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2008 United States presidential election

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The 2008 U.S. Presidential election is scheduled to occur on November 4, 2008.

Presidential Candidate Electoral Vote Popular Vote Pct Party Running Mate
(Electoral Votes)
&nbsp
Other elections: 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020
Source: U.S. Office of the Federal Register

The shape of presidential battles

Recent elections have revolved around the dominant Democratic and Republican parties - although many candidates seek election to the presidency, and the Green, Libertarian, and Reform parties, and Ross Perot's 1992 independent candidacy have all arguably been deciding factors in many recent presidential elections by swaying small numbers of votes away from one side and tossing victory to the other.

Situation

The re-election of George W. Bush in 2004 makes the 2008 race a non-incumbent election; that is, one in which a sitting president is not a candidate. Furthermore, the 2008 race will apparently be the first time since 1952 that neither the outgoing president nor the outgoing vice-president is a candidate for president.

In 2008, President Bush will be prohibited from seeking a third term by Amendment XXII to the U.S. Constitution. In the last three eight-year administrations, the incumbent vice president has gone on to run for president at the end of the eight years: Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice president Richard Nixon in the 1960 election, Ronald Reagan's vice president George H. W. Bush in the 1988 election and Bill Clinton's vice president Al Gore in the 2000 election.

However, current Vice President Dick Cheney announced in 2001 that he would never run for President. This has led to rumors that Cheney will be replaced as vice president at some point to establish someone else as an "heir apparent" for the Republicans in 2008; although Cheney was nominated and elected for the vice presidency in the 2004 election, he could still well resign before November 2008. This scenario is perhaps made somewhat more likely by the concurrent retention by the Republicans of both houses of Congress, since Amendment XXV requires the confirmation of any replacement Vice President by both houses of Congress, not just the Senate as is typically the case with Presidential appointees. Regardless, depending on the success or failure of an eight-year Bush presidency, the Republicans would have the option of running a candidate who promised to continue Bush's policy, a candidate who repudiated Bush's policies and promoted a different policy agenda, or someone who followed some but not all of the Bush political platform and agenda.

For the Democrats, the Bush re-election in 2004 gives them a broad freedom to choose a 2008 candidate and platform unencumbered by having their own sitting president seeking re-election. Some leading figures in the Democratic party had anonymously expressed their desire for Bush to be re-elected; because he is one of the most unpopular Republican Presidents amongst Democrats in history, they feel that his second four-year term will lead to spectacular party unity and fundraising success, laying the basis for a powerful Democratic resurgence.

Timeline

Candidates of the Constitution, Democratic, Green, Libertarian, Republican and possibly other parties may begin making their plans known as early as 2005. Based on the 2004 campaign, Presidential candidacies are unlikely to begin in earnest until after the November 2006 mid-term election. If current election laws remain unchanged, a few important dates are already known:

  • 2006-2007 The fundraising race.

Candidates who can raise $30-50 million (or more if they opt out of public finance system like Bush, Kerry and Dean did in 2004) early may have an significant advantage in a crowded field of possibles.

  • 2008

Beginning in January, the first contests are held in Iowa (caucus) and New Hampshire (primary) and perhaps other states. Nomination process unfolds thru at least March and perhaps as late as June. Party conventions in late summer/early fall.

Candidates: The lessons from history

Predictions as to who will be a major party's candidate in the 2008 election are difficult to make. Past selections suggest that the Democrats and Republicans will likely look to a present or former President or Vice-President, a Senator or Representative, or a state Governor. The last candidate from one of the two major parties who had not previously served in one of the elective offices listed above was General Dwight D. Eisenhower who won the Republican nomination and ultimately the presidency in the 1952 election.

It should be noted that although Representatives and Cabinet members have frequently run in their party's primaries, they have rarely been nominated in the 20th century. Furthermore, most Senators nominated have served at least one full term, and often in a leadership capacity, before being considered prominent enough to become a serious contender for their party's nomination.

