The Men who WONT be President.

UPDATED 11/25/12 at 5:34PM accidentally reverted to draft and then republished unchanged excpet for minor punctuation changes. Sorry about that

So I dont know if you noticed, but the 2016 presidential race is underway....or at least the media speculation about the race is underway. To that end your already hearing names tossed around as candidates for both parties in 4 years. On one side youve got Rubio, Christie, Ryan, Jindal and Bush. The other; Cuomo, O'Malley, Clinton and Biden. And over the next two years (Until the race actually starts) your going hear these 8 names  tossed around as political commentators who want you to think they know something with a "years ahead of time prediction" as to who the next president will be in what a ploy to justify their paychecks and self professed importance in the next couple of years.

And you know what, I could do that too. But I'm not going to because it would basically be bullshit I was making up. Instead I'm going to talk about the two names on that list that will likely never ever be president while also dispelling one of the most prevalent political myths of our time (not to mention a personal pet peeve :P).

So which of those 8 names do I believe least likely to ever be president? Joe Biden and Paul Ryan. Why them? simple, both of them either are or ran for Vice President, and despite what the media wants you to think (mostly so they can chew up airtime by discussing the possibilities) being Vice President or even worse the losing VP candidate pretty much assures your political career is over.

Now I know if your conservative or my age or older your probably already screaming "George Bush" or "Pappy Bush" or "Bush senior" at your computer or iPhone as proof that yes the VP can become president.

And yea I admit it happens. In fact 14 out of 44 Presidents have been Vice President. And at first glance the list seems really impressive. Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, A. Johnson, Arthur, T Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, L Johnson, Nixon, Ford, H. W. Bush.  So it seems like Biden would have a 1 in 3 chance.

BUT....watch what happens when we remove all the Vice Presidents turned Presidents who only became president because their predecessor died in office, was assassinated or resigned. Now the list becomes Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, Nixon,  H. W. Bush. So when you look at the VP's who earned their first term via winning an election your down to 5.

BUT...in 1804 congress passed the 12th amendment, which changed the way the Vice President was selected. Prior to 1804 the VP was simply the runner up in the electoral college, meaning if that system was still in place John McCain would be our outgoing VP and Mitt Romney would be our incoming VP. However since 1804 we have used the system of "running mates" that we are a lot more familiar with. This also means to be fair we cant actually count any VP turned president from before 1804 since the system was so radically different. Which means our list is now only Van Buren, Nixon,  H. W. Bush.

BUT...there is another consideration as well. Joe Biden wants [at least according to speculation] to be president immediately after his term as Vice President. Nixon was Eisenhower's Vice President, but although Nixon ran after Eisenhower's term he lost to Kennedy. He would become president only after Kennedy's successor, LBJ left office 10 years later. In other words he failed to do what Biden would have to do, so he's off the list.

Which leaves Van Buren, and H.W. Bush as the only two Vice Presidents to become president as soon as their terms were up. And since Van Buren was president in 1837 and Bush was president in 1989 that should give you some idea of how common that is to even happen.

BUT...there is still one more little difference. I dont know if you know this, but Barack Obama is the 44th president. Joe Biden however is the 47th Vice President. See the reason for this is that, historically its not that uncommon to replace the Vice President between terms, in fact at least 9 presidents have had two VP's, FDR had 3. So it more common then the 3 digit "gap" would make it seem, its just we have had several periods in this country were we didnt have a Vice President, if we had a law requiring a VP at all times, the difference in the numbers would be at lot bigger. Why does that matter? well one of those VP's who was added for the second term only was Van Buren. Meaning that he had only been VP for 4 years before he ran, not 8.

Meaning also that the only 8 year VP turned president directly following his VP term in history is George H.W. Bush. So if your Joe Biden you gotta be honest with yourself those are some really really long odds.

