Joint Party Tickets A Good Idea? History Tells Us NO!

Recently, there has been some discussion of a “fusion” ticket as the way to stop Donald Trump.

One such scenario is to have Hillary Clinton run with John Kasich as her running mate.

That is totally preposterous, and history tells us that when the Vice President is of a different party than the President, it does not work out well.

The first contested Presidential election led to Thomas Jefferson as Vice President under his opponent, John Adams from 1797-1801, and that did not work out well, and in fact, helped to promote the 12th Amendment in 1804.

Then we had John C. Calhoun as Vice President under John Quincy Adams in the years 1825-1829, and that did not work out well.

William Henry Harrison was elected in 1840 with this Whig candidate having a Democrat, John Tyler, as his Vice President.  Within a month, Harrison was dead, and Tyler had constant battles with the Whig Congress, because he did not wish to follow Whig platform ideas.

Abraham Lincoln chose Andrew Johnson as his second term Vice President, despite the fact that Johnson was a Democrat in a Republican Presidency, and when Lincoln was assassinated six weeks later, we had one of the worst struggles in American history, as Johnson fought and resisted the Republican Party which had put him into the Vice Presidency, albeit briefly.

With these four examples, none of them working out well, we have never had such a situation arise again since, but we have had suggestions of doing what has never worked out well.

There were suggestions that Hubert Humphrey select Nelson Rockefeller in 1968, and that John McCain choose Joe Lieberman in 2008.

It simply will not work, and it undermines party loyalty and commitment to a President and his administration, if the next in line, in case of tragedy, transforms the power base in the Presidency.

As it is, we have had top cabinet members who are of the other party, particularly in the War Department as it was known before 1947, and the Defense Department, as it has been known since then., including:

Henry Stimson under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940-1945

Robert McNamara under John F. Kennedy, beginning in 1961, and continuing under Lyndon B. Johnson until 1968.

William Cohen under Bill Clinton from 1997-2001

Robert Gates under Barack Obama from 2009-2011

But the Vice President needs to be “on the team”, not a rival of the President in office!

 

14 comments on “Joint Party Tickets A Good Idea? History Tells Us NO!

  1. Paul Doyle March 19, 2016 1:47 pm

    Professor,
    Another example was John Connolly as Treasury Secretary under Richard Nixon. Connolly was in this position when he and Nixon announced that the U.S. dollar was being taken off the gold standard.

    Connolly did switch parties a couple of years later, however.

  2. Ronald March 19, 2016 3:30 pm

    Good point, Paul!

    Thanks, Southern LIberal!

  3. D March 19, 2016 11:11 pm

    Democrats bend over for Republicans too much.

    In fact, it has me questioning their motives. This is too much a right-leaning party. (And I’m not referring to the Republicans. They’re all in for the oligarchs.)

    I’m not the least bit impressed with President Barack Obama’s U.S. Supreme Court justice nomination. (Another damn corporatist.)

    Anyone suggesting a Democratic presidential candidate should consider a Republican vice-presidential running mate is one of the following: 1) a political idiot; 2) full of *s*; or 2) a substance abuser. (Perhaps MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is all three.)

  4. Ronald March 20, 2016 1:28 am

    HAHA, to your comment about Chris Matthews ! LOL

    I agree that Merrick Garland is not “Sexy” for the left, but he is eminently qualified in his service and commitment outside of government to help needy children, so he is very admirable for those reasons!

  5. Pragmatic Progressive March 20, 2016 12:47 pm

    I agree with the Professor. Just being a centrist is no reason to disqualify Garland.

  6. Pragmatic Progressive March 20, 2016 1:03 pm

    Thank you Former Republican for those excellent articles.

  7. Princess Leia March 20, 2016 2:51 pm

    Obama has never been a far-left politician and never ran as one.

    Also, compromise is not a bad thing. Compromise is what makes government work. The lack of compromise is why our government is at a stalemate.

  8. Rational Lefty March 20, 2016 4:09 pm

    As said in the article from the Horizons blog that Former Republican posted: “There are some on the left who are expressing disappointment that President Obama didn’t chose a nominee with a more progressive legal record. But those folks don’t understand this President’s commitment to pragmatism as a strategy.”

    See more about pragmatism as a strategy here: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2016_02/pragmatism_as_a_strategy059619.php

  9. Ronald March 21, 2016 12:46 pm

    Southern Liberal, it is indeed the Supreme Court that is the ULTIMATE issue for the Fall campaign, and even a so called “moderate” such as Merrick Garland, is far from being Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito!

  10. Former Republican March 21, 2016 12:53 pm

    Precisely, Southern Liberal! Like the author of that piece says, our ideologies are not as far to the left as D and other left-wingers we’ve encountered on various blogs and we see things in shades of grey instead of solely black-and-white.

  11. Rustbelt Democrat March 21, 2016 7:30 pm

    I agree with the piece Southern Liberal posted. I get so sick and tired of seeing left-wingers fighting each other on various forums. In this election, our side needs to be allied in order to defeat Trump in November!

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