In recent years, electoral success has favored state governors. Of the last five Presidents (Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush), only George H.W. Bush was never Governor of a state. Geographically, these Presidents were all from either very large states (California, Texas) or from a state south of the Mason-Dixon Line and east of Texas (Georgia, Arkansas). The last elected President from a northern state was John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts in 1960; he was also the last sitting U.S. Senator elected President.

A major turnover in each of these offices will occur in gubernatorial and congressional elections due in 2006, which could see new potential challengers emerging or present challengers facing new circumstances.

Among the past upsets and unexpected candidates were the following:

  • Abraham Lincoln was a little-known Congressman from Illinois when he arrived in New York City for the Republican Convention in 1860. His speech at the Cooper Union immediately catapulted him into the nomination. The photographs of him taken by Matthew Brady in his signature tophat before his speech were distributed to newspapers around the country, making him an instant nationwide celebrity. The current nominating process makes convention surprises like this extremely unlikely.
  • Warren G. Harding was a little-known U.S. Senator from Ohio before receiving the Republican nomination in presidential election of 1920. Considered the last true "dark horse" candidate, he emerged from complete obscurity to become president in less than six months.
  • Calvin Coolidge was a little-known one-term governor of Massachusetts leading up to the presidential election of 1920. Following a deadlock at the 1920 Republican National Convention, he received the nomination after a delegate from Oregon shouted his name out into the crowd. After Harding's death in 1923, Coolidge received the nomination and easily won re-election in the presidential election of 1924.
  • Many people predicted that the presidential election of 1936 would be a close election, in part due to what was expected to be a strong challenge from the left by William Lemke and the short-lived Union Party, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Kansas Governor Alfred M. Landon in a landslide.
  • In 1944, Harry S. Truman was a little known U.S. Senator from Missouri. Picked by Franklin Roosevelt to replace the increasingly radical Henry Wallace as Vice President, Truman still languished in near complete obscurity during the first months of his term as Vice President and was never once invited to the White House by Roosevelt. Immediately after Roosevelt's death, Truman was catapulted into the Presidency. Later he was widely predicted to lose the presidential election of 1948, with Governor Thomas Dewey seen as the certain victor. This prediction, however, was largely based on telephone polling at a time when there was still a statistically very significant proportion of the population who did not have telephones, and who generally favored Truman.
  • Most Republican insiders, and many other observers, in 1952 felt that "Mr. Republican" Robert Taft would easily turn back the challenge of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, previously an apolitical soldier who had never so much as even voted; however it was "Ike", not Taft, who went on the the Republican presidential nomination and won subsequent election.
  • In 1964 it seemed to many that Senator Barry Goldwater would be too conservative to make major inroads into the ensconced "regular" Republican apparatus that had governed the party for generations. This perception was enhanced when the 1964 New Hampshire primary was won by Henry Cabot Lodge in a write-in campaign largely orchestrated by the Manchester Union-Leader. However, Goldwater came back to swamp his rivals, notably Nelson Rockefeller, in the later primaries and then withstood a "Anybody But Goldwater" movement which coalesced around Pennsylvania governor William Scranton in the runup to the 1964 Republican National Convention, and Goldwater received the nomination, but was swamped by Lyndon Johnson in the general election.
  • Following his defeat in the 1960 election, few imagined that Richard Nixon would become the Republican nominee, let alone the Republican victor, in the 1968 election, nor were they prepared for the shock assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy and the decision of President Lyndon Johnson to drop out of the 1968 race. These events resulted in an electoral battle that no one had expected. In mid-1967 the conventional wisdom was that Michigan governor George Romney would be the Republican nominee, or that New York governor Nelson Rockerfeller would finally be successful in obtaining the nomination on his third attempt. It hardly seemed likely that Romney would drop out of the race in December, 1967, three months before the first primary was held in New Hampshire, or that