Vice presidents' kids are typically thrust into the spotlight when their parents run
for office. While they aren't usually under as much scrutiny as the children of presidents
are, it can still be stressful, so it's nice to see vice presidents' kids who grew up to
be successful.
Charlotte Pence has grown up a lot since her dad, Mike Pence, became Donald Trump's running
mate in the 2016 presidential election. She and her father are quite close, and Pence
even wrote a book about her politician dad, Where You Go: Life Lessons from My Father.
In 2019, Pence announced that she was engaged to her boyfriend, Henry Bond, and that she
would hold her reception where she had always dreamed of holding her wedding reception:
at her parents' home. Of course, growing up she couldn't have imagined that her parents'
home would be the residence of the vice president of the United States. She told USA Today,
"I just really like the idea of family all being in someone's home, around a wedding.
And it's special to me that it'll be a fact that people might talk about in the future...
people that come to visit the house or live here in the future."
According to the Washington Examiner, the couple were wed on December 28, 2019.
Karenna Gore, eldest daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, is doing pretty well for
herself, while also working to make a difference. Gore attended Harvard for undergrad, then
went on to Columbia Law School. She spent years working for child justice organizations
before returning to school and earning an M.A. in social ethics from Union Theological
Seminary in 2013. She then became the director of the Center for Earth Ethics at the school.
This would already be a pretty impressive resume, but Gore has done quite a bit more.
According to her bio on the Center for Earth Ethics website, Gore is also a writer. She
wrote Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America.
Gore is dedicated to fighting climate change and protecting the environment. In 2016, she
made headlines after she was arrested for protesting the construction of a pipeline.
She told Vox that she believes in the work the Center for Earth Ethics is doing in exposing,
quote, "the deeper root cause of climate change: a value system and an economic development
paradigm based on short-term economic gain."
Ashley Biden has had a stunning transformation and has blossomed into a fashion designer.
Her brand, Livelihood, was founded in 2017 and supports a number of causes including
criminal justice and education reform. According to the brand's website,
"A portion of the proceeds from the sale of these organic-cotton, Made in the U.S.A. hoodies,
and 100% of the profits from the launch, will be deposited on a quarterly basis into a community
foundation to be accessed by residents in two chosen zip codes across the United States."
"I'm extremely proud of her! She's been trying to change the world since she was three years
old. I think she's gonna do it."
The brand was founded after her older brother, Beau Biden, passed away from brain cancer
in 2015. The brand's logo features an arrow, representing how, quote, "we have to sometimes
be pulled all the way down to shoot forward."
Biden is also a social worker, according to HuffPost. In 2012, the former vice president's
daughter married Dr. Howard Krein , a plastic surgeon.
Audrey Pence has changed a lot since her dad, Mike Pence, became the vice president. In
2018, she became a first-year law school student at Yale. In 2019, the vice president's daughter
announced her engagement to her college boyfriend, Daniel.
Pence and her dad have a good relationship, although they don't always exactly see eye
to eye. In 2013, the then-teenaged Pence told WTHR that she is not a conservative like her
dad, but instead considers herself "politically independent." She told the outlet,
"Probably the person I get the most respect from is my dad on that [...] He tells me so
many times, 'I am proud of you for having your own opinions and looking into things.'"
Former vice president Al Gore's kids seem to be talented in creative fields. His daughter,
Kristin Gore, is a writer with several books under her belt. Gore graduated from Harvard
and has also written for Saturday Night Live and Futurama.
Gore has come a long way since her dad was vice president. Having a famous politician
for a dad impacted the writer's life in a big way. She told Women's Health,
"When my father became vice president, I was a sophomore in high school. I'd do things
like go on a run with my soccer team and purposely dodge the security van. Then my parents compromised
with the Secret Service when I went to college. I just had a panic button in my dorm room,
so if I pressed that, they'd be there within 2 or 3 minutes."
Gore added that the button caused some issues for her, saying,
"I had to put up signs that said, 'Please don't touch!' But everybody would be like,
'What's this?' as they were pressing the big red button. So there were some false alarms."
