In what world was Nixon seen as a bland policy wonk?
His reputation was that he attacked communists, both foreign and domestic. That’s his positive reputation. His negative reputation was that he was known as somebody who would skirt the rules as much as possible; he was “Tricky Dick” all the way back in 1950.
He successfully remade his image in 1968 as the “New Nixon” - the guy who still fought communists but who lived in the real world and could cut deals with them when necessary while not getting screwed by them. He was still “tricky” but now he would use his powers for good against America’s enemies.
I’m saying that Nixon had been doing bad shit throughout his life and knew that he would continue to do so if he was elected in 1968 (or, for that matter, if he lost in 1968). He didn’t worry about the tapes because he figured he could keep control of any situation that arose. And part of his plans for keeping in control was having Agnew in the second spot.
And Nixon didn’t install the taping system. Previous presidents, going back to Franklin Roosevelt, had secretly taped conversations in the Oval Office.
Nixon didn’t have the power base in 1974 that he had in 1968. Republican party leaders were able to give him a list of names and Nixon wasn’t able to refuse their choices.
And by 1974, the Republican party leaders could see the writing on the wall and knew that Nixon might not complete his term. They were insisting he choose somebody this time who was capable of taking over the presidency.
Bush was sixty-four when he became President. But that’s actually pretty old in this context. The average age for becoming President is fifty-five and Bush was the fourth oldest President at the time of his inauguration.
Carter/Mondale was another outsider/insider play; Romney/Ryan was boring mainstreamer/intense ideologue
Palin’s selection was also perceived at the time as a gambit towards women’s attention in the aftermath of Hillary having been upset. (And yes, at the end of her convention speech she was coming across very well. Then she had to keep on speaking elsewhere… )
Of course, though Biden constrained himself by committing to that it would be a woman, nothing forces him to name one of the former contenders – they are just the known quantities at this point. One would pray that somebody in that campaign is working hard at seeing who’s someone who can project “ready to take over”, who can connect with the New Left without pissing off the White Working Class, who (particularly) has the mettle to handle all the “but what about Joe and women” questions, and if she has no relatives involved in any business that even looks like it needs explaining and justifying, even better.
Klobuchar… eehhhh… left me cold during the primary, really. It would be a doubling down on “return to normalcy”, as mentioned above.
Hardly. McCain was losing badly to Obama in the excitement/history-making department. He needed a Hail Mary to shake up the race, else he was headed for sure defeat.
His Hail Mary got intercepted in the end zone, but his fate would have been all the more sealed without throwing it.
because according to a biography of ford, ford was one of a few senators Nixon hadn’t pissed off in some way (although it inferred him and Nixon didn’t really know each other ) and looked at it as his duty to help the country in any way he was needed to
so to sum it up he was a bland moderate dutiful republican that accepted the job when no one else would…
People who get excited about elections forget this. The initial excitement will get a campaign off the ground but at some point you need to turn the campaign into a machine that gets people to show up at the polls.
To nitpick, Ford was never a senator. He was the House Minority Leader and the one responsible for trying to get the Democrats into bipartisan agreements. He had great success with this and was well liked by Congress. Wikisays:
That about sums up my view. Biden doesn’t need boring. He’s already got plenty of that himself. And yes, it’s votes that win elections, but it’s excitement that generates votes. He needs excitement.
Warren would be one possible exciting pick, but even though she was my first choice of those who were running, I don’t think she would be a good pick for VP, either. Biden also needs someone young.
My favorite for quite a while has been Tammy Duckworth, who’s young, exciting, and female. But I’m not optimistic about the chances of Biden picking her.
Objection. The VP nominee should not be expected to spell a word the Presidential candidate doesn’t understand.
Dull campaigners don’t attract voters. Oh, they’ll still attract the base, but millions of swing voters will either stay home or vote for the more exciting candidate.
Yes, but some moderate swing voters will reject the candidate with an idiotic buffoon as a VP nominee who’s only one heartbeat away from the presidency. .
I don’t go to rallies or protests or conventions or parades. As far as all that kind of thing goes, I’m invisible and you would never know I was part of the political process.
But I register and I go to the polls every year. Every year, not just the ones where there’s a Presidential election. I don’t get excited about voting but I do it on a regular basis.
I don’t know that anyone could prove a VP wins votes. I think it clear that a VP can COST you a few votes but that’s about it.
Klobuchar is a really, really, really bad choice because she will win no votes, but can cost him votes if her reputation for being abusive to her staff becomes an issue.
I’m also unclear what votes Klobuchar is allegedly going to secure from the Democratic base. JOE BIDEN has that covered; he’s the most establishment candidate the Democratic party has put forth since Gore. Biden already has appeal in the rest belt states he needs to win back. What does Klobuchar deliver?
At least throw a long pass and nominate someone from a purple state to threaten the Trumpists with a loss they cannot afford. I agree that the 2008 choice of Sarah Palin to run with McCain was, on the face of it, not a terrible call; he was going to lose with any conventional choice anyway, so selecting Palin, a Trumpist candidate before that was even a concept, was kind of inspired. It didn’t work in the end but if you’re about to be checkmated anyway you might as well throw the chessboard off the table.
Biden’s situation isn’t very analogous because he’s the favorite assuming the election is fairly held, but he doesn’t have to hold serve in MINNESOTA, does he? I know it was close in 2016 but there’s no reason to think it’ll be that close in 2020.
What you are calling “quiet voters” is just what the other guy is calling the base. We always vote, based on issues and not on what some campaign does, and thus we’ve generally already made up our minds.
Those aren’t the people that campaigns are designed to attract. We’re not sitting here wondering who the VP pick will be to decide who we’ll vote for.
In my lifetime, at least, the presidential campaign with the most enthusiasm has always won. That’s 8 election cycles. I very much hope it won’t be the case in this one, but I also hoped that in 2016.
People who are more excited are more likely to vote. Sure, some of us would vote anyways, but excitement gets you more votes.
Biden is trying to pull suburban women voters away from Trump. They are definitely there for the picking; current polls has Biden up by almost 20 points among women but down almost 20 points among men. (Yet another thing that is wrong with men. C’mon guys, stop sucking.) Klobuchar will do fine with that audience, especially in the Midwest.
That isn’t to say that other women won’t also do well with that demographic. I’m just puzzled by the people who say that Klobuchar can’t help. Of course she can, and she’s a strong candidate.
I believe RickJay was theorizing Palin appealed to the angry, no compromise, red meat sector of Republicans, who may have felt that McCain was too wishy-washy, trying to appeal (“cave in”) to the liberals. It’s not that the Palinistas would vote for Obama, it’s that they wouldn’t have donated money, put up yard signs, go to rallies, etc. At least that’s how I read it. I agree with his assessment.
Maybe. But the problem is that a lot of those same right wing voters were never going to vote for a woman. I knew people who said they would’ve vote for McCain if he hadn’t picked a woman VP. Granted, they didn’t vote for Obama either but they never were going to vote for him.
Yes you are. Palin was an effort to shake things up and increase Republican enthusiasm to try too match the enthusiasm behind Obama. Didn’t work, but it was worth a shot.
