Well, I imagine that Reagan’s example notwithstanding*, it’s awfully hard to run the country if you’re dead.
*Wasn’t he famous for napping all the time, and for showing clear signs of Alzheimer’s during his last few years? It was before my time, and strangely my history books have never mentioned it. Go figure.
Well, yeah. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, Lincoln, and Grover Cleveland all have had the same problem with their recent candidacies, too 
What I was trying to do in that post is to identify people who might otherwise have theoretically been able to run for President but were barred from doing so by action of the 22nd Amendment. While many people enjoy collecting dead Presidents, only Haley Joel Osment would vote for them.
Ike, Tricky Dick, and Ronnie are now-deceased men who were prohibited from becoming President again by the 22nd. Among living men, it’s WJC and GWB alone who are excluded.
I don’t see why they would argue that. There are two ways to become President:
I person ineligible for #1, could certainly do #2, no?
So, could Bill Clinton or George W. Bush get elected as Speaker of the House of Representatives, or get appointed as Secretary of State, and become president again because those above in the line of succession died?
Doesn’t the Presidential Succesion Act disqualify anyone not eligible to be elected Predident from acting as President or succeding to the Presidency?
Hell, I still vote for Truman every chance I get.
No. They would be skipped over. There have been several cabinet members who were not eligible because of not being native born citizens, and it is well-established that succession would simply pass over them to the next eligible person. It was discussed a lot, for instance, when Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State.
Dewey’ll get him one of these days.
Not a documentary per se, but reading this thread has set my mind aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening through a cosmic vapor of invention.
Picture this idea for a screenplay.
It’s the year 2013. The President of the USA dies in an unfortunate accident after choking on a Slim Jim that he purchased at 7-11. The Vice-President comes to power but doesn’t nominate a replacement Vice-President right away.
The (former Vice-President) now President of the USA, a man who loves meetings, decides to have a small retreat at Camp David with several Congressmen (including the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and the President Pro Tempore of the Sentate) and most of his cabinet (including the Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of Agriculture, Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Labor, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Secretary of Transportation).
While they are there a huge electrical storm rages over Camp David, the meeting room is struck repeatedly by lightning, killing all the officials within, and the new president is the Secretary of Energy - who (gasp) turns out to be Magneto! Mutant Extraordinaire! Devoted to eradicating Homo Sapiens to make way for Homo Mutant!
The Secretary of Education (a certain Sue Storm), secretary of Veteran Affairs (Nick Fury) and secretary of Homeland Security (Anthony Stark) realize that the only way to restore peace and democracy to the country is by eliminating Magneto - then one of the three of them will become Chief Executive.
How’s that for a premise? Exiciting and educational at the same time! There could be a 10-minute section of the movie going over the intricacies of the Presidential Succession Act.
Here is the relevant text “…then the officer of the United States who is highest on the following list, and who is not under disability to discharge the powers and duties of the office of President shall act as President.” 1947 Presidential Succession Act.
Again, it says not under disability to discharge the powers and duties…and the 22nd amendment only prohibits a person from being elected more than twice, not from serving any more than twice. I don’t think it is semantic as at.
And to alphaboi, I would think that yes, indeed GWB or WJC could be Speaker of the House and rise up through the death or disabiity of the Pres AND VP…
Well, there is that problem that the Democratic Party wouldn’t have nominated him again. He was more unpopular than Bush.
There was a movie with a similar plot. It involved a nuclear strike. The Prez is incapasitated under some rubble or something and presumed dead. Everyone else in the line of succession except for the Secretary of the Interior who was camping in the middle of some forest when the strike hit. The Secretary is a total loon and starts to inact all of this crazy crap while the Prez comes to and tries to find a way to let people know he is still alive.
Can I just once come up with one of my Clever Screen Ideas without someone jumping in to tell me “it’s been done” ? Your movie, hajario, did it have mutants? Hmmm? No. I think not.
“President Ralph”, starring John Goodman.
No, the Dems would have nominated him again, but Truman was smart enough to know that he couldn’t win against Eisenhower. Near the end of the war, Truman floated the idea of him being Eisenhower’s VP, Eisenhower never bothered to reply.
Cite?
From Wiki regarding the 1952 Democratic Primary. Of course, it’ s impossible to say what the Democratic Party would have done if Truman has stayed in the race. But the only primary he contested, New Hampshire, he lost to Estes Kefauver.
He lost it pretty decisively, too.
I don’t think DSYoung was asking for a cite that Truman considered running for President in 1952. I pretty sure what he was questioning (and I do as well) was that Truman considered running as Eisenhower’s Vice-President. I strongly doubt that Truman would have ever thought about switching parties, accepting demotion back to the Vice-Presidency, and run on a ticket under Dwight Eisenhower.
But Truman did like Eisenhower and was trying to recruit him. In the late 1940s, Eisenhower wasn’t seen as a partisan political figure yet - he had gone from the Army in 1948 to Columbia University, serving as its president. He took leave from Columbia to serve as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in 1950.
In 1948, both parties were trying to recruit Eisenhower - he declined then. It didn’t become clear for a couple of years that Ike was a Republican, especially as he was still serving a Democratic administration.