Mike Pence's kids grew up on the campaign trail, following their dad during his 12 years
as a congressman before he became governor of Indiana and later vice president of the
United States. His son, Michael Pence Jr., says that his childhood was quite typical
in spite of this, telling WTHR in 2013,
"Frankly, we've had a pretty normal childhood."
Pence went to college at Purdue, where he studied to become a pilot. He later entered
the military. In 2018, the Meridian Star reported that Pence graduated from naval aviator training.
"... very proud of our son, and what he's accomplished …"
In 2019, Pence's mother, Karen Pence, said that she isn't worried about her son being
in the military as she has faith in God and in her son's abilities. She told CNN,
"He hasn't been deployed. So that's going to be harder."
Following in the footsteps of former Vice President Dan Quayle, his son, Ben Quayle,
is also a politician, and also a Republican. Quayle served as a Representative from Arizona
from 2011 to 2013.
Quayle is also a business owner and a lawyer. After his time in government, Quayle became
a partner at HHQ Ventures where, according to his bio on the company's website, he specializes
in domestic policy. This puts his political experience to good use — as a member of
Congress, Quayle was part of the Committee on the Judiciary, the Committee on Homeland
Security, and the Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
Mary Cheney followed her dad, former Vice President Dick Cheney, and her sister, Liz
Cheney, into the political field. Unlike them, however, she didn't run for office. Instead,
Cheney is thriving as a political activist — one with more liberal leanings than her
relatives.
According to People, the family's differing political views caused a rift between Liz
Cheney and Mary Cheney as Liz publicly opposed marriage equality, despite her sister identifying
as a lesbian. While Dick Cheney supported his daughter's sexuality, he also made no
moves to support marriage equality laws while in office.
In 2013, Cheney emerged as an activist, publicly opposing a proposed ban on marriage equality
in Indiana. According to LinkedIn, Cheney is also now a managing partner at New Troy
Strategies, a consulting firm specializing in public policy advocacy.
According to his IMDb profile, former vice president's kid Al Gore III has pursued acting,
although his career hasn't taken off quite yet. He has one credit under his belt, a small
role in 2015's Accidental Love, which was co-written by his sister Kristin. Gore seems
to be making an attempt to distance himself a bit from his famous dad, at least professionally,
as he is credited in the film as "Albert" Gore instead of Al Gore.
According to the Washington Post, Gore married Brittany Toscano in a ceremony held at Union
Station in 2014. The couple are living a pretty low-profile life and haven't been in the news
much since their wedding. According to Knox News, the former vice president's kid lives
in a northern Virginia suburb outside Washington D.C. His home is in the same community where
his mother, Tipper Gore, grew up.
When Luci Baines Johnson was a young woman, she had to choose between furthering her education
or getting married. The daughter of former Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who became
president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Johnson was a nursing student
at Georgetown University in 1965 when her boyfriend proposed. Because of a policy that
prevented nursing students at the school from getting married, Johnson was forced to drop
out at the age of 19 with only two semesters of college under her belt after she accepted
her boyfriend's proposal.
In 2018, the university invited Johnson back to campus to give a commencement speech. While
there, they awarded the 70-year-old philanthropist an honorary doctorate.
"The Civil Rights Act was actually signed on my 17th birthday. What more could anybody
want? Nobody will ever get a better birthday present than that."
Susan Ford famously had her prom at the White House in 1975. According to Vanity Fair, Ford
convinced her dad, Gerald Ford, and the White House chief usher to let her school hold the
dance there so long as the students paid for the event, provided their personal info to
the Secret Service, and hired a band with no drug charges.
Ford's father was Richard Nixon's vice president and became the president following Nixon's
resignation, giving the teens access to the White House. Today, Ford is all grown up and
is a public speaker with Celebrity Mental Health Speakers. According to her biography
on the organization's website, Ford is an advocate for breast cancer awareness and gives
speeches about her mother's addiction to prescription drugs and how it affected the presidential
family.
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