Understandably, many people’s jaws have dropped over the changes in the political landscape during July 2024. Many of them compared it to 1968, and rightly so.
But don’t forget about 1974. That was the year that Richard Nixon resigned after the Watergate debacle. I was reminded of this when my Wordle buddy used PENCE on the way to PENNE. He said he was thinking about the money, not the VEEP. I replied: “Of course, but it reminds me to try the word occasionally.”
His response: “AGNEW has 5 letters, but nobody ever thinks of him.” Au contraire! “I think of Ted all of the time. He’s why Jerry Ford became president 50 years ago.”
Ted
Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew was newly re-elected in 1972 with Richard Nixon. Initially, he was not the target of an investigation in Maryland, where he had been governor. However, by June 1973, [Lester ] “Matz’s attorney disclosed to Beall that his client could show that Agnew had not only been corrupt but that payments to him [from Matz’s engineering firm] had continued into his vice presidency. The statute of limitations would not prevent Agnew from being prosecuted for these later payments.”
Ultimately, “on October 10, 1973, Agnew appeared before the federal court in Baltimore and pleaded nolo contendere (no contest) to one felony charge, tax evasion, for the year 1967. [U.S. Attorney General Elliot] Richardson agreed that there would be no further prosecution of Agnew and released a 40-page summary of the evidence. Agnew was fined $10,000 and placed on three years’ unsupervised probation. Immediately prior to entering court, Agnew had an aide submit his formal letter of resignation to the Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, and sent a letter to Nixon stating he was resigning in the best interest of the nation. Nixon responded with a letter concurring that the resignation was necessary to avoid a lengthy period of division and uncertainty, and applauding Agnew for his patriotism and dedication to the welfare of the United States.”
25A
This kicked in Section 2 of the 25th Amendment, which reads: “Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.”
Some Vice-Presidents ascended to the Presidency and had no Veep: John Tyler (after William Henry Harrison, 1841-1845); Millard Fillmore (after Zachary Taylor, 1850-1853); Andrew Johnson (after Abraham Lincoln, 1865-1869); Chester A. Arthur (after James Garfield, 1881-1885). Others – Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, and Lyndon Johnson – had no Veep until the following election.
So this was a new thing. Gerald Ford, the House Minority Leader, “was nominated to take Agnew’s position on October 12, the first time the vice-presidential vacancy provision of the 25th Amendment had been implemented. The United States Senate voted 92 to 3 to confirm Ford on November 27. On December 6, the House confirmed Ford by a vote of 387 to 35. After the confirmation vote in the House, Ford took the oath of office as vice president.”
Then, after Watergate became untenable for Nixon, he addressed the nation on television on August 8, 1974, and resigned from the presidency the next day.
When Gerald Ford became President, the 25th Amendment was used again to elevate Nelson A. Rockefeller to vice president in December 1974. Those were weird times.
1968
Not that 1968 wasn’t strange. Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has a recent book about how she and her late husband interacted with the times, appeared on The Weekly Show in late July. She schooled Eugene Daniels and host Jon Stewart on the situation’s complexity.
Not only did Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic President, decide he would not run for re-election, but he would also engage in some diplomacy to end the Vietnam War. He realized that if he couldn’t do the latter without doing the former, so he went on TV at 9:00 PM on March 31st.
But only four days later, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. This put the kibosh on the peace plan, as he had to deal with massive disruptions on the streets. Robert Kennedy started actively running for president after Eugene McCarthy had gotten 42% of the vote in the New Hampshire Democratic primary against the incumbent. He was very likely to become the party nominee when, in early June, just after the California primary, RFK was assassinated.
This caused chaos at the Democratic convention in Chicago in August 1968. Hubert Humphrey, Johnson’s vice president, became the nominee, but so many people were slow to get behind HHH that Richard Nixon – remember him? – barely won the Electoral College, with George Wallace, the third-party candidate, taking five states.
2024
So, it is not shocking that the Democrats have coalesced behind Kamala Harris. Her campaign could keep the money raised by the Biden/Harris campaign.
I find it hysterically funny that the Republicans are suggesting that those 14 million people who voted for Joe Biden in the very non-contested Democratic primaries were losing their franchise because Harris is now the nominee. They have supported a candidate on the Republican side who wanted to disenfranchise 81 million people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and, more than that, continue the lie that the election was stolen.
It’s almost humorous to listen to djt being surprised that Kamala Harris identifies as part black, given the fact that she attended an HBCU, Howard University, and was a member of a black sorority, AKA. Her mother has been on record that she raised Kamala as black because she knew that she would be perceived as black by most people. Yes, race in America is complicated, but the misogynoir in djt has often been very strong.
I’ve been aware of Rachel Scott, the ABC reporter who questioned him at the black journalists’ event, for a while. She, along with Diane Sawyer, presented a Peabody-nominated report about how pregnant women who wanted to have kids were experiencing severe outcomes but, because of anti-abortion laws, could not receive medical treatment. She’s not a new kid on the block but is the senior congressional reporter for ABC News.
When I was 15, I was a conventionally conservative kid, fueled by my religion and small city roots. I had been in a couple civil rights marches but that was a topic that affected me personally.
In the midst of the process of creating the massive tax bill at the end of 2017, the US Congress attempted to remove The Johnson Amendment. Fortunately, Congress’ own rules prevented from happening in that particular manner.
