Second-prize for the presidential race

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2007-11-20 12:42am

If I remember my history correctly, candidate who took second (lost) in a presidential race would be given the vice-presidency. Now that we've done away with that, I have to wonder if it isn't time to bring it back. Even if a guy loses, there's still a significant portion of the country that voted for him. Their views and opinions get tossed out the window, since the prevailing wisdom seems to be "The majority of the public voted for this guy's agenda, so this is the only agenda."

In such a polarized country, it seems ridiculous to just discard almost 50% of the nation's population. Should we resume the practice of giving the second-place candidate the vice-presidency? Should we restrict this positional grant based on the candidate's popular vote, i.e. he only gets the vice-presidency if he gets more than 40% of the popular vote?

Ritterin Sophia · Post by **Ritterin Sophia** » 2007-11-20 12:56am

Yes, such an arrangement would certainly have stopped more than a couple disasters over these past six years.

Phantasee · Post by **Phantasee** » 2007-11-20 01:20am

Can you point me to where I can find sources that show how this worked? As well as when, of course.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2007-11-20 01:31am

I went with 'no'. For every time a horrid President gets elected and a great VP would get sworn in, there would probably be a great President and a shit VP.

Can you fucking imagine a Clinton/Guiliani situation?

Then we have somewhat whacko (yet still plausible) scenarios in which the winner might die a sudden and suspicious death hours after taking office...

Just... No.

NetKnight · Post by **NetKnight** » 2007-11-20 01:38am

While this initially seems a fine idea, there are two major problems with it. The first: ‘accidents’ happen, and this would create a huge incentive for such an accident to happen to the president. Imagine, for example, a 2000 election where Dubya lost to Gore. Given the types of people who would like to see Vice President Bush in the Oval Office, what odds would you give on President Gore’s life?

The second objection is more philosophical, but I would argue just as just as valid. As broken as the electoral system is, how is it at all fair to make the person that the majority of the country rejected the successor to the president? Consider the argument that a VP Gore would be a good thing and reverse it: would you want VP Bush a heartbeat away from the presidency? One may just as validly establish a monarchy with a trustworthy royal to prevent a Bush from being elected: which also creates more problems then it solves

Alan Bolte · Post by **Alan Bolte** » 2007-11-20 01:40am

I'd like to point out that the vice president's only official duty - the only one the President can't take away from him - is to preside over and break ties in the Senate. Until recently, the Vice Presidency was a real do-nothing position. The only thing that could possibly be gained by making the runner up the Vice President is making it a tiny bit easier to replace a President by impeachment.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2007-11-20 01:45am

Durandal wrote:If I remember my history correctly, candidate who took second (lost) in a presidential race would be given the vice-presidency. Now that we've done away with that, I have to wonder if it isn't time to bring it back. Even if a guy loses, there's still a significant portion of the country that voted for him. Their views and opinions get tossed out the window, since the prevailing wisdom seems to be "The majority of the public voted for this guy's agenda, so this is the only agenda."

In such a polarized country, it seems ridiculous to just discard almost 50% of the nation's population. Should we resume the practice of giving the second-place candidate the vice-presidency? Should we restrict this positional grant based on the candidate's popular vote, i.e. he only gets the vice-presidency if he gets more than 40% of the popular vote?

The reason this was really important is it automatically gave the runner-up a tie-breaking vote as the Vice President of the United States is also President of the Senate of the United States. I think that a running mate should succeed his partner in the line of succession, but perhaps we should constitutionally separate the Presidency of the Senate from the Vice Presidency, and give the former some other oversight and other duties, and award it to the runner-up, while reforming the Vice Presidency and retaining it for the running-mate.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2007-11-20 01:46am

Alan Bolte wrote:I'd like to point out that the vice president's only official duty - the only one the President can't take away from him - is to preside over and break ties in the Senate. Until recently, the Vice Presidency was a real do-nothing position. The only thing that could possibly be gained by making the runner up the Vice President is making it a tiny bit easier to replace a President by impeachment.

Damn, could you imagine that? The party in power in the legislative branch cheerfully impeaching a President of the opposing party simply because they know the next guy in line is their guy?

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2007-11-20 02:59am

Flagg wrote:
Alan Bolte wrote:I'd like to point out that the vice president's only official duty - the only one the President can't take away from him - is to preside over and break ties in the Senate. Until recently, the Vice Presidency was a real do-nothing position. The only thing that could possibly be gained by making the runner up the Vice President is making it a tiny bit easier to replace a President by impeachment.
Damn, could you imagine that? The party in power in the legislative branch cheerfully impeaching a President of the opposing party simply because they know the next guy in line is their guy?

I certainly could. Imagine if, assuming they successfully impeached Clinton or got him discredited badly enough, they would have gotten a Republican in the white house? There would have been assassins instead of Starr in that room.

While I like the idea of the VP being from the other party, I think it causes too many problems at the moment to consider it. There should be a variety of counterbalance, but really I don't trust the political parties at the moment whatsoever. It would be different if they merely had different political objectives, but the Republicans have done some amazingly awful stuff, and I have to imagine that the democrats are not squeaky either, since I just assume it goes tit-for-tat sometimes.

I'd rather see this happen in terms of political appointments and such... but our current system is a rather unrefined parliment, and I'm just kind frustrated by the all-or-nothing system and the wars of office it causes.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Second-prize for the presidential race

Should the second-place candidate in a presidential race be given the vice-presidency?

Second-prize for the presidential race

Re: Second-prize for the presidential race