Why pay for a newspaper, or watch ads on TV, when you can get the same caliber of information here for nothing? Anyway…
It occurred to me at dinner this evening that 2008 is the first time both members of either party’s presidential ticket came from west of the Rocky Mountains (as defined by where the candidate is registered to vote, or has previously held elective office).
When I mentioned this to my wife she asked when would have been the first time even one of the people on a major party’s presidential ticket came from west of the Rockies. I was able to rattle off a number of elections from just the last 60 years in which a California Republican was on the ticket (Nixon five times, Reagan twice), but after some more thought I hit upon this guy, though the Republican Party was not yet “major” in 1856.
Next (he said, after some very light research) came 1860, when the Southern splinter of the Democratic Party nominated Sen. Joseph Lane of Oregon to be vice-president. That was the one and only time a Democrat from west of the Rockies was ever on any Democratic ticket.
I remember reading somewhere that Herbert Hoover, with his ties to Stanford University, was considered to be “from California” when he sought and won the presidency in 1928, but I can’t find any corroboration without doing deeper research.
Next came 1940, when midwesterner Wendell Willkie shared the ticket with vice-presidential nominee Sen. Charles McNary of Oregon, followed by 1948 when California Gov. Earl Warren was running-mate to unsuccessful Republican presidential nominee, New York Gov. Tom “the groom on a wedding cake” Dewey. In fact, from 1940 until now there were only four presidential elections in which someone from west of the Rockies was not on the Republican ticket: 1944, 1976, 1992 and 1996 (unless I’m mistaken, Vice President Cheney’s legal residence has been in Teton County, Wyoming, which is west of the continental divide). Until 2000, only California, Oregon and Arizona had ever offered a west-of-the-Rockies candidate for national office, and only California had ever succeeded. <update and correction> I missed 1988! There was no one from west of the Rockies on either party’s ticket that year either. My apologies. </update and correction>
Also of interest is the number of presidential elections, since either party began holding nominating conventions, that has seen at least one of the major parties with at least one candidate on the ticket being from a then- or former slave state.
Democrats have had both members from such states in 1836, 1840, 1948, 1992 and 1996. Republicans, never. The years in which no candidate on either party’s ticket came from a then- or former slave state covers every election year but one (1904) between 1876 and 1924, after which only 1940 has not seen at least one candidate from a former slave state (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri all qualify, though they never seceded. West Virginia, having been part of slave state Virginia before 1863, is also included) on at least one of the two tickets.
Yes, Joe Biden is this year’s representative of a former slave state.
And that concludes tonight’s edition of Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know, and Were Quite Content in Not Knowing.
