Okay, I guess there’s a point there. But I feel people are overestimating the power of the Vice Presidency as a stepping stone.
Bush got elected as the incumbent Vice President in 1988. But before that I believe you have to go back to Martin Van Buren in 1836. So the odds say that whoever gets elected Vice President in 2024 is unlikely to get elected President in 2028. I think nowadays a person positioning themselves for a future presidential run is more likely to seek election as a Governor or Senator.
So the people thinking over whether or not to replace Harris are mostly going to be thinking about how it will effect the 2024 election rather than how it will matter in 2028.
The other issue is what will happen if Biden dies in office and his Vice President becomes the President. But Biden was 78 when he took office. I assume the conversation about whether or not Harris would be an acceptable President was held back in 2020 and the consensus was “she’ll do.” If people weren’t ready for the idea of Harris stepping into the Presidency, that decision would have been made four years ago.
Since most of us (at least) are traveling forward in time, it’s probably a bit more useful to also move forward in time when giving examples.
Yes, there were 150 years between Van Buren and Bush Sr. But in the relatively compact 35 years since President Bush (first of his name) was elected, you have Al Gore barely missing election by the slimmest of margins (some would argue no margin at all but that’s another subject) and of course our current POTUS.
That would seem to suggest that while historically the role of Vice President was of little help in getting a person into the White House as Commander in Chief, in modern times it might be of some help.
To put it another way, if you look at the last 6 people to serve as President of the US, two of them had previously served as VP and a third barely got past a man who served as VP.
Moving forward in time since 1988, it’s happened zero times so I didn’t feel I needed to mention that.
There have been incumbent Vice Presidents who ran and lost, like Gore, Humphrey, and Nixon in 1960. And there have been former Vice Presidents who ran and won like Biden and Nixon in 1968.
But my point was that it’s very rare for an incumbent Vice President to win. It’s happened three times; Bush in 1988, Van Buren in 1836, and Adams in 1796. I’d speculate that the key factor for these men were they were following a very popular president who chose to not or was unable to run for a third term. I doubt that will be a factor in 2028; I don’t foresee Biden’s popularity getting that high.
So I don’t feel anybody sees the choice of who will be the Vice Presidential candidate in 2024 as a means of choosing who will be the President in 2028.
Trump in 2016 ran perhaps one of the best election strategies ever.
Trump in 2020 thought all he needed was people to realize the was the Best. President. Ever. to win.
If Trump in 2024 follows the trend then there is no telling what his thinking will be.
My interpretation was that in 2016, the Republican party picked up Trump and carried him across the finish line. Trump had no strategy. He just happened to stumble into an ongoing Republican process of controlling the outcome of elections.
In 2020, the Republican party tried to put Trump in office for a second term. But he had become too big a burden.
In 2024, the Republican party will be working to make sure that Trump is not the candidate so he doesn’t cost them another election.
But who do you mean by “the Republican Party?” Certainly, there are many Republican leaders who would prefer a candidate other than Trump. But the candidate will be chosen by Republican primary voters, who still strongly prefer Trump.
Who do you think has more influence on the outcome of a primary election? The people who vote in the election? Or the people who write the rules of how the election will be held, decide who’s eligible to vote, and count the votes afterwards? And decide if the delegates are chosen by primary elections or some other means?
The funny thing is that this time when Trump complains about having the election stolen from him, he’ll probably be telling the truth.
These would be the state parties, who are stuffed to the gills with MAGA-hatted Trump enthusiasts. If there really were this secret cabal in charge of Republican primaries, why did they let Herschel Walker, Dr. Oz and the other disastrous Senate candidates Trump backed last year win their primaries?
In the post-Trump era, nobody is a proven disaster until they fail to win an election. It’s hard to tell the difference between somebody like Herschel Walker and somebody like Marjorie Taylor Greene before Election Day. Anyone can tell who’s an idiot but it’s harder to tell who’s an electable idiot.
Trump went from being a useful tool for the Republican party to being a detriment to the Republican party on November 3, 2020. Which is why we’re now in the post-Trump era, even if Trump and the MAGA crowd don’t know it.
Republicans thought going openly radical (nominating MAGA nutjobs) was a viable strategy. I mean, it was working well enough before. Trump himself lost in 2020, but not in a landslide, and people were still coming out to vote for the crazies in other elections.
2022 was when the magic faded. The crazies overwhelmingly failed, and it was the main reason the “red wave” didn’t happen.
I expect the strategy to be different in 2024. Fewer “openly crazy” nominees, more “slimy evil bigots pandering to your worst inclinations” nominees.
I think Trump might kiss and make out with…oops, I mean make UP with Nikki Haley for his VP choice. She seems a bit “soft” on the anti-choice movement and is openly anti union enough that might appeal to those on the “left” that are anti union.
If it’s biden vs trump, then it doesn’t matter. They could have squirrels as running mates and nothing would change.
I mean, if you are incline to vote for biden over trump, what running mate could biden (or trump) have that would convince you to vote for trump? An vice versa.
The absolute smartest thing for Trump to do would be to unite the party by picking DeSantis as his running mate. DeSantis might even go for it, considering that Trump would be a one-term wonder. DeSantis gets four years of White House experience, Trump gets to be President again, and then in two years everyone gets behind DeSantis for president in the next election.
The sticking point will be Trump’s ego. I’m not sure he could tolerate a VP who may be as popular or mpre popular in the party than he is. But it would be a smart move. The other option would be to pick someone that can reach across to moderates like Nikki Haley, but promise DeSantis some plumb job like Secretary of State if he steps aside and lets Trump take the nomination.
I hope none of that happens, because a second Trump presidency would be destructive to the U.S. But from Trump’s perspective, those are the smart plays.