasn't giving the dog back, Eisenhower kept "Tricky Dick" as his running mate, and the pair went on to victory in November.

9. Richard Nixon is involved in this one, also. This time at the top of the ticket in 1968, "Tricky Dick" ignored advice to choose George W. Romney, father of Mitt Romney and picked a complete unknown, Spiro Agnew, Governor of Maryland for less than two years. Future President Gerald Ford, ironically Agnew's replacement as Vice President after Agnew resigned in disgrace, was said to have laughed aloud when told the news. Ford was sure Nixon was joking, which would have likely been a first for the dour Dick Nixon.

About the only thing other than his resignation that Sprio Agnew is remembered for is his harsh criticism of the press, political opponents and anti-war activists. Nixon "kicked around" the idea of dropping Agnew in '72, but didn't. Shortly into Nixon-Agnew's 2nd term, Spiro Agnew pleaded no contest to receiving bribes, kickbacks and other graft in his days in Maryland and left office with his tail between his legs, never to speak to Nixon again according to one of Nixon's books.

8. In 1972, Sen. George McGovern of South Dakota, in his uphill battle to unseat incumbent Richard Nixon, chose little-known Missouri Senator Thomas Eagleton. Eagleton lasted only a couple of weeks before it was revealed that he had been hospitalized for exhaustion and reportedly had had electro shock treatments for depression. One of Nixon's "dirty tricks" operatives was quoted as saying something about Eagleton being "hooked up to jumper cables" and Eagleton was replaced on the ticket by Kennedy in-law Sargent Shriver, father of Maria. Eagleton's political career was ruined and McGovern-Shriver went down to a historic defeat at the hands of Nixon-Agnew.

7. After first Spiro Agnew resigned as VP in '73, then Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace as Presdient in 1975 due to the Watergate scandal, a fresh-faced newcomer on the national scene, former Georgia Governor and peanut-farmer Jimmy Carter defeated unelected President Gerald Ford in the1976 election. Ford, who went from House Minority Leader to Vice President repacing Agnew, then to President replacing Nixon, had a familiar running mate, 1996 Republican Presidential candidate Robert J. "Bob" Dole. I can't remember if Bob Dole had the maddening tendency to refer to himself in the third person as Ford's "hatchet man" in the 1976 election as he did in the Presidential election twenty years later. I do remember that as a Vice Presidential candidate, Bob Dole brought an unrelenting negativity to the election that was unlike any I had seen before, with the exception of Agnew. It was in the 1976 election, America's Bicenntenial, that Bob Dole developed the reputation for mean-spiritedness, that deserved or not, dogged Dole the rest of his career.

6. Like McGovern in 1972, Walter Mondale, the Democrats choice for President in 1984, had an uphill battle trying to unseat a popular incumbent, this time Ronald Reagan. Mondale swung for the fences but ultimately struck out with his VP choice of New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a Presidential ticket for a major party. Ferraro was dogged by questions about her husband's business dealings and other controversy throughout the '84 Presdiential campaign. In fairness to Mondale-Ferraro, it should be pointed out that no Democrat or anyone else was going to defeat the popular Reagan that year. Some of us can't understand the man's appeal as a President, but Ronald Reagan had a genial, Grandfatherly way of dealing with conflict that looks much better than all the petty mud-slinging in the Presidential elections since that year.

5. About the only memorable things about Dan Quayle's 1988 and '92 campaigns are his publc spat with the producers of the TV sitcom Murphy Brown and his inability to spell potato in a 1992 spelling bee. Oh yeah, there was Quayle's shameless brown-nosing of George H.W. Bush when he was announced as Bush's surprise running mate. And there was the moment in the Vice Presidential debate with Lloyd Bentsen in which Quayle tried to compare his record with that of JFK circa 1960. Bentsen obliterated Danny boy with the withering " I served with Jack Kennedy in Congress and Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy". The Bush/Quayle campaign tried to spin that comment as a plus, that went over about as well as Quayle's political career. Daddy Bush reportedly told colleagues "boy, did I blow it on that one!" referring to his selection of Dan Quayle as his running mate.I wish I could remember the joke about beating the Bush to flush out the quail, but can't. More on that later.

4. Few politicians in memory have been more of a lightning rod than former Vice President Albert S. Gore. People either admire Al Gore for his environmental record such as his book Earth In The Balance and the film Inconvenient Truth or cannot stand the two term VP and winner of the popular vote for Presdient in 2000 as a phony windbag. I fall somewhere between the two extreme views. On the one hand, Gore does come across as a stiff, preppy windbag, on the other Gore has been tarred by the incorrect urban myth that Gore claimed to have "invented the internet". What Gore said was the he played an important role in securing funding for the internet. Gore may have puffed his resume. If so, he is hardly the only politician on either side of the ailse in Washington D.C. to have done so. Gore has done quite well for himself since the 2000 election winning the Nobel Prize (he must have held his breath waiting for a recount) and an Oscar along with making millions off google stock. History will be much kinder to Gore than his 2000 opponent, in my opinion.

3. Dick Cheney.Where do we begin? The bunker in Nebraska on Sept. 11, 2001, the insider deals with Halliburton, Worldcom, and others in the Iraq invasion, the shooting in Texas? Dick Cheney was undoubtably the most powerful Vice President in history. "Dead-eye Dick" was instrumental in writing The Patriot Act, approving the torture of detainees, the blowing of Valerie Plame's cover as a CIA agent and other scandals too numerous to mention. You name the Bush scandal and Dick Cheney was right in the middle of it. Some sort of award should be named for Cheney for Vice Presidents, maybe. "The Dick Cheney-Harry Whittington Straight-Shooter Award" has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Whittington, remember was the man Cheney shot in the face while hunting quail a few years back. Cheney's shot wasn't as accurate as that of Lloyd Bentsen, while hunting "Quayle".

2. My first inclination was to go with John Edwards on this one, but the $400 haircut man wasn't that controversial until after he and John Kerry lost to Bush/Cheney. John Edwards ran as a "Washington outsider" but his recent behavior would fit right in in the nation's Capitol. John Edwards motto was "Two Americas". Having an affair and paying hush money to your mistress has flushed Johnny-boy's career in both of them.

However, due to the extreme corruption of one Dick Cheney, the fact that Cheney ran as Bush's running mate in two Presidential campaigns and served two terms in the office, and mainly the extreme power that Cheney wielded, Dick Cheney's second term is the choice. In the 2004 Vice Presidential debate between John Edwards and Dick Cheney, Cheney claimed to have never met Edwards, in spite of the fact that the Vice President presides over the Senate, the office which catapulted John Edwards into the Vice President nomination. Not to mention that the press discovered pictures of the two men shaking hands at some Washington function a couple of years earlier. Cheney would have probably liked to take John Edwards quail hunting, but the shotgun pellets would likely bounce off of Edwards' hair back toward Cheney.

1. Sarah Palin. Any surprise here? The public is very divided on Sarah Palin, from whether Palin's short stint as Governor of Alaska qualifies her for national office or not, to more personal issues. Sarah Palin has likely been the most talked about person on the planet since her selection as John McCain's running mate. From her daughter's unwed pregnancy to the investigation of the firing of the head of the Alaska State Police to Sarah Palin's views on, well, just about everything, Sarah Palin has been at the forefront of Election 2008 in spite of being on the bottom of the McCain-Palin ticket. Like her or loathe her, Sarah Palin has probably been the most cussed and discussed Vice Presidential candidate ever, at least if the three weeks of Palin's time of the national stage is any indication. Even if Sarah Palin never becomes the holder of the office John Nance Garner so derided long ago, the name of Sarah Palin will not be soon forgotten.