Rockefeller would again be overwhelmed in the primaries by the unsucessful nominee from eight years prior. Later the "convention wisdom" became that George Wallace, Democratic governor of Alabama running for President on the ticket of his self-created American Independent Party, would carry most or all of the eleven states of the old Confederacy, probably forcing the election into the United States House of Representatives and becoming something of a "kingmaker" who could make strong demands upon the major party candidates in exchange for Southern support. However, in the end he wound up receiving only about 13% of the popular vote and 46 electoral votes, which was not enough to force the election into the House or otherwise disrupt anything about Nixon's plurality popular vote win and large Electoral College majority.
  • In 1972, it was widely predicted that the 1972 Democratic nominee would be either 1968 vice presidential nominee Edmund S. Muskie or his old boss, 1968 Democratic presidential nominee Hubert H. Humphrey. Few thought that it would be George McGovern, a Senator from a state with only three electoral votes (South Dakota) which usually supported Republicans in presidential elections, and who was little-known by the public at large outside of Democratic Party inner circles until the 1972 primary season.
  • After the 1972 election, few could have predicted that the 1976 presidential election would involve Congressman Gerald Ford, who suddenly became Vice President and then President after the resignations of Vice President Spiro Agnew and President Nixon. Likewise, Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter was largely unknown politician prior to his 1976 run, and not expected to be a large player in the race. In fact, the announcement that he was running was met with yawns by most political pundits and the mainstream media of the time, and this perception did not change until his upset win in the Iowa caucuses. Conversely Senator Edward Kennedy was widely predicted as destined to be the Democratic candidate in either 1976 or 1980. However, after the depth to which the 1969 Chappaquiddick scandal had damaged his credibity with much of the public at large, including many Democratic primary voters, at least those outside of Massachusetts, became readily apparent, Kennedy's name was taken off the table temporarily. After an attempt to seek the Democratic nomination in the 1980 election revealed just the depth to which this scandal and the damage it had done to his reputation had lingered, and the general public's perception of him of being, unlike his brothers, an "ultraliberal", Kennedy has never again sought the presidency.
  • Gary Hart was a little-known U.S. Senator from Colorado at the time he lauched his bid in 1983. Few political commentators had been prepared for the initial shock of Hart beating former Vice President Walter Mondale in the 1984 New Hampshire Primary and challenging Mondale for the Democratic nomination. Hart was later considered a frontrunner for the 1988 Democratic nomination before the Donna Rice affair in 1987.
  • Michael Dukakis was not widely predicted to be candidate for the 1988 election until his challenge was launched.
  • After the 1988 election, Bill Clinton (then Governor of Arkansas) was not regarded as serious contender for the 1992 election. His long-winded and widely ridiculed opening night address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention was generally thought to destroyed whatever small amount of credibility he might have possessed at the national level. At the time, many people believed that New York governor Mario Cuomo would be Democratic candidate in 1992. When the Gennifer Flowers affair was then exposed in early 1992, it was at first assumed that it would destroy Clinton's chance for the nomination in the same way that the Donna Rice affair had destroyed those of Gary Hart five years previously.
  • Paul Tsongas, Bill Clinton's main challenger for the 1992 nomination, was a little known former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts at the start of the 1992 campaign.
  • George H. W. Bush was seen by many as unbeatable in the year prior to the 1992 presidential election due to his record approval ratings in the wake of the Gulf War.
  • Howard Dean, former governor of the small state of Vermont, was not considered a serious contender when he launched his bid in 2003. Conversely, he later held commanding leads in both fundraising and opinion polls during the months prior to the Democratic primaries in the 2004 presidential election, but his campaign fizzled after stunning surges from John Kerry and John Edwards in the weeks prior to the earliest primaries.

The failure of front-runners like Edward Kennedy, Mario Cuomo and Howard Dean to win their parties' nominations, and unexpected victories like those of Harry Truman, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, show that any predictions made will have to be tentative.

