J.D. Vance's Cactus Jack problem

As Trump flails, his veep faces the peril of being proven right

When John Nance Garner ran for county judge in Uvalde, Texas, in 1893, a young stenography student named Mariette ("Ettie") Rheiner made no secret of her opposition.

The daughter of a Swiss immigrant land owner thought that Garner’s fondness for whiskey and poker made him ill-suited for a judgeship.

Somehow Garner must have persuaded her he wasn’t such a bad guy, since the two got married in 1895.

For nearly half a century, they worked as a team, with Ettie typing John’s letters and helping run his office. He climbed the rungs of power to become Speaker of the House and then Vice President of the United States for eight years under President Franklin D. Roosevelt — all without giving up his fondness for whiskey.

When Garner briefly emerged as an obstacle to FDR’s unprecedented bid for a third term, the president told his Cabinet, “I see that the vice president has thrown his bottle — I mean his hat — into the ring.”

Garner had great powers of persuasion — indeed he used them to ensure the …