Who Wants To Be Vice President?

Dr. Patrick Cox of the University of Texas at Austin had this to say about former Vice President John Nance Garner regarding the position of Vice President.  “When it comes to commentary about the office of vice president of the United States, no statement is more repeated than John Nance Garner’s observation that the office “is not worth a bucket of warm spit.”  Garner served Franklin D. Roosevelt as Vice President during Roosevelt’s first two terms.  Garner never became President of the United States.  Only 14 Vice Presidents have become President of the United States.  The last being George HW Bush, who served as Vice President under Ronald Reagan (1981-1989).  Bush became President in 1989 and served until 1993.  He lost to Bill Clinton for re-election in 1992.  Clinton’s Vice President, Al Gore, was the last Vice President to unsuccessfully run for President.  Gore lost to then-Governor George W. Bush in 2000.

Why haven’t there been more Vice Presidents who have become President?

 

Push Polling En Vogue in South Carolina

During last year’s election cycle, we all were inundated by public opinion polls that supposedly gauged how people were going to vote for President, Senate, House, and Governor.  In each of these cases, scientific polls were conducted to get those poll results. When you see polling companies such as Gallup, Rasmussen, Pew and the like, you know that the poll is credible.  You may not agree with their findings, but what you do get at the very least is a scientific method used to gather information.  The practice of push polling, however, is not credible and certainly not scientific.

A push poll is not a real poll.  In fact, those who conduct a push poll are not concerned about the data gleaned from their surveys.  A push poll is conducted in an automated fashion over the phone.  The goal of a push poll is to put a rumor or false inference in the mind of the person who answered the phone.  It designed to sway voters from one candidate to another.  To the untrained voter, they may believe the push poll is a scientific poll.  However, scientific polls usually do not ask questions such as, “Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain…if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?”

(Photo:  AP Photo)

This question was asked of primary voters in South Carolina in 2000 regarding then-Presidential candidate John McCain and his non-Caucasian daughter.  The daughter was not black, nor was she illegitimate.  She just happened to be adopted from Bangladesh.  Using such racially coded language could stir up emotions in voters from a state such as South Carolina.

Supporters of then-Governor George W. Bush were have said to be the source of the McCain question.  Those who engage in push polling typically do not leave their calling card as to the identification of the push poll’s source.  They are negative in nature and are designed to destroy political campaigns.  The voter who answers the phone is left questioning the validity of what they just heard.  Push polls are not valid in any shape or form.

With a special election taking place this March, the voters in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District are now receiving push poll phone calls regarding a few of the candidates.  This Real Clear Politics story elaborates a little more on push polling in the 1st Congressional District and on the practice of push polling itself.  For a list of the candidates running for the seat once held by newly appointed US Senator Tim Scott (R), look no further than this site.

After reading the RCP story, what are your thoughts in regards to push polls?

Incumbent Presidential Vote Totals

President Barack Obama, as of this post, received 60,892,345 popular votes in his Presidential re-election bid.  This was down from the 69 million votes+ he received in 2008.  This is not the first time an incumbent President who was   re-elected for another term received fewer popular votes in his next go around than in his previous election.  The last that this happened was in 1944 when Franklin D. Roosevelt received fewer votes in his fourth bid for the Presidency than in his third.  The last time before that?  Roosevelt once again in 1940.  Here are the victorious incumbent Presidents and their popular vote totals in back to back elections.

Andrew Jackson

1828:  642,533; 1832:  701,780

Abraham Lincoln

1860:  1,855,593; 1864:  2,218,388

Ulysses S. Grant

1868:  3,013,790; 1872:  3,598,235

William McKinley

1896:  7,102,246; 1900:  7,228,864

Woodrow Wilson

1912:  6,296,284; 1916:  9,126,868

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1932:  22,821,277; 1936:  27,752,648; 1940:  27,313,945; 1944:  25,612,916

Dwight D. Eisenhower

1952:  34,075,529; 1956:  35,579,180

Richard Nixon

1968:  31,783,783; 1972:  47,168,710

Ronald Reagan

1980:  43,903,230; 1984:  54,455,472

Bill Clinton

1992:  44,909,806; 1996:  47,400,125

George W. Bush

2000:  50,460,110; 2004:  62,040,610

Barack Obama

2008:  69,498,215; 2012:  60,892,345

What accounts for the drop in Obama’s total from 2012 to 2008?