The Role of the Vice President

Evaluate the author’s intended audience, the author’s credibility, and their argument (including their claim, evidence, and logic). 

Mr. Vaughn stays fairly neutral in his writing, instead letting his polls speak for him. Vaughn says he interviewed a total of 40 political scholars on their retrospectives on previous vice-presidents, their recommendations for the current candidates, and the vice-president's role as a whole in government politics. Vaughn is currently an associate professor of political science at Boise State University, and doesn't appear to have any editorial role at The New York Times. He has two books: "The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations: Establishing the Obama Presidency", on Obama's high expectations coming into the presidency, and "Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics", on the role of figures such as Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Michelle Bachmann in White House politics. He doesn't appear to have any self-proclaimed party alignment. Taking into account the author's educational background, teaching background, multiple publications, and that his analysis is based off of the opinions of a group of other scholars, I'd say that his assertions in his writing have a very strong credibility.

The article is currently the most prominently displayed article in the opinion section of the New York Times. Seeing as the New York Times is a politically neutral newspaper and that Vaughn has no history with the New York Times, the audience of his article is party-neutral and politically inclined enough to go beyond the front page of the Times.

I can't speak to the first-hand accuracy of the results, but on the whole they seem reasonable enough to me. From what I've read on Nixon's presidency, the assertion that Spiro Agnew, Nixon's VP, is the worst vice president in recent US history seems reasonable. I'm surprised that Cheney ranks as one of the highest, though he is also ranked as one of the worse which implies a good deal of controversy about him, which is about what I'd expect. I have been told (mostly by conservatives) that Jimmy Carter was criticized as being unassertive as a president, which would present a good opportunity for a strong vice-president. So, I agree that Mondale sounds like a strong VP. The other aspects of the poll- potential 2016 running mates and the roles of the VP in the US government- seemed similarly sensible.

The article was How To Be a Great Vice President by Justin S. Vaughn on June 11, 2016