Conversely, early serious contenders (excluding sitting presidents) who turned back their challengers and later went on to receive their party's nomination as expected include:

  • Herbert Hoover in 1928. Although never elected to office, he had served as Secretary of Commerce and was widely known as an "engineering genius" for his relief efforts in Europe in World War I. He was widely considered as Coolidge's heir apparent who would continue the prosperity of the 1920s.
  • Thomas Dewey in 1944. Although he had lost to Franklin Roosevelt in the waning days of World War II in 1944, he was later considered the frontrunner for the nomination in 1948.
  • Adlai Stevenson in 1956. He had been the nominee in 1952, losing to Dwight Eisenhower.
  • Richard Nixon in 1960, the sitting Vice President.
  • John F. Kennedy in 1960. Although not considered the frontrunner in part because of his relative youth (many thought Stevenson would win a third nomination), he was widely considered to be a possible candidate at some point. His victory over Hubert Humphrey in the West Virginia primary established him as a serious candidate to challenge party insider Lyndon Johnson, who later became Kennedy's Vice President.
  • Hubert Humphrey in 1968, the sitting Vice President. His most serious challenger, Robert Kennedy, entered the race late but was assassinated after winning the California Primary less than two months before the convention.
  • Ronald Reagan in 1980. He had mounted a serious and hard-fought challenge to Gerald Ford in 1976. Early in the campaign, however, few anticipated his landslide victory over Jimmy Carter.
  • Walter Mondale in 1984, former Vice President, who turned back the unexpected challenge from Gary Hart.
  • George H.W. Bush in 1988, the sitting Vice President. Although he received an early challenge from televangelist Pat Robertson, he drive for the nomination was never seriously threatened.
  • Al Gore in 2000, the sitting Vice President, who turned back a challenge from Senator Bill Bradley.
  • George W. Bush in 2000. His early heavyweight status was based partly on name recognition. He received the lion's share of early fundraising support in the Republican Party in 1999 and later turned back a serious challenge from John McCain to seal the nomination on Super Tuesday in March 2000.
  • John F. Kerry in 2004. His early frontrunner status was due to several factors: his lengthy Senate career, his inclusion in 2000 on Al Gore's VP "short list", and his well-known military service in Vietnam. In the pre-voting, fundraising phase of the primary process, his campaign stalled and Vermont Governor Howard Dean became the leading candidate in the eyes of the media and many enthusiastic volunteers. Kerry reshuffled his campaign staff, won the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, and almost every primary thereafter.

Potential candidates for 2008

These lists are inherently speculative. Each candidate listed carries both strengths and deficits; a candidate may be much younger than the typical presidential candidate, or older, or may have some weakness (or overweight) in senior-level political experience, national, foreign or domestic experience, or executive leadership experience. Some candidates may be seen as especially liberal for a presidential candidate, others as especially conservative. These are not lists of the most "mainstream" or "electable" candidates alone. As much as possible, potential candidates listed are among those who could mount reasonably high-profile campaigns for their party's nomination, or independent candidacies as applicable.

Democrats

Republicans

Greens

Libertarians

Other parties and independents

It is also conceivable that a candidate for a major party nomination that did not win that nomination might seek the presidency as an other party or independent candidate; contemporary examples include John Anderson, Republican nomination candidate and Independent general election candidate in the 1980 election, and Buchanan, Republican nomination candidate and then Reform Party general election candidate in the 2000 election.

Possible Constitutional amendments

There has been some discussion recently of amending the Constitution to remove the absolute requirement that only natural-born citizens may become President. If such a change occurred in time for the 2008 elections, possible candidates who are naturalized citizens would include Democratic Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, born in Canada, Democratic former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, born in Czechoslovakia, and Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, born in Austria.

The possible repeal or amendment of Amendment XXII has also come under some discussion. One proposal would allow a President to serve only two consecutive terms but seek to return after a respite. The only living former president who has served two terms is Bill Clinton. If sentiments across party lines looked favorably on a contest between George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in 2012 (when both men would be 66) or a later date, a change to this term limit might find support.

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