Tuesday, November 14th, 2006...7:13 pm
Because This Is Exactly the Sort of Trivial Nonsense That You Read This Blog for, That’s Why
I keep hearing commentators say that 2008 will be the first contest not featuring a sitting President or Vice President since 1952.
¡A lo contrario!
Alben Barkley, who was Vice President for Harry Truman, ran in a few Democratic primaries that year before he realized that the country was not yet ready for a President named “Alben.” His middle initial was “W,” however.
You would have to go back to 1928, when Calvin Coolidge’s Vice President, Charles Gates Dawes, chose not to seek the nomination. Despite the fact that he was a Nobel Laureate, the man became a laughing stock in Washington after a few self-argandizing gaffes and campaigning against the fillibuster. He probably would have had a great deal of trouble winning the nomination.
Dawes and Barkley did have an interesting legacy though. Dawes had a frequently paraphrased quip he made in remarks to Barkley, then a Kentucky Senator:
I can only do two things: one is to sit up here and listen to you birds talk, the other is to look at the newspapers every day to see how the president’s health is.
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