And there is something else to consider too, In my opinion the reason VP's have so much trouble getting elected right after their terms end (cause to be a fair a lot of them run, they just lose, in a lot of cases in the primaries) is because even if people like the direction the incumbent party is going, after 8 years they are tired of the same people calling the shots and want fresh faces, even if they keep the same party. Which probably explains why only 3 former VP's since 1804 have actually served anything close to two terms, that being T Roosevelt, Truman and Nixon. But heres the thing, 2 of them came into office on the death of their predecessor. And the last Nixon was elected 10 years after leaving office and also didnt get to finish out his term.

So no vice president in history has ever actually won 2 terms in office on his own right after being VP. So even if he got elected the odd's look really bad for Biden in the long run.

And what about the other name I said would never be president? that of Paul Ryan? he's doubled screwed.

First Paul Ryan is a member of the US House. In our history we have only ever elected one Congressman directly from the House to the presidency, James A. Garfield. To be fair we have also elected one former Congressman who had not held another national office afterwards to the presidency as well, Abe Lincoln.

Now the good news for Mr. Ryan is both men are republicans and both come from the same part of the country he does (Illinois and Ohio respectively compared to Ryan and Wisconsin) so at least his part of the country is open to nominating Congressmen for president. The bad news for Mr. Ryan is Lincoln and Garfield have one other thing in common as well. Both men were assassinated. So that's probably NOT a great precedent for him.

But more on point this is supposed to about why having just been the VP candidate means Paul Ryan will never be president. And that can be summed in in 3 letters; FDR. See FDR is the only failed VP candidate in history to ever win the presidency (although many have won the nomination). And it should be noted their as massive differences between FDR and Ryan (and I dont just mean their politics).

See FDR lost his bid for the VP in 1920 (alongside James Cox, they lost to Warren G Harding) and became president 12 years later in 1932. Now whats notable is what FDR did in those 12 years. To be fair he spend most of them fighting what was most likely Polio, but he recovered by 1928 and ran for governor of New York and won two terms. Now being governor is a much better predictor of being president then pretty much anything else, as 10 presidents had also been governors prior to their elections (11 given that we tend to count Gover Cleveland twice in the presidential numbering since his terms were not sequential) and another 9 who had been governor at some point previously in their careers. Compare that to Ryan, whos got exactly the same job now he had before he lost, and likely would be in pretty much the same spot in 2 years when 2016 gets started.

Which means short of Paul Ryan resigning from the House next year, so that he can run for Governor of Wisconsin and hold it for half a term so he can resign to be President, with that half term basically given over totally to the presidential campaign, he's basically got no chance in hell historically of winning. And lets be honest, how many of you thought of Sarah Palin more then you did FDR when reading the last sentence? yea that could be a problem for Mr. Ryan even if he tries to do that. In fact if history is any indication Mr. Ryan's career is basically over. He might be able to jump to the senate and possibly some day get a cabinet position but the honest truth is most failed VP candidates who held office at the time they lost the race fade out of politics within a decade.

And one other challenge both these men would share....they are catholic, and fairly or not thats a problem. The first and only Catholic President was JFK, which every one knows, but what you probably don't know is the name of the first catholic VICE president......Joe Biden. So thats just another historic hurdle for them both to deal with

Now of course their is a caveat on all of this, history is a horrible predictor of presidential elections, used to be a black man would never win the white house....until Obama. Used to be you could never become president again if you were voted out of office after one term, till Cleveland. Used to be a sitting congressman could never win, until Garfield, ect ect. So its possible either Ryan or Biden could basically make history and win. I just dont think its remotely likely, and it has nothing to do with what either man believes, as much as what either man has done in his life. The two things Americans don't like is more of the same old shit from the same people, that seems to come with an 8 year tolerance, (which is Biden's problem) and a high profile loser who hasnt done anything different since he lost (Ryan's problem).

Now I dont know who either presidential nominee is going to be (my guess is at least one of the nominees names has not been mentioned so far in this rant) but I can pretty much bet you who it wont be. From now on dont believe the myths, being picked for VP or being VP is NOT the "on deck" position for the White House, instead its the "on deck" for fading into obscurity and never being heard from again.                          .