I think that dumping Cheney and Ashcroft would go along toward ensuring the votes of the moderate, fiscally conservative Republicans that are concerned about the environment, Civil Liberties and the Patriot Act. Dump Rumsfeld too while you’re at it.
Wow, I’d never even heard Rudi Giuliani mentioned. I think it would probably make a lot of sense from the party point of view. If you can get him in now, you’ve got a great (ignoring for now what might happen in the intervening 4 years) person to make the run in '08.
Makes me wonder if that would happen.
If Cheney was dropped for Guiliani, Bush would simply own all of middle America, and probably a good number of Dems would jump on the wagon too. And as Whatami said, Guiliani would be a great ticket for 2008. Of course, Bush/Cheney is pretty strong as it is so I don’t think Bush would dump Cheney.
Oh yeah. Giuliani did so well in his Senate campaign, he must be ready for the big stage. Rudy is not without baggage.
Oh, I agree. I’m going to be voting against Bush this year, but if he makes it in again than Rudy would be(as VP) harder to beat in 4 years than an entirely different Republican coming out. I highly doubt we’ll see Cheney run with all the health concerns. Though I am probably wrong…
What incumbent’s advantage? Since the adoption of the 12th Amendment in 1804, establishing the current system of electing the Veep as a separate candidate from the President, precisely two incumbent veeps have been elected President: Martin Van Buren (1836) and Bush Sr. (1988). Notable failures have been Nixon (1960), Humphey (1968) and Gore (2000). And just being veep doesn’t mean you get a free ride in the primaries, as the examples of Humphrey, Bush Sr. and Gore attest (can’t remember for Nixon in 1960). All three of them had to fight primary slugfests to get the nomination.
Several times, actually.
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Jefferson ran with Aaron Burr as his running mate in 1800, but dumped him for George Clinton in 1804. Reason for dump: after the tie vote in the Electoral College in the 1800 election, Burr had made a push to get the presidency himself when the election was thrown to the House for decision. Jefferson never trusted him again.
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in an interesting twist, President John Quincy Adams got dumped by his Veep in 1828. Calhoun had run with Adams in 1824, but switched and ran as Jackson’s running mate in 1828. Jackson-Calhoun beat Adams.
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Jackson, a strong federalist, had a very uneasy relationship with Calhoun, a strong states-righter. Eventually, Calhoun resigned the vice-presidency shortly before his term ended. Jackson ran successfully for a second term with Van Buren in 1832.
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Lincoln ran with Hannibal Hamelin in 1860. Hamelin was a high profile Democrat Senator who left the Democrats over slavery shortly before the 1860 presidential elections, so he was a natural person for the Republicans to put on the ticket to broaden their support. He put in a particularly undistinguished term of office as veep (and there’s a pretty low threshold for that category), serving as a private in the Maine Coast Guard as a cook during the Civil War. Lincoln replaced him in the 1864 election with Andrew Johnson, another former Democrat Senator, in part because of Hamelin’s ties to the Radical Republicans, and in part because Lincoln wanted a southerner on the ticket. (Note that Lincoln is unique in being the only president to have running mates who had been prominent members of the other party.)
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Grant ran with Schuyler Colfax in 1868, but the party dumped Colfax in 1872 because of his invovlement in the Crédit Mobiler scandal. Grant ran with Henry Wilson in 1872, in part because of Wilson’s reputation for probity.
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as PaulinSaudi has mentioned, FDR ran with three different veeps: John Nance Garner for the first two terms, then Wallace, and finally Truman. My recollection is that Garner, a Texan’s Texan, gradually drifted away from the eastern elitist FDR, partly over the New Deal, but mainly over the court-packing plan and then finally over FDR’s decision to run for a third term. Wallace was a bit of a crank, and FDR dumped him for the 1944 election for Truman.
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when Ford succeeded Nixon as President, he nominated Nelson Rockefeller to be Veep under the 25th Amendment, but when the election rolled around a couple of years later, he picked Dole as his running mate.
While sitting Veeps have done badly going for the gold ring, it is still a tradition to at least try to set things up in hope that you might beat the odds. I have pondered why Cheney seems to ignore this standard belief so much. You need a front guy from the standard Bechtel, Halliburton “family”, etc. It finally hit me:
“Jeb in 2008”
Think about it. You can’t put the nominal president’s brother on the ticket now, that would just creep too many people out. And you also really want to avoid giving someone else a leg up against Jeb by making them the VP nominee this year.
So the question is, who will play Cheney under the Bush III reign? I.e., who will remind the Prez to “stay on message?”
(As to Nixon in 1960, I can only find that a: he won easily, and b: he was the first sitting GOP Veep to win the nomination. The big issue at the convention was liberal/moderates vs. conservatives. Remember when …? Googling so far hasn’t turned up even delegate vote totals. Anyone know a site that archives such info?)