I was trying to think today of other people who have lost a bid to be President and then come back and won it. The only other one I can think of is Cleveland, who won it, lost it, then won it again; he didn’t lose first.
I am inherently skeptical of “rules” of the kind no one with X has gone on to become President. Most of them are spurious correlations which hold until they don’t and I imagine most Presidents have broken some significant “rule” or the other.
I think Pence 24 is very much a possibility. He has name recognition and some Trumpist cred while at the same time being a normal politician who is acceptable to the establishment. I can’t think of anyone else with this combination. As to whether he can win the general, I think the events of the last five years should dispose us towards humility. Nobody knows anything about who is or isn’t electable four years from now.
See also for more on the history of Veeps in general and the prospects for Pence in particular:
Adam’s and Jefferson.
Okay, but that was under the old “second place gets VP” system, which isn’t really the same thing. Since the adoption of the current rules? I can only think of Cleveland and Nixon.
Andrew Jackson.
Well, there’s a POSSIBILITY, but it’s remote. Pence is popular among religious extremists but that’s not an uncommon skill in the GOP. Many, many people will be vying for the nomination; Pence is an extreme longshot.
Oh, I agree with you. As was discussed in this earlier thread on the same topic. I’m just pointing people here to the earlier thread. I’m not trying to assert Pence has a snowball’s chance after 1/21/21.
Unlike Trump I expect Pence to show up at the inauguration. Of course he could be president then if Trump tantrums include quitting. I think he runs in 24 but probably won’t be the nominee.
Acting president. I don’t think anybody will bother formally installing him, even if Trump disappears.
Besides Pence, I wonder who else might show up January 20.
Biden, Harris, their families and lots of jubilant (and hopefully socially-distanced) Dems would be my guess.
I predict that Trump will be there. After a few weeks he will give up on the tantrums and act in a semi-reasonable while still claiming that he was robbed. He will portray this as act of amazing magnanimity since he is of course the most gracious and conciliatory of all Presidents, maybe with the exception of Lincoln.
Contrary to what some people here seem to think, Trump is quite capable of changing tack when something isn’t working, e.g. the change in tactics in the second debate.
Trump was able to see that changing tactics in the debates might benefit him. There’s no real benefit to him to show up for the inauguration, so he won’t. Trump is purely transactional. He doesn’t do anything out of courtesy or tradition unless he feels he might benefit.
Bob Dole lost in a presidential election as the vice presidential candidate and lost in a presidential election as the presidential candidate
We need a betting thread. I bet he won’t attend. He doesn’t have it in him.
Will Joe Biden begin his inauguration speech with, “I want to thank Donald Trump and Mike Pence for their service to the country…” like so many do? I think he will.
Ah, good one.
I hope he doesn’t. Having his pants actually burst into flames in his first moments as President would not be the best way to start.
The payoff to attending will be exposure and spectacle. It will be his last opportunity to strut around as President on a big stage. I can’t see him giving that up.
IMHO he was only able to change tactics in the second debate because he was no longer actively suffering from COVID-19. The infection explains why he couldn’t hold it together in the first debate.
As far as I know Trump always doubles down, almost like the Martingale strategy. It just so happens that this is the first time in his whole life that he’s reached the limit of his (or his creditors) bankroll. It won’t end well, certainly not in any kind of dignified way on Trump’s part.
A lot of them are whimsical, of course, because XKCD. But then again, some of the “rules” that you hear bandied about in all seriousness are pretty silly, too.