In the early nineteen-eighties, Paul Light, who was then an assistant professor of political science at the University of Virginia, was advised by his faculty mentor to examine the changing nature of the American Vice-Presidency. “You know, it was kind of an interesting period,” Light recalled the other day. “Mondale had just left office, and there was an obvious and significant change in the way the office was operating—it seemed to be some kind of turning point.”

Light followed through on the recommendation, and in 1984 he published the book “Vice Presidential Power: Advice and Influence in the White House.” The title was more or less a joke, a play on Richard Neustadt’s famous “Presidential Power.” Throughout most of American history, after all, from John Adams’s declaring the Vice-Presidency “the most insignificant office” to the fictional Veep Alexander Throttlebottom’s haplessness in the musical “Of Thee I Sing,” the office has been regarded as a figurehead’s position, a laughingstock. “I later came to believe that my mentor got me into the Vice-Presidency because he might have hoped that I would disappear with the topic,” Light said.

If only it were so. Light, who is now a professor at N.Y.U.’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has written seventeen books since 1984, none of them having to do with the office of vpotus, and yet, perhaps because the topic has a way of reappearing every four years during Convention season, Light’s visibility seems only to increase. Apparently, there isn’t much competition in the realm of Vice-Presidential scholarship. “It cleared the field,” Light said of his book, which is out of print. “I don’t know anybody else who looks at the office systematically.”

“I think there’s a general agreement that, yeah, it’s not Hubert Humphrey’s Vice-Presidency anymore,” Light went on. But there seems to be no one available to dispute his claim that it was Nelson Rockefeller who began transforming the office. (“He created a Vice-Presidential seal, believe it or not,” Light said. “He paid for it himself, and he also refused to fly in the windowless air transport that Agnew was confined to. So basically the Vice-Presidency evolved in part because of Rockefeller’s deep pockets.”)

A glance at Light’s old press clips turns up his thoughts on more recent Vice-Presidential candidates past:

On Dan Quayle: “You feel badly for the guy, you really do.”

On Al Gore: “Gore’s greatest value is as a second set of eyes on every decision.”

This month, with the John Edwards announcement, the ditch-Cheney talk, and the two Conventions looming, Light’s phone has hardly stopped ringing. (On NPR the other day, Light said of Edwards, “He’s got a high-wattage personality, and I think he wears well, so we’ll see.”) And he’s had just about enough. “Sometimes I feel like Al Pacino in ‘The Godfather III,’” Light said. “Do you remember the scene where he says, ‘Just when I thought that I was out, they pull me back in’? Well, that happens every four years with me. And I like to think that I’ve gone on to bigger and better topics.”

Hasn’t anyone read “Thickening Government: Federal Hierarchy and the Diffusion of Accountability” or “Artful Work: The Politics of Social Security Reform”?

“I really get tired of educating reporters on how the Vice-Presidency has changed,” Light continued. “I mean, they’re always asking, ‘What, exactly, does the Vice-President do?’ Well, the job description in the Constitution is pretty limited: break ties in the Senate and hang around for the President to die. I keep wanting to say, ‘Wouldn’t you like to talk about, um, organizational behavior, or how to build high-performing nonprofits?’”

Maybe next week. In the meantime, Professor Light, what do you think about Dick Cheney?

“I read in the Post that the Bush campaign was saying that Cheney’s the greatest Vice-President ever. It’s kind of an insult to Cheney to call him Vice-President. He’s got this weird combination of roles and responsibilities that make him a kind of legitimizer, mentor, grim reaper, tutor, and grandfather. He’s what I call the Velcro Vice-President: there’s practically no bad news in this Administration that doesn’t somehow stick to Dick Cheney.” Light believes that it is possible that Bush will replace him. “I think it’ll be tempting to the end,” Light said. “The only comparison would be the decision to drop Rockefeller back in ’76, which was done early, and, you know, probably ended up hurting Ford more than helping.”

Light recently considered writing an op-ed piece, which would have said, in effect, “If called, I will not quote,” but he ultimately decided against making what he called “a Shermanesque withdrawal from the field.” Instead, while screening his calls this summer, he has come up with a new plan.

“I should offer a bounty to a young scholar, or establish some sort of a fellowship, or a scholarship for somebody, to write a new book on the Vice-Presidency,” he said. “That’s really my only way out, it seems. I should pick some lucky person and say, ‘Look, I’ll give you ten thousand dollars to write a book on this.’”

— Ben McGrath