Sunday, March 04, 2007

Parlor Games and Trivia: The Next Vice President Is...

Parlor Games and Trivia: The Next Vice President Is...

Iowa Progress says an Iowan's best shot at the White House is Tom Harkin or Chuck Grassley becoming president pro tem of the Senate. Nice post and I add a long rambling comment that now flows over here into a long rambling post.

Iowa's pair of Senators are relatively high seniority, a big change from the Nixon-Ford-Carter era when we had four one term wonders (the order goes Hughes-Culver-Grassley and Clark-Jepsen-Harkin; only Hughes left voluntarily).

But Harkin is all the way down at 11th in seniority among Dems. Senate President pro tem may be Joe Biden's best shot at the presidency - he's #4 in Democratic seniority with 34 years of seniority at only age 64. But he's still a decade behind Ted Kennedy and Hawaii's Dan Inouye. Just-re-elected, 89 year old, longest serving Sentor in history Robert Byrd of West Virginia tops them all.

Yet another tangent: Carl Hayden of Arizona (1927-69) ranked as the longest serving Senator ever for about three decades, but has been passed four times in recent years: by Byrd, Strom Thurmond, Kennedy and Inouye. Kennedy has a couple months on Inouye because he was sworn in early to replace the appointee that JFK engineered into the seat to keep it warm until Teddy turned 30. Hayden still ranks first in combined House plus Senate service but will soon be surpassed by Byrd. Meanwhile John Dingell of Michigan (1955-present) is closing in on Jamie Whitten's House record (1941-94)...

Grassley's all the way up at #7 Republican, and three of those ahead of him (a disgruntled Ted Stevens, the all-but-drooling Pete Domenici, and John Warner who could potentially retire or lose) could be out soon. Grassley and Arlen Specter, by the way, are the last two survivors of the Reagan Republican class of 1980 that gave us such luminaries as Mack Mattingly, John East, Paula Hawkins, Jeremiah Denton, and how can we forget: Dan Quayle. The only freshman Democrat in that class: Chris Dodd, as he noted in his recent Iowa City visit.

But since the 25th Amendment the Senate presidents pro tem succeeding to the presidency is pretty much a King Ralph scenario.

Which leads to my actual point.

If, by some teensy weensy never gonna happen chance, Dick Cheney (a man whose former chief of staff is on trial, whose popularity is at about minus 7 percent, who was the subject of a badly botched assassination attempt last week and who has had four heart attacks) - I know I'm going way out on a limb here - if Dick Cheney does not complete his term - who does Bush pick?

Remember: this choice has to get confirmed by 2/3 a majority of both houses of Congress - both Democratic controlled houses of Congress - in the context of a presidential campaign. Also remember, this person immediately becomes the 2008 GOP frontrunner, and multiple Republican members of Congress are already candidates...

And also also remember that things are much much much more partisan than they were 30 years ago when Ford and Rockefeller were named and if the nominee has said anything in favor of the war the Democrats will turn the vote into a surrogate fight on Iraq, but anyone who has taken any sort of anti-war anti-surge stance will be off Bush's short list.

So who can Bush name that the Dems will see as not a strong candidate, yet respectable enough that they can support (think Jerry Ford as perceived in 1973) and the committed Republicans will see as a weak rival, yet will still have enough credibility and issue acceptability on both sides?

Probably my most tangential post ever. Does anybody want to watch Joan Allen in The Contender? Please comment with responses.

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