There is little doubt that Kamala Harris’ star is fading.

There’s also little doubt that her decline has almost nothing to do with her and everything to do with the position she holds.

On paper, as the cliché goes, the U.S. vice presidency is “the second most powerful position in America.” In reality, historians, politicians and Washington insiders have always understood that claim to be a bunch of bunk.

The kind of criticism Harris is facing for her political evanescence is as old as our nation itself. With a few exceptions — led by Dick Cheney and Richard Nixon — vice presidents historically have been so powerless that many have joined their detractors in a form of self-mockery, both sad and hilarious.

John Adams, the first vice president as No. 2 to George Washington, said: “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”

Some of the nation’s most powerful pols have become vice president, among them a number who had themselves sought the presidency. Yet the post has inevitably been the graveyard for their political ambitions.

Joe Biden became the first vice president to reach the Oval Office via the ballot box in 32 years with his election in November 2020. His success was partly thanks to his predecessor, Barack Obama, who had weekly private lunches with Biden, gave him important assignments, and otherwise made the former Delaware senator a key figure in his administration.

Biden’s influence began at the start of Obama’s administration when he used the contacts from his long Senate career to help push through the almost $1 trillion stimulus package just a month after Obama took office, a critical step in the country’s recovery from the financial collapse of the previous fall. Biden later was point man for Senate ratification of a major nuclear arms accord with Russia and for elimination of the military’s don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy for gay service members.

Though Biden insists that he has returned the favor with Harris, the evidence suggests otherwise.

They are not known to have regular meals or other meetings together, and Harris does not yet possess the high profile her boss enjoyed.

Part of Harris’ weakness is tied to her biography.

While Biden had served 36 years in the Senate before becoming vice president, Harris served only four. And Harris, the first woman and the first person of color to hold the post, has made some stumbles.

Asked in June why she hadn’t visited the U.S.-Mexico border, months after Biden put her in charge of handling the flow of migrants from Central America, Harris retorted: “And I haven’t been to Europe.”

She told NBC News’ Lester Holt, “I don’t … understand … the point you’re making.”

Democrats and Republicans alike criticized her cavalier response to a serious problem.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who represents a border district, complained that it was high time for Biden or Harris to make a personal visit.

Biden, Cheney and Nixon enjoyed unusual power as vice presidents. Cheney’s clout as No. 2 to George W. Bush in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks became so great, he became known as “Bush’s brain.” Dwight Eisenhower dispatched Nixon abroad for meetings with foreign leaders, most famously the finger-wagging, voices-rising “kitchen debate” in July 1959 with Soviet strongman Nikita Khrushchev.

Biden, Cheney and Nixon, though, were the exceptions to the rule. Most vice presidents have become the butt of late-night comedians’ jokes. Some have turned the joke on themselves, even unwittingly.

James Rosen is a longtime Washington correspondent who has covered Congress, the Pentagon and the White House. He recently received the top award for column writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.