So there will be a rematch of Joe Biden and Donald Trump at the American presidential election come November. It will not be a pretty sight, or an inspiring one. And, yes, there is Robert F. Kennedy Jr with his rather chaotic campaign for the White House. He invokes his assassinated uncle John F. Kennedy's name at his campaign rallies, but that has not helped him much. His own siblings have let it be known that his third party run for the White House is a disaster for America.
American presidential elections are always a spectacular affair, sometimes a circus. Unlike parliamentary forms of government, where politicians rise to the top job generally after gaining experience in various departments, American presidents have often been men unprepared and unqualified for the job. Trump is the latest instance of this historical truth. And yet he will once again take on Biden this year. The world therefore has the curious spectacle of two old men, on eighty-one years old and the other seventy-seven, once again preparing for a bitter campaign for power.
It would have made sense for Biden to hang up his boots after a single term in office. Indeed, that was what many people thought he would do when he was elected four years ago. It was the feeling then that in 2024 it would be Vice President Kamala Harris who would take up the banner of the Democratic Party and make her own run for the White House, with the blessings of President Biden. That has not happened. As for Trump, his bitterness at losing to Biden refuses to go away. His own Vice President, Mike Pence, has made it known that he cannot in good conscience support Trump at this year's presidential election.
Which brings us to the matter of the vice presidents who have been in presidential contention or have been ignored by the presidents they served under in modern times. Add to that the definition of a vice president's job, which fundamentally is one dependent on the President. It is the prerogative of the President to decide what responsibilities to give the Vice President, who effectively is an individual considered to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. When the President dies or is incapacitated or resigns, the Vice President steps into the Oval Office as America's new leader.
Not many Vice Presidents have made the next step to the Presidency immediately after their Presidents have departed from the scene through finishing their terms in office. Among the exceptions have been Andrew Johnson, who became President after Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865; Harry Truman, who succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt when the latter died in 1945; and Lyndon Johnson, who was catapulted to the presidency when John Kennedy was murdered in Dallas in 1963. Presidential deaths have often been a catalyst for vice presidential succession to the presidency.
But that story is different in the case of Vice Presidents who, once the terms of their Presidents have drawn to an end, looked to taking over, through elections, as Presidents. Hubert Horatio Humphrey, who campaigned for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960 but lost to John Kennedy, was elected Vice President on the party's ticket with President Johnson in 1964. Four years later, as the Democratic presidential nominee, he lost narrowly to Richard Nixon. In 2000, Vice President Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in an election which many believe he had won but which the US Supreme Court handed over to Bush.
In the 1950s, as Vice President under President Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon was considered as the face of the future. When Eisenhower suffered a serious heart attack, political observers expected Nixon to succeed him. But Eisenhower recovered to complete his two terms in the White House. Nixon, the Republican nominee for President in 1960, went through a hair-breadth loss to Kennedy. It was not until eight years later when he finally was elected President. Forced by the Watergate scandal to resign in 1974, he was succeeded by his appointed Vice President Gerald Ford. Subsequently, President Ford appointed former New York governor Nelson Rockefeller as his Vice President.
In the 1980 presidential campaign, George H.W. Bush sought the Republican presidential nomination but was beaten to the finishing line by Ronald Reagan, who then chose Bush as his vice presidential running mate. In 1988, Vice President Bush succeeded Reagan when he defeated Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. In 1984 Walter Mondale, who had been Vice President under Jimmy Carter, challenged Reagan at the presidential election but lost to him.
American Vice Presidents and vice presidential candidates have often gone for other careers at certain points in history. Mondale was to serve as ambassador to Japan while Gore went seriously into campaigning against climate change. Humphrey made his way back to the Senate and died of cancer some years later. Joe Biden, having been Vice President under President Barack Obama, was elected President in 2020.
Nixon's first Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in the face of a scandal in 1973. His second Vice President, Gerald Ford, who had earlier been House Minority Leader, succeeded to the presidency in 1974 but lost the White House to Jimmy Carter in 1976. In 1980 he expected to be Reagan's vice presidential running mate but was ignored by the former Governor of California.
Vice Presidents have by and large been silent, almost docile individuals beside the Presidents they served. Lyndon Johnson, once a powerful leader of the Senate, played virtually no role as Vice President under President Kennedy. He came into his own when he became President in 1963 and then went on to defeat Senator Barry Goldwater at the 1964 election.
In 1956, John Kennedy campaigned hard to be Adlai Stevenson's vice presidential candidate but it was Senator Estes Kefauver who ended up being Stevenson's running mate. When Kennedy was elected President in 1960, Stevenson expected to be appointed Secretary of State but was sent off to the United Nations as the US permanent representative.
Richard Nixon's running mate in 1960, Henry Cabot Lodge, went on to serve as American ambassador to South Vietnam under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Dick Cheney served as Vice President under President George W. Bush and then went into retirement. His daughter Liz Cheney was a vocal critic of Donald Trump despite being a Republican Congresswoman.
For Kamala Harris, the year 2024 will go by, perhaps as Biden's running mate. Or it could be that the President will choose someone else on the ticket. In either case, it is 2028 Harris can plan for, assuming she yet wants to be President. On the Republican side, Nikki Haley, having put up a brave but losing fight against Trump this year for the Republican presidential nomination, will quite likely be a force to reckon with in 2028.
It just might be a season when Harris and Haley could go into the history books as contenders for the White House, with ambitious, morose men watching from the stands.
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