Consequences of The Death of A President
Elections have acquired much of the mass media publicity system used for entertainment, but a ticket is not a "buddy picture." Although the vice presidency has only rarely been an office with real political significance, several times American presidents have died in office, either through assassinations or natural causes. These conditions reveal the merits and failures of having a running mate to balance the ticket instead of calling a snap election, as other countries do.
Abraham Lincoln's running mate, Andrew Johnson, was a southerner who did not share values with the Radical Republicans, so Reconstruction started with Lincoln's point of view being expressed by a southern democrat. William McKinley, an old school pro-business republican, was succeeded by the young, energetic Theodore Roosevelt who actively championed anti-trust laws. Twice in the twentieth century there were vice presidents who followed the heritage of their departed presidents as well as one could expect. Harry S. Truman continued Franklin Delano Roosevelt's policies, and Lyndon Baines Johnson accomplished more in the same general areas than John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In 2008, the selection of the conservative Sarah Palin by moderate senator John McCain damaged the ticket, as people were concerned that the 72-year-old McCain might not live out his term.
Read more about this topic: Ticket Balance
Famous quotes containing the words consequences of, consequences, death and/or president:
“The consequences of our actions grab us by the scruff of our necks, quite indifferent to our claim that we have “gotten better” in the meantime.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“[As teenager], the trauma of near-misses and almost- consequences usually brings us to our senses. We finally come down someplace between our parents’ safety advice, which underestimates our ability, and our own unreasonable disregard for safety, which is our childlike wish for invulnerability. Our definition of acceptable risk becomes a product of our own experience.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)
“Your father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“On the whole, yes, I would rather be the Chief Justice of the United States, and a quieter life than that which becomes at the White House is more in keeping with the temperament, but when taken into consideration that I go into history as President, and my children and my children’s children are the better placed on account of that fact, I am inclined to think that to be President well compensates one for all the trials and criticisms he has to bear and undergo.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)