# What is the relationship between the POTUS and the VPOTUS? \[Note: Spoilers for House of Cards\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 17, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567 "2014-02-17T23:17:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![installLSC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/54ee81/32.png) [@installLSC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/installLSC)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/21 "2014-02-18T03:40:51Z")
Okay enough funny time and let’s answer the OP’s question legitimately –“House of Cards” has about as much relevance to actual politics as “Hogan’s Heroes” had to an actual POW camp –the VP does have the power to preside over the Senate. However, the Senate has essentially left the VP (or his substitute, the President Pro Tempore) virtually powerless due to the much different order of business in the Senate. Not only does the Senate do things more leisurely than the House, but important powers like assigning bills to committee are controlled by the Majority Leader. –the main reason a VP is picked is balance: old if the Prez is young, experienced if the Prez is relatively new to Washington DC, and preferrably from a big state in hopes he can sway the state into the winning column. No modern presidential candidate would pick someone he didn’t like or trust. –prior to Truman’s time the VP was virtually useless. But since then the VP has garnered lots of unofficial power by being involved in cabinet committees and study groups. After all, the head of the Office of Management and Budget has no legal powers at all, but is one of the most important members of the Executive branch. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/22 "2014-02-18T03:56:58Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > Strictly speaking, Underwood knows he can’t actually kill the President directly. He must have some complex scheme that depends on many indirect elements coming together so that someone else kills the President, and Underwood can deny all knowledge or responsibility… Or force the President out of office through impeachment or some other way of making his resign. He doesn’t have to kill him. Gerald Ford also went from the House to VP to the Presidency through resignations. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Goob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c77e96/32.png) [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/23 "2014-02-18T14:20:07Z")
Last night, Terry Gross on NPR’s fresh air was interviewing an author who just wrote volume 4 of a biography of Lyndon Johnson. I was only half listening to the radio but I did catch that both Kennedy’s, John and Bobby hated Johnson and had some very rude nicknames for him. They needed him and Texas to win the election. Johnson went from being a very powerful House Speaker to a chair warmer shut out of the administration. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/24 "2014-02-18T15:03:26Z")
Oh, come on. House of Cards is almost to the midterm elections. Underwood is just going to run in 2016, he doesn’t have to murder anybody. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/25 "2014-02-18T15:05:27Z")
Johnson was in the Senate, not the house. ---
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/26 "2014-02-18T15:13:44Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Johnson was in the Senate, not the house. He also had some choice nicknames of his own for Bobby. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/27 "2014-02-18T15:16:57Z")
> [@iMouse](#): > > They are in love, but live apart. > > Something about snoring and bathroom horrors. I was going to say “Top” and “Bottom” myself. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/28 "2014-02-18T15:17:05Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > Lately, a lot of the VPOTUS’s have seemed to me like Impeachment Insurance. “You want to impeach me? You want _HIM_ to take over, then?” > [@Habeed](#): > > So an ideal choice for a vice president would be one who is simultaneously known to be incompetent and popular. > > This makes a lot of sense… For your consideration, I submit Dan Quayle. And Sarah Palin. There’s also competent (or probably so) and unpopular, like Spiro Agnew and Dick Cheney. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/29 "2014-02-18T15:37:47Z")
> [@glee](#): > > Please reassure me that George W. Bush (who satisfies all three conditions) can’t run for VP. :smack: Curiously enough, he CAN. To be Vice-President, you need to meet all the criteria to BE President (Must be 35 or over, born in the US, lived in the US for the last 12? years, etc), but the rule that a president cannot serve more than two terms isn’t a criterion for _being_ President, it is a criterion for being _elected_ President. So while G.W.Bush and Bill Clinton can’t be elected President ever again, there is nothing stopping them from serving as Vice-President, and nothing stopping them if the held that office (or any other in the succession) from becoming President should the situation call for it. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/30 "2014-02-18T15:46:21Z")
> [@Mr.Goob](#): > > Last night, Terry Gross on NPR’s fresh air was interviewing an author who just wrote volume 4 of a biography of Lyndon Johnson. > > I was only half listening to the radio but I did catch that both Kennedy’s, John and Bobby hated Johnson and had some very rude nicknames for him. They needed him and Texas to win the election. > > Johnson went from being a very powerful House Speaker to a chair warmer shut out of the administration. This was at least in part because in 1956 Joe Kennedy had offered to finance a Presidential campaign for Johnson provided Johnson pick JFK as VP, and Johnson turned him down. ---
