What is the Vice President's job?

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The Vice President of the United States is a person chosen to be ready to step in at a moment's notice if anything happens to the President, such as death or resignation. He is elected along with the President, and serves the same four (or eight!) year term,

The only "official" (written in the Constitution) duty of the Vice President, after his responsibility to be second-in-command, is to act as the president of the Senate and have the final vote in Senate decisions if there is a tie. Depending on his relationship with the President, the Vice President can also act as an advisor or advocate on various subjects — Al Gore was very vocal about his environmental work when Bill Clinton was in office, while George Bush would often turn to Dick Cheney regarding military and security matters.

To date, thirteen Vice Presidents have taken over the office of the President during their term; eight were due to the then-President's death.

The Vice President wasn't always chosen by the President; during the first elections, the Vice President was simply the person who got the second most amount of votes in the Presidential election! This meant that two people with very different political ideas were often forced to work together, sometimes with less than pleasant results (such as when John Adams served as George Washington's Vice President and would often feel ignored or unappreciated in meetings and decisions)!

Did you know?
There is no law that says only men can campaign to be President or Vice President! While only men have served as these positions in the history of the American government, two women have been nominated as the Vice Presidential candidate: Geraldine Ferraro in 1984, and Sarah Palin in 2008. Though both lost their elections, other women have served as Vice Presidents in countries all over the world, including South Africa, Israel, Costa Rica, and Greece!