02.22.06
Vice President for Life?
Hmmmm. Long-standing tradition holds that after a US president’s second term, the vice president runs for the nation’s highest office and tends to have a pretty good shot at winning (at least if you’re Republican — Dems, not so much).
Since 2000, Big Dick Cheney, our current VP, has made much noise about not running for president. This flies in the face of political orthodoxy. And given the GOP’s tenacious chomp on power these days, it doesn’t much make sense. Why would the Republican Party consciously abandon what, until now, has been obligatory: Vice President As Next Presidential Candidate?
And suddenly it occurred to me: there’s a 2-term limit on the presidency. But there’s no limit of any kind on how many terms a vice president might serve. Considering Big Dick has basically been the one running the show for the last 6 years…why would the GOP want to jettison the real power center in the White House? Well…turns out they may not have to.
Read it for yourself:
US Constitution, Amendment XXII
Enacted February 27, 1951
Section 1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
Section 2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states by the Congress.
Dig it: no mention of the vice president. I’m just sayin’…