**Author:** ![slitterst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecc23a/32.png) [@slitterst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slitterst)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/31 "2014-02-18T19:32:58Z")
> [@SpyOne](#): > > Curiously enough, he CAN. > > To be Vice-President, you need to meet all the criteria to BE President (Must be 35 or over, born in the US, lived in the US for the last 12? years, etc), but the rule that a president cannot serve more than two terms isn’t a criterion for _being_ President, it is a criterion for being _elected_ President. > So while G.W.Bush and Bill Clinton can’t be elected President ever again, there is nothing stopping them from serving as Vice-President, and nothing stopping them if the held that office (or any other in the succession) from becoming President should the situation call for it. Except that the 12th Amendment says that if you’re ineligible to be president, you are also ineligible to be Vice President. " But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States." ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/32 "2014-02-18T20:21:24Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > “House of Cards” has about as much relevance to actual politics as “Hogan’s Heroes” had to an actual POW camp. I hope you’re right, because it scares the heck out of me that those shenanigans might be going on. I suspect that _House of Cards_ is the [evil twin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_twin) of _The West Wing_. The same way that Metropolis is New York City by day while Gotham City is NY by night, similarly, TWW is how we wish the country would be run, while HOC is how we fear the country is run. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/33 "2014-02-19T02:04:30Z")
> [@Mr.Goob](#): > > Johnson went from being a very powerful House Speaker to a chair warmer shut out of the administration. And then went from being a chair warmer to being President of the United States. Johnson never intended to finish his career as Vice President. He saw it as a stepping stone to the Presidency. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/34 "2014-02-19T06:56:57Z")
OK, \*\*STusBlues \*\*and **Northern Piper** : Pony up them names, please! ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/35 "2014-02-19T20:02:45Z")
> [@slitterst](#): > > Except that the 12th Amendment says that if you’re ineligible to be president, you are also ineligible to be Vice President. > > " But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States." Yes, but the 22nd Amendment doesn’t place a limit on who can **be** President, it specifically states that it applies to persons “elected to the office of the President”. It is the only criterion I know of that applies only to being elected President, and not also to serving as President. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/36 "2014-02-19T21:15:37Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Jesus…[Jackson] deliberately PICKED Crazy Calhoun? Given their mutual hatred I’ve alway been under the impression Calhoun was foisted upon him. > [@Chimera](#): > > I dunno, I can’t find it exactly, but what I read talks about [Calhoun] being elected to the post and there’s even a list of electoral votes (171) that he got in the election - separate from that for President. Not interested in spending too much more time researching. > [@jayjay](#): > > I’d forgotten that this modern process of the Presidential candidate choosing his running mate is non-Constitutional. The Twelfth Amendment only states that President and Vice-President are elected separately. People actually used to RUN for VP on their own initiative rather than being chosen by the Presidential candidate. The “running mate” process seems to have developed around the middle of the 19th Century. The President and Vice-President are elected separately _by the electors_, but there is only one set of electors, chosen as a slate in each state. We the end voters cast only one vote, for a slate of electors; the electors themselves cast two votes, for the two offices separately. So there has always been a close coupling of the presidential and vice-presidential elections, ever since the adoption of the 12th Amendment in 1804. (Before 1804 the elections were also coupled, but in a different way.) There has always, since and even before 1804, been a tendency for presidential and vice-presidential candidates to run as running mates. _However_, until the Twentieth Century, the presidential candidate typically did not choose the running mate. Instead both candidates were nominated by an outside body, first the Congressional caucuses and later the party conventions. (Even today, the conventions go through the motions of nominating candidates, but everyone understands the real choice is made elsewhere; for president in the primaries, and for vice-president by the presidential candidate.) The Jackson-Calhoun election (1828) fell into a black hole, after the decline of the caucus but before the rise of the convention. Jackson and Calhoun (the incumbent vice-president) just _emerged_ as the opposition (Democratic) candidates against John Quincy Adams that year. Jackson had little feeling in the matter one way or the other; he didn’t come to hate Calhoun until the nullification crisis of 1832. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/37 "2014-02-19T21:42:51Z")
Note: I have edited the title to indicate that the thread contains spoilers for House of Cards. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567/38 "2014-02-19T22:38:59Z")
_House of Cards_ is, of course based on the British original show (itself based on a novel) in which the scheming Chief Whip Francis Urquhart (“F.U.”) intrigues to achieve the Prime Ministership, successfully manoeuvring his way round all rivals, soliloquising to camera, and eventually murdering a journalist who has discovered his plan. Some considerable modification, however, must have been necessary to adapt it to the US political system. By chance the show aired at a time when the ruling Conservative cabinet was deeply mired in intrigues to oust the Prime Minister, John Major (who eventually held on) and for a while everyone in the Westminster Bubble [trans: inside the Beltway] went around repeating F.U.'s catchphrase “_You might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment_” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-potus-and-the-vpotus-note-spoilers-for-house-of-cards/681567.md?page=1)