This Should Put A Smile On The Conservative Faces

LBJ walked away-- he knew he was in the crapper. I don't know if there are any other cases in history when a president decides to call it quits after one term. Jimmy Carter didn't walk away and he was completely in the crapper. Nixon, etc...

As for Alaska, ha. She got a taste of the national spotlight and realized she wanted to carry her gun with the big boys. Go figure.

There was John Tyler. He was a life-long Democrat, but joined the Whig Party when it was formed in opposition to the Democrats (the Federalists were a moribund party by then). He joined William Henry Harrison's Whig Party ticket in 1840 at the behest of the party convention. Harrison was inaugurated, out of doors, in a cold storm of rain, on March 4, 1841, and died exactly a month later on April 4, 1841, at which time Tyler became President. The House of Representative attempted to pass a bill of impeachment against him--and failed--because he vetoed a tariff bill, and many people considered at that time that a President should not veto a bill unless he deemed it unconstitutional. That was the first impeachment attempt in our history. Tyler vetoed the bill on regional political grounds--he was a Virginian, and the South opposed all tariffs. His other controversial move was to attempt to annex Texas (it was defeated in the Congress). Florida was admitted to the Union on the last day of his presidency.

In 1844, he was loath to support either the Whig or the Democratic candidates because they both had opposed the annexation of Texas. The Whigs wanted nothing to do with him because of his opposition to the tariff and his attempt to annex Texas. He toyed with starting another party, but when the Democrats chose James Polk, who favored annexation of Texas, he stepped aside and supported the Democrats.

His successor, James K. Polk, had promised not to seek re-election, and he didn't. His health was shattered, and there was a good deal of animosity toward him over the annexation of Texas and the subsequent Mexican-American War. However, he had not sought the 1844 nomination, and stated that the office of President should not be sought nor declined, and promised before the election to serve only a single term if elected. It wasn't hard for him to keep that promise. He died about four months after Zachary Taylor was inaugurated as his successor.

Taylor died in office just a year and four months after being inaugurated, and there is no way of knowing if he would have run again or not. He was certainly a maverick, and although to my knowledge he never commented on whether or not he'd seek another term, i suspect he would have done.

His successor, Millard Fillmore, simply served out the remainder of Taylor's term. He attempted, however, to get nominated, but the Whigs didn't want him. Neither the Whigs nor the Know Nothings wanted him as a candidate in 1856, either.

Rutherford Hayes promised not to run for a second term when he campaigned in 1876, and he kept his promise. In fact, at his inauguration, he proposed that the presidency be expanded to a six year term, with a limit of single term for the office.

James Garfield was a strange figure. At the time of his election of the White House, he was a sitting member of the House of Representatives (a first), and a Senator elect of Ohio (actually he had been appointed, Senators were not necessarily elected at that time--that was a first and likely a last). I know of no comment he made about seeking a second term, which was denied him when he was shot just five months after his inauguration, and died a month and a half later.

Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. became President when William McKinley died of a gunshot wound in September, 1901--fulfilling the worst nightmares of political movers and shakers in the Republican Party, who had attempted to prevent his nomination for Vice President. (His nomination was engineered by the political Boss of New York, Thomas Platt, who loathed him and wanted him out of the New York Governor's mansion. McKinley's first Vice President had died in office--he was a sufficiently memorable politician that i've forgotten his name.) He did seek a second term, although that was the only time he was elected to the office. He stepped aside in favor of William Howard Taft in 1908, but became incensed with Taft, convinced that Taft had betrayed political principles which he assumed they shared, so he ran against him in 1912--so i guess he doesn't count. An assassination attempt was made against him, which probably assured that he wouldn't be elected. He was sufficiently popular that he might have been, but no one can say for sure. In the event, he simply assured the election of Wilson by splitting the Republican vote, while not siphoning off enough Democrats to hurt Wilson.

Warren Harding died in office, and i know of no comment he made about seeking a second term, which in any event he would have been unlikely to win.

Calvin Coolidge, who succeeded him, did run for another term, although that was the only time he was elected to the office. In 1928, he announced that he would not run, and told reporters that ten years in Washington in that job would be too much for anyone.

And that's the facts, Ma'am . . .

Let's not forget Nixon.

Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

He's there, at the tail end of the crapper comment. But he was in his second term and stepped down, as we all know, the long arm of the law was on his tail.

Well, Ralph Nader had a loyal following that couldn't get him elected. He did wonders for the Republican party, though.

My speed reading doesn't work.

He did do wonders for the Republican party and pissed off a lot of Democrats. He got some traction in 2000 because Gore was a boring candidate. In 2008 no one took him seriously when he announced his candidacy again.

I tell you, they all have to die with their boots on. Didn't he make his mark in the 1960s? He couldn't let go.

Maybe; I hope she'll have Dick Cheney as her Vice President.





David

A politician who adopts that attitude may well be
the Democratic nominee, but he is very anti-democratic,
in that the will of the people means nothing to him; he will decide what HE wants, instead.

Does such a politician have a proper place
in the DEMOCRATIC Party ????

He is repudiating democracy.





David

No, that 's OK; we don 't take u seriously.

Nixon was re-elected by a huge landslide.

He took away George McGovern 's only argument:
Nixon ended American involvement in the war in Vietnam,
betraying our ally into the clutches of communism,
with all attendant murders of our friends and resultant communist slavery.


I worked for him against Kennedy in 1960.
Indeed, he was a Tricky Dicky.





David

The best memory of Nixon that I have is when he stuck up two fingers of both hands and said "I am not a crook."

He was not very loyal, either.

i could never understand why he didn't grow a mustache to hide that lip sweat thing he had going

sort of a dabney coleman type stache

Richard Nixon had Marty Feldman eyes

To me, the reallly sad thing about Nixon was that, on objective historical analysis, he was actually a pretty good president who accomplished a number of worthwhile things, detente with China just the most visible of them. The problem was he was also a felon, a liar, a conniver. That's sad in a man who had the potential for greatness.

I still have a 20" x 24" color picture of Nixon on my wall that I bought at his first Inauguration in 1969.
I got some cufflinks from him too.

He did not invite me to his 2nd Inauguration and we know how well that worked out.





David

It makes us wonder about how honest somebody has to be to be a great president. Jimmy Carter's ethics and sensibilities were probably highest on some such scale, but turned out to be a dud of a president.

We now look at Obama, another "intelligent" man, who has not kept his campaign promises, and seems oblivious to the creation of bigger deficits and sloppy spending that will handicap our country's economy for many years to come.

Maybe, Sarah Palin, can do a better job. <smirk>

In addition to giving away American property, the Panama Canal,
Carter betrayed the Shah of Iran, a good friend,
with the result of the rise of the Ayatolla Koumeny and his regime that now threatens us with nuclear development.