Vance vs. Walz: Think VP debates don't matter? Just look at these 6 examples

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Yes, the conventional wisdom is that vice presidential candidates rarely matter. But vice presidential debates have both produced memorable gaffes and moments – and sometimes actually changed the direction of the campaign. I’d argue that three of the six presidential elections in recent elections were transformed by the V.P. debate, and even if you go back to the ancient history of the last 50 years, they turned out to be important, even if not decisive. Let’s take a look at six memorable examples.

1976: Mondale vs. Dole on ‘Democrat Wars’: The first vice presidential debate of the modern era took place in 1976. Coming out of the divided Republican convention, President Gerald Ford had picked Kansas Senator Bob Dole, as a way of uniting the Conservative and Moderate wings of the GOP, following their divided convention. Dole faced Jimmy Carter’s vice presidential candidate, Senator Walter Mondale of Minnesota.

In that debate, Mondale responded to a line that Dole had been using in all his speeches – that the Democrats were the party in power when all the wars of the century had started – notably both World Wars, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. In an obviously scripted moment, Mondale responded, "Senator Dole has richly earned his reputation as a hatchet man tonight, by implying, and stating, that World War II and the