Political Questions You Were Afraid to Ask
DETROIT – Sometimes presidential campaigns are exciting from the start. Remember the epic battle for the Democratic nomination between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2008?
Sometimes, of course they can be a complete yawner, like the 1996 contest between President Bill Clinton and Republican Bob Dole. It was so boring that fewer than half the eligible voters bothered to show up to vote.
So far this year, there has been little excitement, and no sign anything can stop what seems like the inevitable renomination of the two oldest nominees in history, President Joe Biden for the Democrats and former President Donald Trump for the Republicans.
But you never can tell.
Don’t worry. I am not going to write a column today about that race and the issues. You can find any number of those. Instead, I am going to explore some things that you may have thought about … but were afraid to ask.
What if one of the candidates suddenly dies? That may be a ghoulish question, but is a legitimate one. Biden is 81. Trump will be 78 this June, is considerably overweight, and has a famously unhealthy diet.
The answer would depend on when that happened. If the candidate were to die before the nominating conventions (Republicans in Milwaukee in July; Democrats in Chicago in August) their delegates would be free to vote for whomever they liked
This actually happened in 1968, when Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June, the night he won the California Democratic primary. He had won hundreds of delegates, many of whom cast protest votes for George McGovern at that year’s August convention.
What if the candidate were to die, or become permanently incapacitated, after being nominated?
Naturally, if President Biden were to die or step down before the election, Vice-President Kamala Harris would become President until Jan. 20, 2025. But that would not necessarily mean she would be the party’s presidential candidate this November.
The Democratic National Committee, which consists of slightly more than 400 party leaders from every state, would meet, vote, and select a candidate. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, herself a potential candidate, is vice chair of the committee.
Much the same would happen if Trump were to die, say, in October. The Republican National Committee, which has currently about 168 members, would choose a candidate.
Some are calling on President Biden to drop out of the race now because of his age. If he did, would the vice-president automatically be the nominee? Could he designate a successor as the candidate for president?
The answers are no, and no.
If President Biden were to announce today that he isn’t running, at least half a dozen other candidates would immediately begin jostling for the job. They would probably start attacking each other, providing lots of damaging video clips for gleeful Republicans to use in the general election campaign.
This is one reason many Democrats want the President to stay in the race; he’s a known quantity, and he’s beaten Trump before.
What if one of the candidates died after the election but before the Electoral College met?
This actually has happened. Horace Greeley died a few weeks after losing the 1872 presidential election to U.S. Grant. Officially, then and now, the Democratic National Committee could have designated a substitute candidate, but since Greeley lost badly, they didn’t bother, and his electors voted for various different people.
However, things would be far more interesting if a candidate won the election and then died before the Electoral College voted.
Were that to happen to the Democrats this time, new President Harris would almost certainly be chosen. But what if Trump won and then died? Would his choice as vice-president get the nod?
If Trump is convicted before the election, can he still run? Could he still serve as President, if he wins?
Earlier this month, Donald Trump was ordered to stand trial beginning March 25 on criminal charges in a Manhattan case stemming from alleged hush money payments to a porn star.
Constitutional experts agree he certainly could run. Eugene Debs, the leader of the American Socialist Party, ran from federal prison in 1912 and got six percent of the vote.
But could Trump be convicted of a felony, even jailed, and serve as president? That’s more murky.
It seems clear that’s something those who wrote the Constitution in 1787 never imagined. Almost certainly, the U.S. Supreme Court would end up deciding the issue. Finally, since so much of this seems absurd …
Twenty years ago, nobody could have imagined a time when we faced a choice of presidential candidates anywhere near this old. Nor would did we dream someone could run while facing multiple trials for dozens of felonies. So it seems only fair to ask whether the most popular person in America could legally be elected instead.
The answer is … yes. Taylor Swift will be 35, and so constitutionally eligible, December 13, four days before the Electoral College meets. Just don’t tell anyone.
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(Editor’s Note: A version of this column also appeared in the Toledo Blade.)
