The History of Sacred Cows
America has recently been experiencing that most unusual of political phenomena: something that is more than rare, it is a once-in-a-century event. In fact, it has been a long time coming, since it hasn't happened since the Titanic sank in 1912.
We're talking about past and present presidents of the United States going head to head in an election.
The 2024 election campaign will be unlike anything that has happened in our lifetimes. It will be a grudge match that will go down in history, a repeat of 2020 that will likely end either with Donald Trump winning like Grover Cleveland (with two nonconsecutive terms) or with Joe Biden becoming the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to defeat the same opponent twice in a row.
What makes this situation so remarkable is that very few former presidents get the chance to return to their jobs after leaving the White House, and the few attempts that have been made have failed.
Take Ulysses S. Grant, for example. Having won the Civil War, he comfortably assumed the presidency in 1868. Though Grant was personally honest, he made the mistake of surrounding himself with dishonest people. His administration was as corrupt as Swiss cheese. After leaving office at the end of his second term, he and his wife went on a highly publicized trip around the world. Upon returning home, he decided to give it another go.
But the aging general faced a major obstacle. All previous presidents had followed George Washington's example and served no more than two terms. Grant was seeking a third term. None of the scandals of his previous term had affected him personally, and he was close to achieving three presidencies. After 36 tough votes, the delegates to the Republican Convention finally elected James Garfield.
Another ousted Republican desperately wanted a second chance. Herbert Hoover was elected president in 1928, but was unlucky enough to see the Wall Street Crash the following year and the onset of the Great Depression the year after that — not the kind of events that make a presidential record look good. Voters ousted Hoover from the White House doors in 1932 and installed Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt (who would go on to be elected four more times, breaking Washington's tradition of two terms).
Hoover, like President Grant, was itching to get the presidency again, but Republicans were not. Though they sympathized with Hoover personally, they had no desire to side with him politically again. After trying for the nomination in 1936, Hoover did try again in 1940, receiving only the support of 17 delegates and a warm round of applause at the party convention.
Martin Van Buren and Millard Fillmore ran again before the Civil War, but both were defeated badly.
But the origins of the presidential comeback attempt date back to 1912. And it was awesome.
After William McKinley was assassinated in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt inherited the presidency and was elected president in his own right in 1904. Then, in a move that still baffles historians, he did something incredibly stupid: in an excited moment on election night, Roosevelt blurted out that he wouldn't run for reelection in 1908. When this became public knowledge, the man who probably loved being president more than anyone had no choice but to cede power to someone else.
His hand-picked successor, William H. Taft, was easily elected, but there was a problem: Roosevelt was a progressive and Taft a conservative, and the two men soon parted ways, ending a close personal friendship and deeply hurting Taft in the process.
Teddy challenged his former best friend Taft for the nomination in 1912. Taft controlled the Republican Party machine and had no trouble winning the nomination, so, in typical Teddy fashion, he left the Republican Party to run as a third-party Progressive candidate (nicknamed the Bull Moose).
This split the Republican vote, allowing progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson to win a narrow victory.
In fact, Roosevelt was preparing to run for president again in 1920 (and had made significant reconciliations within the Republican Party, including a personal reconciliation with Taft), when he died of a heart attack in his sleep in early 1919.
As the incumbent president prepares to face off against his predecessor in 2024, the Republican Party is hobbled by a legion of Never-Trumpers, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is growing increasingly angry at the party's standard-bearer, and a slew of independent candidates (most notably Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) are roaming the fringes of both camps.
What will happen on election night? It's hard to predict. But one thing is for sure: Once we know the results, we'll need to keep our history books handy, because they'll need to be updated.
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