has prolonged what was already a controversial stint in the national spotlight.
And while there are legitimate arguments to be made both for -- or against -- the value of Cheney's service to the nation, one thing
is clear: Dick Cheney was a public relations drag on
George W. Bush.
Of course, some would argue that it's good for a president to have a bogey man inside his administration.
Richard Nixon tried to keep his own hands clean by outsourcing his most vicious attacks to
Spiro Agnew. And even now, former White House official
Ed Gillespie argues that Cheney's criticism of Obama "relieves Republicans of the newer generation from having to fight old fights." But if Cheney's unpopularity provided useful cover for President Bush, one wonders how low his approval ratings might have been
without him.
Cheney's primary selling point, of course, was that he didn't
want to be president. This was supposed to free him up to give honest advice. After all, if the vice president is obsessed with using the office as a steppingstone, he might make self-serving decisions. For this reason, presumably, Bush selected the "governing choice" Dick Cheney instead of a running mate who might have helped deliver a state on election day. This is significant because the close 2000 election -- and the recount/Supreme Court decision -- guaranteed Bush would begin his presidency as the leader of a divided nation.
It turns out, however, that Cheney's freedom from political considerations probably had the reverse impact one might have predicted. Clearly, the fact that Cheney didn't care about being popular ultimately helped make Bush less popular. In fact, it is fair to say that George W. Bush would have been better off politically had he chosen a social climber hoping to parlay his vice presidential tenure into the presidency.
Granted, it sounds a bit like heresy to say that it's good to pick a vice president who is primarily looking to attend funerals and boost his resume, but as is often the case in politics, what sounds like a horrible idea sometimes produces the best results. Conservatives should be especially attuned to this phenomenon. After all, in free markets it is assumed that each actor will make decisions based on his or her own self interest. This typically produces a chaotic (some would say ruthless) marketplace -- but it also results in a very positive outcome for the vast majority of citizens.
Though not perfectly analogous, the selection of a vice president -- with zero electoral ambitions (and no pretense to them) -- was an essentially Utopian idea where personal ambitions were seen as "bad" things, as opposed to being an incentive for success.
With the selection of Cheney, George W. Bush created an arrangement whereby the vice president would have little
incentive to be popular. Moreover -- because a vice president (who wants to be president someday) benefits from serving a popular predecessor -- it is in his best interest to help his boss remain popular. But Cheney had little incentive to ensure Bush's popularity. And given that he was branded as an effective bogeyman from the beginning of the administration, he almost had an incentive to continue being a blunt, curmudgeonly, and unpopular attack dog.
This arrangement, of course, differed dramatically from recent popular presidencies. Because
Ronald Reagan left office popular,
George H.W. Bush was essentially awarded Reagan's third term. And it could also be argued that, while the Lewinsky scandal prevented
Al Gore from fully capitalizing on
Bill Clinton's popularity, he was still almost able to ride Clinton's coattails into the White House.
Whereas Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both had vice presidents who cared deeply about their own public images, Cheney was more concerned with being right than with being popular. And while this sounds like a good arrangement for the nation (in fact, depending on your political persuasion, it very well may have been), there is little doubt it contributed to Bush's unpopularity.
Regardless of where you come down on the question of Dick Cheney, were I advising a future Republican candidate on vice presidential selection, it's safe to say I would recommend picking someone with some skin in the game.
Of course, being popular isn't everything. Leadership sometimes means doing things that are unpopular (though I would argue that great leaders like Ronald Reagan have the ability to lead public opinion). It very well might be that history will prove Cheney's advice on a variety of topics was largely correct.
It should also be noted, however, that, at least, some of the criticism of Cheney has as much to do with his tone and dismissiveness
than with policy. In that regard, it is very clear that a vice president with his eye on the prize would go out of his way to be a bit more diplomatic.
Either way, "good government" types may find it ironic to learn that political ambition can be a good thing -- and that the lack of it can have negative consequences. Once again, the law of unintended consequences is alive and well.
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Former vice president Dick Cheney's emergence as 
