I doubt that, actually. Bush and Cheney did intervene in a Primary in my state (as I mentioned above), and nobody accused them of any wrongdoing.
May I be the first to say, “cite?”
I don’t agree with your interpretation there. If a sitting Senator or Representative is appointed to an executive post, then obviously an election would have to be called, but I think there’s a difference between requiring an election to be called and influencing an already existing election.
And I’m not sure there’s a Constitutional Article II limitation here. It comes down to a question of intent, as I see it. The President is free to offer a candidate an executive position. He’s not free to offer a candidate an executive position with the intent of taking him out of the race.
To take an absurd example, the President is, constitutionally, the commander of chief of the armed forces, but it would probably be a violation of the law for him to activate a candidate who was a member of the Army Reserve to get him out of the race. He couldn’t say, “Hey, candidate, you’re now on active duty, get to Iraq.”
A primary isn’t an election, but the law doesn’t just prohibit interference in elections, but interference in nominations. And whether it’s illegal to offer somebody a job to drop out of an election is the subject of debate. And I know there’s no proof that they asked Sestak to do so. We’re discussing a hypothetical here…whether any laws were broken if the allegation is true.
Offering a job to somebody and saying ‘if your other prospects do not pan out’ is not illegal. A quid pro quo has not been, and will not be, established.
Debatable.
Correct, because the President has an Article II power to offer jobs and his acceptance would have naturally meant wthdrawing.
True. But there is evidence that it happened - Sestak’s own word.
If you feel the need to attack Bricker, feel free to open a BBQ Pit thread. Drive-by insults are neither pertinent nor welcome.
Knock it off.
[ /Modding ]
How so? The winner of a Primary has not won any elected office. How is it an election, and how is it the federal government’s business how individual political parties choose their nominees?
If I start my own party, consisting of only my wife and I, and I offer to load the dishwasher every night for a month if she agrees to withdraw from our primary, amd I guilty of a federal crime?
I don’t believe that Sestak has said the Whitehouse asked him for a quid pro quo, but I am willing to be corrected.
Geez, you forgot me.
But wouldn’t it be just as easy to offer the quid without any reference to any particular quo at all? If he’s offered a high-profile WH job, nobody has to say anything about his getting out of the race, he would have to anyway if he takes the bai…offer.
Exactly. Obama’s not a moron.
I agree: it’s a job offer. Sestak was vying for one job, and was possibly offered another, which he turned down.
We should all be so fortunate, and I thought the Repubs favored the fortunate.
I’m so confused…
Sorry; it wasn’t personal. I mean, I hope you’re not offended, but I thought my last picture was a kind of visual punchline, and I just didn’t think that your appearance would be sufficiently jarring. Maybe next time, eh?
Exactly. Sestak wasn’t offered a job *in exchange *for him dropping out of the race.
He was offered a job, period.
Nor was that one. It was addressing the lack of content and debate value in the OP post itself, something a mod should appropriately address directly.
If you feel the need to attack me, feel free to open a BBQ Pit thread. Drive-by modding is neither pertinent nor welcome.
You are out of line.
You have made a persistent habit of attacking other posters with snide comments about their posts while ignoring the actual discussions in various threads. On those occasions when you have contributed nothing to a thread except those snide remarks, I have called you on it. You choose to characterize my attempts to guide you in civility as attacks upon your person.
My remarks are not personal attacks.
Your remarks are out of line.
If you wish to continue interrupting these threads, both with your initial off-topic comments as well as your rationalizations for your behavior, you may jeopardize your posting privileges.
[ /Moderating ]
I suggested earlier that there might not have been an attractive enough job available at the time they wanted him to drop out. They weren’t going to fire someone so as to be able to give him a job. So they would have to promise him upfront that they’d give him a/the job down the line if he dropped out now.
I doubt that. I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t have a specific job in hand. I also doubt they explicitly mentioned any quo.
Apparently the crew on Fox & Friends was, without humor or irony, suggesting that this might be an impeachable offense.
If I’d ever experienced the slightest twinge of regret for having frequently suggested that Bush and Cheney should be impeached, those twinges would have just vanished.