The trouble right now (as I so cleverly avoided saying with my extended baseball metaphor) is that there is no heir apparent. Why would any GOP strategist agree to run McCain, who is not strong in the polls, in the hopes that if he wins then maybe he could retire and hand it over to some hypothetical wunderkind?
If they had an heir apparent they would be running him, not McCain.
I for one can’t wait to see who McCain is going to choose to be Barack Obama’s opponent in November.
There is, BTW, ample precedent for this: Harold Wilson resigned mid-term, and more recently, so did Tony Blair.
I disagree: if such a person were to run directly and be defeated, they’d be irreperably tainted for next time around; if they were to run for VP, then they might well get a second chance.
He also has a higher chance of being incarcerated, becoming involved in drugs or gangs and getting his teenage girlfriend pregnant.
Based on how long he’s lived in retired life, yes. What a term or two of being President might have done to his health is anybody’s guess.
Blair served for 10 years before he stepped down, and there’s really no comparison between a British Prime Minister and an American President. He’s the exact opposite of McCain as far as this goes - he’s a young man like Obama is and Clinton was. (Actually he’s younger than either, but relatively speaking…)
Blair served two full terms and did end his third early, but since they have a Parliamentary system over there I don’t think it’s a useful comparison. No U.S. President has done what people are suggesting McCain is doing, which is also what they said Cheney would do as far back as 2004, if not sooner. It’s amazing that some people apparently believe politicians don’t have much personal ambition. 
I don’t know much about Harold Wilson but it looks like he also served for a long time. That’s very different from the suggestion that McCain is running for President for the second time just to serve for two or three years.
And of course Mitch McConnell will make a crack about serving “fried chicken and collard greens at the Inagural Dinner,” if Obama is elected.
Stranger
Succession to the leadership works differently in parliamentary systems. You know who the potential leaders are: they are the guys sharing the front bench with you, or occasionally the prominent back-bencher who is too much of a threat to allow up on the front bench. In other words, you have an identifiable team, even if it’s a team that can have internal disagreements.
There is no front bench in the congressional system, and cabinet members (apart from the vice president) rarely get promoted to the leadership. New leaders often come from outside – the most common source is state governors, who generally have not had much to do with people in Washington before being elected.
While one may attempt to use mortality tables, bloodlines and other health statistics, one significant issue is not said. Being the president itself imposes a unique stress level that only a few people have ever shared. Based on known health and bloodline stats of McCain, as well as Obama, it’s important to consider the uniqe factors of “POTUS stress” none of us will ever experience.
As we have seen, the pres doesn’t have to die to become ineffective.
Peace,
mangeorge
The flip side of the argument is that if he’s not good enough to get elected on his own, he’s not going to bolster the weak Republican ticket much; and if McCain doesn’t need this theoretical wunderkind’s help to get elected, why oust him at all?
Politicians don’t run for president so they can then give up the office. It’s not in the nature of the beast: people who run for president want to be president. There’s no way the Republican party (or any party) can apply pressure to force that person out aside from impeachment, and why would they want to do that.
Who would a resignation benefit and who would it hurt? It would hurt McCain the most and benefit him the least. Why would he do this again?
Why would it hurt McCain if he resigned after 2-3 years? If he resigned for medical reasons, there’d be an outpouring of positive feeling for him. He’d go out as a man who was freely elected and gave up the post of his own free will. Much like George Washington. Or would you rather he go on as the Russian premiers did?
Imagine it: “My fellow Americans, it is with great regret that I speak to you tonight. In recent weeks my health has failed and the doctors say that it will not improve with the stress of the high office I now hold. America needs … blah blah … I am therefore resigning the office of POTUS and ask that you give my successor, X, your full support. God bless America and thank you all.”
Heh.
I imagine that some posters on this board would reply by saying:
“Good riddance. Don’t let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.”
Not if he were a shitty president. You think if Bush resigned two years ago, we’d have gotten all fluffy with him?
Hurt McCain, nothing. It would hurt the Republicans. Of recent years, the Republicans have been the ticket of Really Old White Guy + somebody else (McCain, Chaney, Dole, Reagan). That’s how they get the seniors to vote for them in droves.
The last thing the Republican strategists need is more scrutiny on the age and health of their candidate. Having McCain retire the office due to age, stress, or infirmity would put a spotlight on all future Really Old White Guys whom the Republicans might want to run: “Can this guy go the distance? How’s his heart? Remember McCain, this guy might do the same.”
And I can’t even imagine the general outrage if it ever became known, if anybody in the know ever whispered the very idea of breathing a word of this to anyone. Enough people already accuse the Republicans of stealing the elections in 2000 and 2004; what would the world say if they ran a ringer in 2008 that they intended to retire the moment he was sworn in?
Last but not least: the Speaker of the House would be first in line for the Presidency if the McCain retired and the wunderkind stepped forward. No political party can say with absolute confidence who that person would be — after all, when Nixon and Agnew (Republicans) were both out, the Speaker was a Democrat. Why take that risk?
Running for President is a selfish act partly disguised as a selfless one. McCain has said over and over that he is the man with the experience and judgment and strength to lead the country. No one else will do. (Yes, they all say more or less the same thing.) So, having promised that, how can he quit in two years and say “I know what I said when I was running, but this guy will do just as good?”
People are emotional about Presidents because they are viewed as symbols of the country. Some of the people who voted for him will wish him well, and some others will think it’s for the best. But no President has ever quit for health reasons. Only Nixon has ever resigned at all, and no President has died in office since Kennedy 45 years ago. First and foremost people would wonder what this would do to the country, especially in terms of national security, which is McCain’s big thing. Even if they think it’s best for McCain as a man, consider what those people might think it says about the country if its leader quits because he is old and sick. They’ll wonder about his integrity, and they’ll wonder if maybe he should have realized all this in 2008 and not run in the first place. Washington set a precedent, and he didn’t resign from office. He declined to run again, which is very different. Plenty of people would feel for McCain, but plenty, even some of the same people, would be mad at him.
LBJ (“all the way”) declined to run again.
Actually, there weren’t term limits until Eisenhower, so technically every post-Truman President who didn’t die in office before then declined to run again.
But I’m pretty sure Marley is talking about resigning mid-term (as Nixion did), not simply declining to run for another term (as LBJ did).
What’s been proposed is that McCain wouldn’t even serve a full term, not run once and not again. And LBJ wasn’t planning to be a one-term President, he just became so desperately unpopular that he decided it was a lost cause.
Yeah, I was responding to your comment about Washington. Of course, according to lore, the reasons were very different.
If McCain is elected, he could find himself in a similar situation (to Johnson’s).