Does McCain actually intend to serve a full term?

Great Debates
41

[QUOTE=mangeorge]
Yeah, I was responding to your comment about Washington. Of course, according to lore, the reasons were very different.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know what the reasons, real or traditional, for Washington not running again. But I’ve never heard it suggested that he didn’t run again because he was going to lose, and that’s the reason Johnson didn’t run for a second full term. Either way that’s still different than suggesting McCain is running just to keep the seat warm for some other guy.

42

As I recall, which certainly isn’t reliable, Washington became quite tired of being president.
I doubt that McCain would quit, even if he became very despondent. Debilitating disease, though, might do it.

43

[QUOTE=Icarus]
Where do people get this nonsense?

Anywho, John McCain has many years on him yet, if you believe genetics play any factor.

Meet his 95 year old mother.
[/QUOTE]

Can I call it first, that she is going to be wheeled out at some pinnacle point of the GOP convention? It makes good PR sense to difuse any sort of perceptions about longevity akin to this thread.

44

In 1984 Tom Petit, a very well-respected political reporter (not a commentator or analyst, but a genuine reporter) with sources all over Washington, reported with absolute confidence that Ronald Reagan would not run for re-election. Reagan’s wife hated Washington, he missed California, Reagan sincerely believed George Bush would be an effective President, and, not coincidentally, Reagan had almost been killed for cryin’ out loud.

Petit was wrong, of course. While all of those things were true, Reagan wanted to be President more than he didn’t want to be President.

Once you get the big chair, it’s hard to walk away from it.

The Speaker would only be next in line for the Presidency during the period it takes for a new Vice President to be nominated and confirmed. In the case of Gerald Ford, that was 8 weeks. Ford’s pick, Nelson Rockefeller, was confirmed in 12 weeks.

45

Fish, the Democrats have been running Old White Guys pretty steadily too, right?

46

[QUOTE=Love Rhombus]
Fish, the Democrats have been running Old White Guys pretty steadily too, right?
[/QUOTE]

Hey, we had Uncle Bill! Twice! He wasn’t old till Love Came to Town.
I miss Clinton.
I watched McCain speak for a while today. You guys are right, he wants to be president. I think he knows, though.

47

Another factor I think nobody’s mentioned is how this would affect future elections. Imagine McCain ran for President and then stepped down and let Mitt Romney (or whoever) take over. Don’t you think the Democrats would make a huge issue out of this for the next twenty elections?

“Who are you really voting for?”
“Does the Republican party have another secret plan for picking the President they want instead of the one we picked?”
“The Democratic candidate is making a commitment to this job and plans on keeping that commitment.”

48

[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
Another factor I think nobody’s mentioned is how this would affect future elections. Imagine McCain ran for President and then stepped down and let Mitt Romney (or whoever) take over.
[/QUOTE]

But that’s not what I’m asking. I’m assuming he’ll stay for 2-3 years.

49

Quartz, if McCain stayed in for 3 years, then any “heir apparent” that stepped into the Presidency for Year 4 would be pretty much powerless the entire time. They’d have maybe 1 Congressional session to get anything done. What would be the point?

50

[QUOTE=Marley23]

[QUOTE=Quartz]

There is, BTW, ample precedent for this: Harold Wilson resigned mid-term, and more recently, so did Tony Blair.
[/QUOTE]

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.
[/QUOTE]

Comparisons to the parliamentary system really aren’t very helpful, for several reasons.

First, these posts are confusing the term of the Parliament with the term of the Prime Minister. There is no term for the Prime Minister. Once sworn, they serve continuously, until they leave office, but there is no time limit on how long a PM stays in office. If they lead their party to a second successful election, they don’t get re-sworn as PM - they’ve never ceased to be PM, so there’s no need to be sworn in again.

As well, resignation is the normal way for a Prime Minister to leave office (the other two are death or dismissal by the Queen, but death in office is rare, and being cashiered unheard of in modern times). All PMs in modern times have resigned - some for personal reasons, like Blair and Wilson; some because they lost the support of their party, like Thatcher; and some because their party lost the confidence of the house or lost a general election. But, they all resigned the office. That’s completely different from the US President, where resignation has only occurred once in the 200+ years of the office, and was triggered by a major scandal.

