U.S. presidential election, 2008

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2004

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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 2008 election for President of the United States is scheduled to occur November 4, 2008.

Contents

The shape of presidential battles

Though many candidates seek election to the presidency, recent elections have revolved around the dominant Democratic and Republican parties, though the Green, Libertarian, and Reform parties have all been deciding factors in the last three presidential elections. The outcome of the 2004 presidential election will begin shaping the nature of the 2008 race, the selection of candidates, the central issues, and the policy platforms.

Scenarios

Generally speaking, there are two scenarios for the 2004 election and beyond that will shape the outlook for the 2008 election: a victory for George W. Bush versus a defeat. There is, of course, a third scenario that covers all other possibilities, such as catastrophe, assassination, or other improbable events, but the nature of their unpredictability makes it difficult for any useful analyses.

Scenario 1: A Bush victory in 2004

The re-election of George W. Bush in 2004 would produce a non-incumbent election; that is, one in which a sitting president is not a candidate. In 2008, Bush would be constitutionally prohibited from seeking a third term by Amendment XXII to the U.S. Constitution. In several previous eight-year administrations, the incumbent vice president has gone on to run for president at the end of the eight years (for example, 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 Richard Cheney announced in 2001 that he would never run for President, making him the first Vice President since Spiro Agnew to have no presidential ambition. 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. Regardless, depending on the success or otherwise of eight years of the Bush presidency, the Republicans would have the option of running a candidate promising 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, a Bush election in 2004 would give them in 2008 a broad freedom to choose a candidate and platform unencumbered by having their own sitting president seeking re-election, should he choose to seek re-election in 2008.

Scenario 2: A Bush defeat in 2004

A defeat for sitting president George W. Bush would change the shape of the 2008 election profoundly. Whoever had been the Democratic candidate and was now the incumbent president would have four years to shape public policy and would be the likely candidate for the party, should he choose to run, in 2008. In practical terms, it would mean that defeated Democratic candidates in 2004, and those who chose not to enter the race, could well find themselves having to focus their presidential ambitions on the 2012 election rather than 2008, by which time new party figures, congressmen, senators and governors, might have eclipsed them in profile. A victory for John Kerry or John Edwards in the 2004 presidential election could end the prospects of Hillary Clinton becoming a candidate in 2008. By 2012, her presidential prospects might have been overshadowed by newer Democratic politicians.

For Bush, a defeat would open up the prospect, if he chose, of seeking to become the party candidate in 2008. However, no ex-president since Teddy Roosevelt has sought the office after leaving it, and in the entire history of the United States Grover Cleveland is the only president to successfully "win back" his office after losing it. Bush's defeat in 2004 could enable the Republicans to adopt a policy platform dramatically different from his in the 2008 election. Without an incumbent candidate for president, Republicans would have wide freedom in nominating their 2008 candidate. Regardless, the Republican party would likely be galvanized in opposition to the policies of four years of a Democratic president.

Timeline

Candidates of the Democratic, Green, Libertarian, Republican and possibly other parties will begin making their plans known in early 2005.

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 selection processes suggest that the Democrats and Republicans will choose from someone who has held major elective office in one of the following:

  1. The presidency or vice presidency
  2. The Senate
  3. The House of Representatives
  4. Governor of a state

The last candidate from 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.

A major turnover in each of these offices will occur in presidential, gubernatorial, and congressional elections due in 2004, 2006, and 2008, with as a result many new potential rivals possibly emerging to challenge big name politicians seen as of 2003 as potential candidates in the 2008 race. In particular a landslide victory in any of the elections could give either big party a new slate of politicians in public office interested in seeking the presidency or vice-presidency in 2008. Equally a disastrous national defeat could see some big name politicians losing their jobs, they then opting for the presidency in an attempt to rehabilitate their reputation as electoral successes, a path followed by Richard Nixon following his defeat by John F. Kennedy in 1960.

Among the past upsets and unexpected candidates were the following:

  • President Harry S. Truman was widely predicted to lose the 1948 election, with Thomas Dewey seen as the certain victor. However, this was based on telephone polling at a time when there was a statistically very significant proportion of the population who did not have telephones, and who generally favoured Truman.
  • 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. The assassination, dropping out, and re-entering of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, respectively, threw up an electoral battle that was unexpected by anyone.
  • In the 1972, Senator Edward Kennedy was widely predicted as destined to be the Democratic candidate in either 1976 or 1980. In fact, after a shortlived attempt to seek the Democratic nomination in the 1980 election, Kennedy never again sought the presidency.
  • No-one predicted that the 1976 presidential election would involve Gerald Ford, Nixon's unexpected replacement as incumbent president, and Governor Jimmy Carter.
  • Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton were not predicted to be candidates until their challenges were launched, even though Reagan had sought the nomination in 1976.
  • It was confidently predicted in the late 1980s that Mario Cuomo would be Democratic candidate in the 1992 election, with few even aware of Bill Clinton.
  • Few political commentators were prepared for the initial, shock successes of Senator Gary Hart in challenging Walter Mondale for the Democratic nomination in 1984 because he was seen as a likely nominee for the 1988 election.
  • George H. W. Bush was seen by many as unbeatable in the year prior to the 1992 presidential election.
  • Howard Dean 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 "certainties" like Edward Kennedy and Mario Cuomo to become nominees let alone president, the unexpected elections of Harry S Truman and Richard Nixon, and other upsets suggests that any predictions made have to be tentative.

Only one candidate has been seen as expressing an interest in being a candidate in 2008, Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton. Clinton's potential to be a candidate in 2008 may well hinge on Bush's re-election in 2004. The election of a Democratic candidate in 2004, if they choose unlike Johnson but like Bill Clinton to seek re-election, would well push Hillary Clinton's presidential electoral prospects back to 2012, by which time a new generation of leaders elected in senate, house, gubernatorial and presidential elections in 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2010, including a possible sitting Vice President, could be the challengers, leaving her, like Edward Kennedy, Mario Cuomo, Howard Baker, Newt Gingrich, Gary Hart and others, as an ex-"future presidential candidate".

Potential candidates for 2008

Democrats

Republicans

Other parties and independents

Related topics


References

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