The vice president may soon emerge as the architect of a new political settlement The vice-presidency of the United States has always been the butt of jokes. “I don’t plan to be buried until I’ve died,” quipped Daniel Webster when he declined William Henry Harrison’s offer of the role. John Nance Garner, who served as FDR’s vice-president, dismissed it as “not worth a bucket of warm piss.” Even John Adams, the first to hold the office, was equivocal: “I am vice-president. In this I am nothing,