Third, government in the parliamentary system is more collective in approach (although PMs like Blair have moved the goalposts a bit). An outgoing PM normally wants his successor and the party to win the next election, as a validation of the outgoing PM’s policies (one possible exception - I’m not sure how strongly Chrétien was cheering for Martin, here in Canada in 2004 :dubious: ). If a PM wants to resign for personal reasons, he will normally do it around the half-way mark of the parliamentary term, to enable the party to elect a successor to the leadership of the party and to give that successor time to put his own stamp on the office.

In short, resignation for personal reasons is common in parliamentary systems; unheard of with the US President.

51

[QUOTE=Fish]
Quartz, if McCain stayed in for 3 years, then any “heir apparent” that stepped into the Presidency for Year 4 would be pretty much powerless the entire time. They’d have maybe 1 Congressional session to get anything done. What would be the point?
[/QUOTE]

So the heir could run as a sitting President.

52

That in itself would not be enough to secure an election. Look at all the Presidential elections since 1900. The political spin doctors will tell you that an incumbent President or former Vice President is likely to win (about 15 times in the 27 elections since 1900). They might tell you that the incumbent President or former Vice President lost 11 times. So it’s 15-11 in favor of experienced Presidents and VPs, right?

Kind of. It’s more like 15-19 against. 19 times since the year 1900, an incumbent President or former Vice President has run, but failed — either failed to secure his party’s nomination, or failed to win the election.

In fact, there’s only been one election since 1900 when an incumbent or former President, or sitting or former VP, wasn’t running. That was 1928, when Coolidge declined to run. (He later ran again in 1932 against Hoover.)

You might also look at the odds against Vice-Presidents: 20 times a sitting Vice-President, former Vice-President, or Vice-President-turned-President tried to run for the big chair. How many won? Only 6, in 7 elections. (T. Roosevelt; Coolidge; Truman; Johnson; Richard Nixon, twice; and George H W Bush.)

Okay, but when a Vice President succeeds a President, he’s got pretty good odds, right?

Sort of. When the Vice President ascends to the Presidency because of death, he’s 4-for-4 (Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, Johnson). When the President resigns the VP is 0 for 1 (Ford).

What does all this mean? It means that being a former VP doesn’t mean you’re a shoo-in for the Presidency. It would be a very great risk for either party to take for an uncertain benefit. The Vice-President is pretty invisible most of the time, and it’s unlikely if he’s handed the Presidency for only 1 year that he’ll win the hearts of the voters sufficient to guarantee him an election.

53

[QUOTE=kunilou]
The Speaker would only be next in line for the Presidency during the period it takes for a new Vice President to be nominated and confirmed.
[/QUOTE]

But who confirms the VP? The Senate.

I find it terribly unlikely that the Republicans (or any political party) would risk its power to run a candidate with the intent of resigning. How would they know that in 2-3 years they’ll still control the Senate? How would they know that in 2-3 years, their favorite son Vice President won’t be embroiled in some scandal?

I submit that it could possibly happen that the President feels he must resign, and a successor step in. It would be extremely stupid to try to plan for it 4 years in advance (which is what the OP alleges). That’s a lifetime in politics.

54

I keep remembering Ronald Reagan’s last years as president. If anyone could possibly have had reason for quitting, it might have been him.
I wonder how bad off he really was. He certainly didn’t look very good.

55

Fish, I agree with your general analysis - the Veepster isn’t the electoral advantage people seem to think it is - but I have some factual quibbles.

[QUOTE=Fish]
In fact, there’s only been one election since 1900 when an incumbent or former President, or sitting or former VP, wasn’t running. That was 1928, when Coolidge declined to run. (He later ran again in 1932 against Hoover.)
[/QUOTE]

There was no incumbent, etc., running in the 1908 election (Taft-Sherman v. Bryan-Kern), nor in the 1920 election (Harding-Coolidge v. Cox-Roosevelt). Also, Coolidge didn’t run against Hoover: