By Edwin Cooney
No, it’s not a mere slogan. The Democratic Party of the United States of America draws its political strength from the social agenda of the majority of the people.
As Democrats gather in Denver today for their forty-fifth historic gathering, their history is rich in both triumph and disaster. Most of their triumphs have come through the personal appeal of their presidential nominees. Their disasters have largely been of their own creation.
When George Washington was elected and re-elected in 1789 and 1792, there were no political parties. In the early 1790s, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, looking ahead to the day when Washington would return to Mount Vernon, decided that they’d need to be organized to resist men such as John Adams, John Jay, and other potential “federalist” presidential candidates who believed in centralized government. Hence they began the Democratic - Republican Party dedicated to states’ rights and agrarianism.
Jefferson was its unsuccessful presidential nominee in 1796. In 1800 and 1804, he was elected and re-elected President as a Democratic-Republican. Between 1796 and 1812, the Federalist Party was strong enough to elect John Adams and to remain a threat to the Democratic-Republicans. Eventually, however, the Federalist Party weakened and died. The year 1824 found the aristocratic John Quincy Adams opposing the “plain old” Andrew Jackson for the presidency, although both were from the same party.
By the 1820s, there were two sources of party selection. One was the Democratic-Republican caucus in Congress and the other was the collection of state legislature caucuses. Some states went for Jackson, some went for Adams and some chose Kentucky’s Henry Clay. The result was that the House of Representatives had to decide the 1824 election. Even though Jackson had the most popular votes, the House chose John Quincy Adams much to the resentment of Jackson supporters.
In 1828, Adams and Jackson faced one another again as Democratic-Republican candidates. This time, Jackson won an overwhelming number of electoral votes so there was no need for the House to settle things.
By 1831, Jackson’s party was beginning to split over banking and economic issues. For the first time, political conventions were held. This enabled supporters -- whether they were politicians, farmers, businessmen or laborers -- to represent their states in choosing prospective presidential or vice presidential candidates at a national level.
When the Democrats gathered in a national convention for the first time (Monday, May 21st through Wednesday, May 23rd, 1832), their task was easy. Since all were more than happy to nominate President Andrew Jackson for his second term, nominating a Vice President was their greatest challenge. In 1832, the Democrats were the third of the three political parties to hold its convention in Baltimore at a meeting hall called the Athenaeum.
Their challenge was so easy in fact that they adopted two rules that would nearly paralyze the party for a hundred years. They decided that a presidential candidate must receive two-thirds of the ballots in order to be nominated. This rule favored the South and West against the more heavily populated North and East. The second rule they adopted was the “unit rule” which gave the majority in any state’s delegation the power to issue the state’s unanimous vote for their candidate. Hence, the party’s principle that the “least must have representation” planted the seeds for political conflict and a half century of losses.
However, 1832 was a triumph for the Party of the Common Man. His donkey or barn yard mule was the symbol of Andy Jackson’s party. President Jackson was easily nominated for a second term. His choice for Vice President, the dapper little Dutchman from Kinderhook, New York with the bald top and dense side-whiskers, Martin (Matty) Van Buren, was easily nominated.
The next twenty-eight years were, with the exception of 1840 and 1848, happy (if not always successful) years for Democrats. Then, suddenly, 1860 arrived.
The South had lost its patience with the ever-growing and expanding Northeast and West. The South’s fear was that the industrialist North and West would gang up on the South and perhaps even go so far as to “abolish” the institution of slavery. The ultimate threat was the election of a Republican president. However, the immediate and real problem was that the Democratic Party, which required a two-thirds majority to nominate a presidential candidate, was hopelessly split.
Its first convention was held in Charleston, South Carolina. Fifty-seven ballots were cast, but they failed to nominate a presidential candidate. Senator Steven Arnold Douglas, whose lasting fame is due to his 1858 Senate election debates with Abraham Lincoln, might have received the nomination and history could have been different. He only received 181 votes on the fifty-seventh ballot which was not the necessary two-thirds (202) needed for the nomination. Thus the party divided. Douglas was nominated as a “Northern Democrat” on June 23rd, 1860 and John C. Breckinridge, the then sitting Vice President, received two “Democratic” nominations. Independent and Southern Democrats would nominate the youthful Vice President for President at their separate conventions in Baltimore on June 23rd and 28th, 1860. Lincoln’s subsequent election brought about the bloody but temporary secession of the South.
The die was firmly cast for Democratic Party defeats, however. From 1860 to 1912, Democrats would elect only one President: Grover Cleveland. Even in his case his successful elections as President were nonconsecutive. He won in 1884, lost in 1888 (despite winning the popular vote), and won a second term in 1892.
A split GOP between the incumbent President William Howard Taft and former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 enabled Woodrow Wilson to become only the second Democratic president to be elected in fifty-two years. Wilson, a southerner by birth and an academician by profession, appealed to the church-going farmers and the aristocratic constabulary of the South and West as well as to the intellectual progressives of the Northeast who couldn’t quite swallow Teddy Roosevelt’s brand of progressivism. Still, it took the party forty-four ballots to nominate Wilson even with all of his appeal.
The 1924 presidential election was a total loss for the Democrats. They cast 103 ballots before settling on a compromise candidate -- John W. Davis of West Virginia -- on the 104th ballot. Davis would be “slaughtered” by Calvin Coolidge that fall.
In 1932, it took Democrats four ballots to give New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt the votes he needed to win the nomination. In reality, they couldn’t possibly have lost the Depression-dominated election. It was in that year that the Democrats finally eliminated the two-thirds ballot rule for nominating presidential candidates. Since 1936, it takes only a mere majority to nominate the presidential and vice presidential candidates. (In fact, Democrats won only four presidential elections in the seventy-two years between 1860 and 1932.)
The mission of the Democratic Party, since the Depression, has been to watch over America’s social well-being. Its abiding guideline is democracy by majority vote. To that end, it has championed causes dear to segments of the population such as the rights of labor, women, gays and lesbians, as well as affirmative action for the education, employment, and general advancement of minorities.
Its champions have been Presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton. Other non-presidential champions of minority, senior, and labor causes have included Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, Robert and Ted Kennedy, Claude Pepper, Jesse Jackson and at least five other unsuccessful presidential nominees.
The challenge for Barack Obama will be to meld the hard-hitting personality of Harry Truman of 1948, the magic glamour of JFK in 1960, the “will do” of LBJ from 1964, the gentle confidence of Jimmy Carter from 1976, and the determined passion of Clinton from 1992 with his own gifts and vision in 2008 so that he can successfully lead America onto a broad plateau of peace, unity and prosperity. The philosophy of the modern Democratic Party, I believe, was best expressed in these words spoken by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his radio address of February 23, 1936. He said:
“I like to think of our country as one home in which the interests of each member are bound up with the happiness of all. We ought to know, by now, that the welfare of your family or mine cannot be bought at the sacrifice of our neighbor’s family; that our well-being depends, in the long run, on the well-being of our neighbors.”
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, August 25, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
DON’T RUSH ME NOW, I’M THINKING ABOUT IT
By Edwin Cooney
Look, I know it’s late and I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I’m thinking about running for Vice President. No, I’m not sure which party ticket I even want to run on, but I’m out of a job and I think I’d enjoy being Vice President of the United States.
Of course, it’s not the same as being President, but who’d want that job? People expect so much of presidents. John Kennedy, when asked once why he enjoyed being President, is reported to have replied: “The pay’s good and I can walk home for lunch.”
Well, being Vice President wouldn’t afford me that luxury, but riding back to the Vice Presidential mansion in my big limousine could be quite thrilling. It wouldn’t be like going from the Oval Office upstairs for lunch via the presidential elevator, but what can I expect? I’m only Vice President.
Okay, I know, it’s time for getting to specifics instead of dreaming about my limousine. Let’s see now: what has life been like for other Vice Presidents?
Well, there was New York’s Aaron Burr, Vice President under Jefferson (1801-1805). While he was Vice President, he had time to run for and lose the governorship of New York and, at a later date, he would shoot former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Next, Burr -- while wanted for murder in New Jersey and New York -- took time to preside over the only impeachment trial of a Supreme Court justice ever held in the U.S. Senate. Not only did Burr have the satisfaction of seeing Jefferson’s hope for Justice Samuel Chase’s conviction thwarted, he was able to squeeze federal appointments out of Mr. Jefferson for two deserving Burr family members in the newly created Louisiana territory.
Then, there’s the case of Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky. His backers got him on the 1836 ticket with Martin Van Buren touting him as the man who had slain the great Indian leader Tecumseh. RMJ was elected Vice President, but he had so much time on his hands that he managed a hotel one summer. Of course, the Democrats were so embarrassed by him that they actually didn’t even nominate a Vice Presidential candidate when Van Buren ran unsuccessfully for re-election in 1840.
Ah! You say I’m going back too far? Okay! There was Indiana’s Thomas Riley Marshall under Woodrow Wilson in the twentieth century who, when he wasn’t presiding over the Senate, spent most of the time wishing for things like a good five-cent cigar. He also told wonderful stories such as the one about the couple who had two fine sons: one son went off to sea and the other became Vice President… and neither was ever heard from again!
Then there was the case of one of the more really accomplished Vice Presidents, Illinois’s Charles Gates Dawes. He was America’s first ever Director of the Bureau of the Budget—a very strenuous job you can be sure. In 1924, he was chosen to run with Calvin Coolidge. Dawes accepted. He was a songwriter in addition to being a hell of a banker. One of his songs actually became a hit in the late 1950s. It was called “All in the Game”. I don’t know whether he wrote that song while he was presiding over the Senate as Vice President, but it’s possible. I do know, however, that he was napping one afternoon and missed a chance to break a tie in the Senate on the nomination of a good Republican businessman Charles Beecher Warren as Coolidge’s Attorney General. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when Dawes explained it all to President Coolidge.
I’m told that Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey got more talking in while he was Vice President (1965-1969) than any of his predecessors. Additionally, Maryland’s Spiro Agnew and Indiana’s Dan Quayle played a lot of tennis and golf with big name celebrities while they served under Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush, respectively.
The next question is whether I should offer myself to John McCain or Barack Obama. True, I’m no longer a Republican, although I once was. I could pull in the independent vote as Senator McCain’s chief “flip-flopper”. My flip-flopping would take the spotlight off of his flip-flopping.
I could offer myself to Barack Obama as…let’s see now…oh, yah!...as his “old white male candidate”. I have a record of years and years of shooting my mouth off on both domestic and international issues that would make any red-blooded American proud. After all, I’ve had such heroes as Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, J. Edgar Hoover, Billy Martin (Billy wasn’t a politician, but he was definitely a winner) and Elvis. I loved Elvis, you know.
As I admitted at the beginning, I know it’s late but there’s still time: in 1972, former Democratic Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody (1963-1965) ran for Vice President in the primaries. Peabody’s idea was that the delegates and not the bosses should pick the next Vice President. He made his announcement early enough for the 1972 New Hampshire primary. So, what did the Democrats do? They nominated Missouri Senator Tom Eagleton whom they later dumped in favor of R. Sergeant Shriver of the Kennedy family.
I may well run you know. Okay, it’s true that I don’t play either golf or tennis. No one, not even I, can talk like Hubert could. I seldom take afternoon naps. My occasional cigar costs way more than a nickel. I’ve never managed a hotel and I can’t shoot straight—not even as straight as Wyoming’s Vice President Cheney.
Ah! Maybe I’d better not. It’s been fun dreaming about it, though!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Look, I know it’s late and I haven’t made up my mind yet, but I’m thinking about running for Vice President. No, I’m not sure which party ticket I even want to run on, but I’m out of a job and I think I’d enjoy being Vice President of the United States.
Of course, it’s not the same as being President, but who’d want that job? People expect so much of presidents. John Kennedy, when asked once why he enjoyed being President, is reported to have replied: “The pay’s good and I can walk home for lunch.”
Well, being Vice President wouldn’t afford me that luxury, but riding back to the Vice Presidential mansion in my big limousine could be quite thrilling. It wouldn’t be like going from the Oval Office upstairs for lunch via the presidential elevator, but what can I expect? I’m only Vice President.
Okay, I know, it’s time for getting to specifics instead of dreaming about my limousine. Let’s see now: what has life been like for other Vice Presidents?
Well, there was New York’s Aaron Burr, Vice President under Jefferson (1801-1805). While he was Vice President, he had time to run for and lose the governorship of New York and, at a later date, he would shoot former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Next, Burr -- while wanted for murder in New Jersey and New York -- took time to preside over the only impeachment trial of a Supreme Court justice ever held in the U.S. Senate. Not only did Burr have the satisfaction of seeing Jefferson’s hope for Justice Samuel Chase’s conviction thwarted, he was able to squeeze federal appointments out of Mr. Jefferson for two deserving Burr family members in the newly created Louisiana territory.
Then, there’s the case of Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson of Kentucky. His backers got him on the 1836 ticket with Martin Van Buren touting him as the man who had slain the great Indian leader Tecumseh. RMJ was elected Vice President, but he had so much time on his hands that he managed a hotel one summer. Of course, the Democrats were so embarrassed by him that they actually didn’t even nominate a Vice Presidential candidate when Van Buren ran unsuccessfully for re-election in 1840.
Ah! You say I’m going back too far? Okay! There was Indiana’s Thomas Riley Marshall under Woodrow Wilson in the twentieth century who, when he wasn’t presiding over the Senate, spent most of the time wishing for things like a good five-cent cigar. He also told wonderful stories such as the one about the couple who had two fine sons: one son went off to sea and the other became Vice President… and neither was ever heard from again!
Then there was the case of one of the more really accomplished Vice Presidents, Illinois’s Charles Gates Dawes. He was America’s first ever Director of the Bureau of the Budget—a very strenuous job you can be sure. In 1924, he was chosen to run with Calvin Coolidge. Dawes accepted. He was a songwriter in addition to being a hell of a banker. One of his songs actually became a hit in the late 1950s. It was called “All in the Game”. I don’t know whether he wrote that song while he was presiding over the Senate as Vice President, but it’s possible. I do know, however, that he was napping one afternoon and missed a chance to break a tie in the Senate on the nomination of a good Republican businessman Charles Beecher Warren as Coolidge’s Attorney General. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall when Dawes explained it all to President Coolidge.
I’m told that Minnesota’s Hubert Humphrey got more talking in while he was Vice President (1965-1969) than any of his predecessors. Additionally, Maryland’s Spiro Agnew and Indiana’s Dan Quayle played a lot of tennis and golf with big name celebrities while they served under Richard Nixon and George H. W. Bush, respectively.
The next question is whether I should offer myself to John McCain or Barack Obama. True, I’m no longer a Republican, although I once was. I could pull in the independent vote as Senator McCain’s chief “flip-flopper”. My flip-flopping would take the spotlight off of his flip-flopping.
I could offer myself to Barack Obama as…let’s see now…oh, yah!...as his “old white male candidate”. I have a record of years and years of shooting my mouth off on both domestic and international issues that would make any red-blooded American proud. After all, I’ve had such heroes as Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, J. Edgar Hoover, Billy Martin (Billy wasn’t a politician, but he was definitely a winner) and Elvis. I loved Elvis, you know.
As I admitted at the beginning, I know it’s late but there’s still time: in 1972, former Democratic Massachusetts Governor Endicott Peabody (1963-1965) ran for Vice President in the primaries. Peabody’s idea was that the delegates and not the bosses should pick the next Vice President. He made his announcement early enough for the 1972 New Hampshire primary. So, what did the Democrats do? They nominated Missouri Senator Tom Eagleton whom they later dumped in favor of R. Sergeant Shriver of the Kennedy family.
I may well run you know. Okay, it’s true that I don’t play either golf or tennis. No one, not even I, can talk like Hubert could. I seldom take afternoon naps. My occasional cigar costs way more than a nickel. I’ve never managed a hotel and I can’t shoot straight—not even as straight as Wyoming’s Vice President Cheney.
Ah! Maybe I’d better not. It’s been fun dreaming about it, though!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, August 11, 2008
OUCH—THAT HURTS!
By Edwin Cooney
The news last Friday that former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee and two-time Presidential candidate, has admitted a sexual affair with film producer Rielle Hunter is deeply disheartening.
The fact that it reflects badly on the person of Senator Edwards is tragic enough. The sad reality, that the affair occurred at all with its public political and personal disgrace, has to be especially painful to Elizabeth Edwards. After all, Mrs. Edwards now has to struggle with marital betrayal as well as with cancer.
For most Americans, John Edward’s character flaw not only gets in the way of his personal and political legacy, but it also mars the political and social causes he represented.
There are, among us, issues-oriented people whose knowledge about everything from global warming to international relations is devoid, or nearly so, of the human element. For them, fact and figure analysis tells them all they need to know in order to decide how to think, react and vote.
For the rest of us, yours truly included, personal political influence is what feeds our outlook on the politics of domestic and international issues. Sometimes we’re influenced by our parents, sometimes by our fears, and often, very often, by our early bonding with men and women of national stature.
I’ve had a number of political heroes in my life. My first was Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
The late 1950s was a time of often dramatic tensions between the Soviet Union and the U.S. and those tensions very much frightened me. The Soviets beat us into space and their volatile leader, Nikita Khrushchev, was rattling rockets not only in space but even more dangerously in the divided city of Berlin.
To me, Vice President Nixon represented both courage and calm as he came face to face with Communism during the 1950s. In May 1958, he faced down a spitting, stone- throwing and potentially killing “Communist” mob in Caracas, Venezuela. In July 1959, he debated, with both eloquence and dignity, the “warlike vodka-swilling” Soviet leader in front of news cameras in an American “kitchen” at the American exhibition center of the World Exposition held in Moscow. When he returned home -- declaring at the airport that the best part about going abroad was coming home -- he was my hero. He would remain so from 1959 until the early 1970s.
During this time, although I came to admire other politicians, even Democrats, Richard Milhous Nixon was my “main man.” No matter how powerful the accusations with regard to his character or political history, I always made an excuse for him. I knew, of course, that no one, not even Dick Nixon, was perfect. The seriousness of Nixon’s flaws were in my mind tempered by the flaws I learned of in other heroes such as Jack Kennedy, Winston Churchill, and even Abraham Lincoln.
Richard Nixon stopped being my personal hero on Saturday night, October 20th, 1973 when, before the eyes of the nation, he dismissed Attorney General Elliott Richardson and his assistant William Ruckelshaus for refusing to fire special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox. His pretence was the protection of the presidency. However, it was clear to me by then that Richard M Nixon was protecting himself: the presidency and even the nation, it seemed, be damned.
Thus Nixon as my hero was a thing of the past, although I did retain a sliver of affection and sadness for him until his death on April 22, 1994.
These days, pre-presidential marital infidelity can destroy a candidate, especially if he or she is caught lying about it. Candidate Bill Clinton was barely saved in 1992 when he, along with Hillary, appeared on a post Super Bowl edition of “Sixty Minutes” to acknowledge past marital problems and assure voters that the past was, after all, the past.
The fact that Democrats dodged a political bullet by not nominating John Edwards for President is pretty conclusive. Ironically, marital infidelity is almost a “tradition” across the history of European monarchs as well as at the highest levels of our government. At least six of our presidents (James Garfield, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton) are all examples. With the exception of Bill Clinton, the extramarital affairs of the other five presidents weren’t discovered and confirmed until long after their incumbency -- which was to the country’s benefit.
Want another irony? Here it is. How much better off would America be today if my first hero Richard Nixon’s most serious flaw was a single instance of marital infidelity?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
The news last Friday that former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, the 2004 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee and two-time Presidential candidate, has admitted a sexual affair with film producer Rielle Hunter is deeply disheartening.
The fact that it reflects badly on the person of Senator Edwards is tragic enough. The sad reality, that the affair occurred at all with its public political and personal disgrace, has to be especially painful to Elizabeth Edwards. After all, Mrs. Edwards now has to struggle with marital betrayal as well as with cancer.
For most Americans, John Edward’s character flaw not only gets in the way of his personal and political legacy, but it also mars the political and social causes he represented.
There are, among us, issues-oriented people whose knowledge about everything from global warming to international relations is devoid, or nearly so, of the human element. For them, fact and figure analysis tells them all they need to know in order to decide how to think, react and vote.
For the rest of us, yours truly included, personal political influence is what feeds our outlook on the politics of domestic and international issues. Sometimes we’re influenced by our parents, sometimes by our fears, and often, very often, by our early bonding with men and women of national stature.
I’ve had a number of political heroes in my life. My first was Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
The late 1950s was a time of often dramatic tensions between the Soviet Union and the U.S. and those tensions very much frightened me. The Soviets beat us into space and their volatile leader, Nikita Khrushchev, was rattling rockets not only in space but even more dangerously in the divided city of Berlin.
To me, Vice President Nixon represented both courage and calm as he came face to face with Communism during the 1950s. In May 1958, he faced down a spitting, stone- throwing and potentially killing “Communist” mob in Caracas, Venezuela. In July 1959, he debated, with both eloquence and dignity, the “warlike vodka-swilling” Soviet leader in front of news cameras in an American “kitchen” at the American exhibition center of the World Exposition held in Moscow. When he returned home -- declaring at the airport that the best part about going abroad was coming home -- he was my hero. He would remain so from 1959 until the early 1970s.
During this time, although I came to admire other politicians, even Democrats, Richard Milhous Nixon was my “main man.” No matter how powerful the accusations with regard to his character or political history, I always made an excuse for him. I knew, of course, that no one, not even Dick Nixon, was perfect. The seriousness of Nixon’s flaws were in my mind tempered by the flaws I learned of in other heroes such as Jack Kennedy, Winston Churchill, and even Abraham Lincoln.
Richard Nixon stopped being my personal hero on Saturday night, October 20th, 1973 when, before the eyes of the nation, he dismissed Attorney General Elliott Richardson and his assistant William Ruckelshaus for refusing to fire special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox. His pretence was the protection of the presidency. However, it was clear to me by then that Richard M Nixon was protecting himself: the presidency and even the nation, it seemed, be damned.
Thus Nixon as my hero was a thing of the past, although I did retain a sliver of affection and sadness for him until his death on April 22, 1994.
These days, pre-presidential marital infidelity can destroy a candidate, especially if he or she is caught lying about it. Candidate Bill Clinton was barely saved in 1992 when he, along with Hillary, appeared on a post Super Bowl edition of “Sixty Minutes” to acknowledge past marital problems and assure voters that the past was, after all, the past.
The fact that Democrats dodged a political bullet by not nominating John Edwards for President is pretty conclusive. Ironically, marital infidelity is almost a “tradition” across the history of European monarchs as well as at the highest levels of our government. At least six of our presidents (James Garfield, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton) are all examples. With the exception of Bill Clinton, the extramarital affairs of the other five presidents weren’t discovered and confirmed until long after their incumbency -- which was to the country’s benefit.
Want another irony? Here it is. How much better off would America be today if my first hero Richard Nixon’s most serious flaw was a single instance of marital infidelity?
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, August 4, 2008
THEIR FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DECISION
By Edwin Cooney
They’re coming soon. I mean, of course, the first real presidential decisions by candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Each man’s vice presidential running mate selection will tell us not only what his assessment of the current political situation is, but perhaps even something of what each candidate’s assets and liabilities as president may be.
Eight years ago when Governor George W. Bush was the GOP candidate, many expected that he would choose his most popular opponent Arizona Senator John McCain as his running mate. After all, Senator McCain was a Vietnam War hero, basically conservative, and he could bring to the ticket a large portion of independent voters. The problem was that Senator McCain was himself ambitious and somewhat unpredictable. Like his father before him, young Bush appears to have decided he needed a vice president who would never be a political threat. Papa Bush had solved that political dilemma by selecting James Danforth (Dan) Quayle of Indiana for his running mate back in 1988. He could have chosen either Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole or Dole’s wife Mary Elizabeth (Liddy) Dole (then Transportation Secretary in the Reagan administration). However, if George Herbert Walker Bush had selected either Dole, there likely would have been constant speculation as to who “the real force” was behind the proverbial throne. Hence he chose the handsome but political lightweight Dan Quayle of Indiana.
Richard Bruce Cheney was no political lightweight back in 2000—indeed, quite the opposite. However, his heart condition and lack of personal campaign stump magnetism had for some time limited any presidential ambitions he might have once possessed. What Dick Cheney did possess was both administrative and legislative experience which would lend political gravitas and stability to young Bush’s candidacy and presidency. This conclusion is most dramatically enhanced by the fact that, at the time of his selection, Dick Cheney was serving as one of Bush’s presidential campaign consultants. Even more, Cheney was at that time a resident of Texas and had to move back to Wyoming -- where he’d served as that state’s only congressman -- in order to be constitutionally eligible for election as Vice President. (The Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution forbids the President and Vice President from being from the same state.)
Lacking any experience with either national or international issues, young Bush needed the magic stamp of presidential legitimacy to enhance his national appeal. Former Presidential Chief of Staff, Congressman, and Secretary of Defense Cheney filled the bill nicely.
No presidential candidate is likely to possess as comprehensive a package of knowledge, experience, ability and foresight as we would ideally wish. Thus, the selection of a vice presidential running mate is critical. It is the presidential candidate’s opportunity to expand every aspect of his appeal. It may also enhance his capacity to govern, once he is elected.
Historically, candidates have been selected for the vice presidential spot for a number of interesting reasons.
In 1904, for example, most Democrats were realistic enough to realize that Teddy Roosevelt was likely to run over them like the “bull moose” he would become in 1912. Their presidential candidate was the very respectable Chief Justice of the New York State Court of Appeals Judge Alton Brooks Parker. For his running mate, they selected eighty-year-old Henry Gassaway Davis of West Virginia. Some say Davis was nominated primarily because he could afford to bankroll the campaign. Some sources say he kept his word and contributed about $120,000 (about $3,000,000 in today’s money). Others insist that Davis added nothing, not even money, to the 1904 campaign. Which assessment is correct, you ask? Take your pick.
In 1924, after an exhausting ten-day 104-ballot convention, the Democrats nominated John W. Davis of West Virginia as its compromise presidential candidate. As Davis’s running mate, the Democrats chose Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Bryan was the brother of the party’s popular but three times losing presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
So, it’ll soon be Barack Obama and John McCain’s turn. Senator Obama needs a Vice President who will give him greater political credibility in the area of foreign affairs. Some say that if the polls show a close race between Obama and McCain going into the convention, Senator Obama will choose Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential candidate. If he’s substantially ahead, then either former Hillary Clinton supporter Indiana Senator Evan Bayh or former NATO Commander General Wesley Clark could get the nod. My guess is that he’ll pick General Clark.
Senator McCain needs a young running mate with credibility on domestic issues. Many believe he should pick former presidential candidate Mitt Romney for Vice President. However, rumor has it that they don’t much like one another. My guess is that Senator McCain will pick his friend Florida Governor Charles Crist to strengthen his appeal on domestic issues.
It would be nice if presidential candidates chose vice presidents strictly on their qualifications rather than on their possible political appeal, but both presidential and vice presidential candidates have one thing in common in this great nation of ours: they have to be electable before they have to be qualified.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
They’re coming soon. I mean, of course, the first real presidential decisions by candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. Each man’s vice presidential running mate selection will tell us not only what his assessment of the current political situation is, but perhaps even something of what each candidate’s assets and liabilities as president may be.
Eight years ago when Governor George W. Bush was the GOP candidate, many expected that he would choose his most popular opponent Arizona Senator John McCain as his running mate. After all, Senator McCain was a Vietnam War hero, basically conservative, and he could bring to the ticket a large portion of independent voters. The problem was that Senator McCain was himself ambitious and somewhat unpredictable. Like his father before him, young Bush appears to have decided he needed a vice president who would never be a political threat. Papa Bush had solved that political dilemma by selecting James Danforth (Dan) Quayle of Indiana for his running mate back in 1988. He could have chosen either Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole or Dole’s wife Mary Elizabeth (Liddy) Dole (then Transportation Secretary in the Reagan administration). However, if George Herbert Walker Bush had selected either Dole, there likely would have been constant speculation as to who “the real force” was behind the proverbial throne. Hence he chose the handsome but political lightweight Dan Quayle of Indiana.
Richard Bruce Cheney was no political lightweight back in 2000—indeed, quite the opposite. However, his heart condition and lack of personal campaign stump magnetism had for some time limited any presidential ambitions he might have once possessed. What Dick Cheney did possess was both administrative and legislative experience which would lend political gravitas and stability to young Bush’s candidacy and presidency. This conclusion is most dramatically enhanced by the fact that, at the time of his selection, Dick Cheney was serving as one of Bush’s presidential campaign consultants. Even more, Cheney was at that time a resident of Texas and had to move back to Wyoming -- where he’d served as that state’s only congressman -- in order to be constitutionally eligible for election as Vice President. (The Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution forbids the President and Vice President from being from the same state.)
Lacking any experience with either national or international issues, young Bush needed the magic stamp of presidential legitimacy to enhance his national appeal. Former Presidential Chief of Staff, Congressman, and Secretary of Defense Cheney filled the bill nicely.
No presidential candidate is likely to possess as comprehensive a package of knowledge, experience, ability and foresight as we would ideally wish. Thus, the selection of a vice presidential running mate is critical. It is the presidential candidate’s opportunity to expand every aspect of his appeal. It may also enhance his capacity to govern, once he is elected.
Historically, candidates have been selected for the vice presidential spot for a number of interesting reasons.
In 1904, for example, most Democrats were realistic enough to realize that Teddy Roosevelt was likely to run over them like the “bull moose” he would become in 1912. Their presidential candidate was the very respectable Chief Justice of the New York State Court of Appeals Judge Alton Brooks Parker. For his running mate, they selected eighty-year-old Henry Gassaway Davis of West Virginia. Some say Davis was nominated primarily because he could afford to bankroll the campaign. Some sources say he kept his word and contributed about $120,000 (about $3,000,000 in today’s money). Others insist that Davis added nothing, not even money, to the 1904 campaign. Which assessment is correct, you ask? Take your pick.
In 1924, after an exhausting ten-day 104-ballot convention, the Democrats nominated John W. Davis of West Virginia as its compromise presidential candidate. As Davis’s running mate, the Democrats chose Governor Charles W. Bryan of Nebraska. Bryan was the brother of the party’s popular but three times losing presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan.
So, it’ll soon be Barack Obama and John McCain’s turn. Senator Obama needs a Vice President who will give him greater political credibility in the area of foreign affairs. Some say that if the polls show a close race between Obama and McCain going into the convention, Senator Obama will choose Hillary Clinton as his vice presidential candidate. If he’s substantially ahead, then either former Hillary Clinton supporter Indiana Senator Evan Bayh or former NATO Commander General Wesley Clark could get the nod. My guess is that he’ll pick General Clark.
Senator McCain needs a young running mate with credibility on domestic issues. Many believe he should pick former presidential candidate Mitt Romney for Vice President. However, rumor has it that they don’t much like one another. My guess is that Senator McCain will pick his friend Florida Governor Charles Crist to strengthen his appeal on domestic issues.
It would be nice if presidential candidates chose vice presidents strictly on their qualifications rather than on their possible political appeal, but both presidential and vice presidential candidates have one thing in common in this great nation of ours: they have to be electable before they have to be qualified.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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