what happens if Obama, Clinton or McCain get elected president in november 2008 and right after state that they don’t want the job after all?
I’ll leave the legal aspects to someone who knows about them, but this is a purely academic question. No one who’s not completely committed to being president can last through the election cycle.
You mean, like Nixon?
According to Wiki, the Constitution provides if the President-Elect dies before the Electoral College meets, then the Electoral College can pick someone else to be President. If the President-Elect dies after the Electoral College meets, then the Vice President-Elect takes office.
In practical terms, the party would designate who the electors would vote for – mostly likely, the vice presidential candidate.
It would pile unlikelihoods upon unlikelihoods if the electors don’t agree (they are free agents, in theory). That would prevent anyone from getting a majority in the Electoral College (unless the winning party’s electors vote for the losing party candidate – further unliklihood), and send things to the House of Representatives, where it becomes a free-for-all.
“If elected, I will not serve.” – General William T. Sherman
Obviously, this has never happend with respect to the presidency. But it happens with respect to lesser offices. For example, Newt Gingrich won the 1998 House election from Georgia’s 6th district, but decided immediately afterward to retire from politics and never took his seat. It was treated exactly like a resignation, and the Governor of Georgia scheduled a special election to fill the seat.
If the president-elect did this before the electors met, they would elect somebody else instead. Most likely they would promote the VP-elect, who would name (and have his party’s National Committee ratify) a new VP-elect.
If it happened after the electors met, it would be treated as a resignation. The VP-elect would be sworn in as President on January 20, and would follow the Twenty-Fifth Amendment procedure for naming a successor.
If a really obstinate president-elect just walked away from the job, refusing to send a letter of refusal or any kind of formal notification, than the VP-elect could take office and follow the Twenty-Fifth Amendment process for declaring the president incapacitated.
Except that “uninterested” is not “incapacitated”. Failure of that approach would require impeachment - the President’s refusal to perform his duties would put the nation at a risk so grave and immediate that it could not wait for the next election, the reason the impeachment process exists.
Yes, but we’re talking about the period between the election and the inauguration. AFAIK, a President-*elect *cannot be impeached. The job would probably go to the VP-elect, though the other party would certainly raise a huge stink.
Don’t worry. I don’t think there will be a problem if Clinton changes her mind. 
While from a practical standpoint it’s likely that, depending on lead time, the Party would armtwist the electors into voting for the VP-elect for President and a person of its choosing for VP, from a formal standpoint the Party has no role in the Electoral College. There is not to the best of my understanding any provision that would allow for the electors to vote for President and then hold off on voting for the VP.
To be hypertechnical, the VP-elect would be sworn in as VP. Upon the office of the President falling vacant on January 20, 2009 at noon through the refusal of the President-elect to take the Oath of Office, the newly-sworn VP would then and only then become President.
No, there isn’t. Both elections take place on the date specified by law, in December. However, the Democratic and Republican National Conventions routinely empower their National Committees to fill any vacancy arising on the ticket after the convention.
Of course such a designation has no formal constitutional standing–neither does any other party nomination. The electors are free agents, able to vote for whomever they wish. (Before somebody posts–yes, I know there are some state laws which say otherwise, but they are unenforceable and probably unconstitional.) But in practical terms, what would undoubtedly happen if a president-elect either died or refused to serve in the interval between the election and the meeting of the electoral college, would be:
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The National Committee would rubber-stamp the VP-elect as the replacement presidential nominee.
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The VP-elect would recommend a replacement VP.
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The National Committee would rubber-stamp the replacement candidate, just as modern conventions invariably rubber-stamp the candidate’s choice of a running mate; and
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The electors, being loyal party hacks, would vote for the replacement slate–just as they vote for the party slate in ordinary elections.
I disagree. The Twentieth Amendment states, “If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President elect shall have died, the Vice President elect shall become President.” This does not appear to contemplate the VP-elect being sworn in as VP and then succeeding.
I maintain that a formal refusal to serve, conveyed in writing to the Secretary of State, would be construed exactly like a death, and that no interim service as VP would be necessary.
Obviously we are unlikely to ever see this tested.
If you consider “death” as “changing his mind” it happened in 1872.
In 1872, Grant already received an absolute majority of electoral votes regardless of Greeley’s demise.
Death. The ultimate in “mmmmmmmmm … don’t think so.”
Almost certainly the VP candidate - think what a problem it would be if they chose anyone else. As a hypothetical let’s say McCain chooses Huckabee as his running mate and they win. Then before the Electoral College meets, McCain has a heart attack and says he will not assume office because of his health. Can you imagine if the Republican leadership said that Romney was their new choice for President and they asked the electors to vote for Romney as President and keep Huckabee as Vice President?
Dunno about the McCain, Huckabee and Romney example, which is fraught, but I could imagine some cases in which, pre-Electoral College meeting, the party of the winning presidential candidate would not be too keen on seeing the winning VP step directly into the Oval Office. Historically, VPs have more often been selected to add geographical or ideological balance to a ticket, and not (despite the usual pieties) because they’re necessarily the best-qualified to serve if anything happens to the guy in the White House.
If Nixon died or flatly refused to serve in 1968 between the election and the Electoral College’s meeting, or Bush the Elder did so in the same timeframe in 1988, there would be many in the GOP of the day who would not want Agnew or Quayle, respectively, to become president.