#1956 election

[politicalrpf]

October 24th, 1956.

[deadpresidents]

Is it true that the president and vice president can't be from the same state?

No, that's not true. Because we're dealing with the Electoral College, it's of course more complicated and confusing than that.

I'll try to explain it without getting too convoluted:

When the Electors meet to cast their votes for the Electoral College, they cast two ballots: one for President and one for Vice President. The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits an Elector from casting both of their ballots for someone whose official residence is the same state as the Elector. So, if I was a Presidential Elector, since I'm from California, one of my ballots -- for either President or Vice President -- has to go to someone whose official residence is NOT California.

In 2000, Dick Cheney had been living in Texas while working for Halliburton. When Republican Presidential nominee George W. Bush (whose official residence was obviously Texas because he was Governor) chose Cheney to be his Vice Presidential running mate, Cheney switched his official residence back to Wyoming where he had a home and which he had represented in Congress. While they both could have theoretically kept Texas as their official residences, the Presidential Electors from Texas only would have been able to cast their ballots for one of them, potentially costing their ticket 32 Electoral votes.

Note that this has to do with the President and Vice President's official state of residence, not where they were born. If a President and Vice President were both born in the same state, but had different official states of residence, the Twelfth Amendment's Electoral College restrictions would not apply. Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun were both born in South Carolina, but Jackson's official residence was Tennessee when they were elected in 1828. William Henry Harrison and John Tyler were both born in Virginia, but Harrison's official state of residence was Ohio when they were elected in 1840.

(The official state of residence is typically defined as where the candidate is registered to vote, and that can change. Richard Nixon's official residency was New York when he ran for President in 1968, but by the 1972 election he had changed it back to California, which had been his state of residency when he lost the 1960 election. Donald Trump's official residence was New York in 2016, but changed to Florida for the 2020 and 2024 elections. Dwight D. Eisenhower was born in Texas and grew up in Kansas, but was President of Columbia University when he ran for President in 1952, so his official state of residence at that time was New York. For the 1956 election, Eisenhower changed his official residency to Pennsylvania where he had a farm at Gettysburg, and later died in Washington, D.C. before being buried in Kansas.)

[politicalrpf]

Adlai Stevenson campaign poster, 1956.

[politicalrpf]

"Stevenson for President" cigarette package, 1950s.

[politicalrpf]

1956 political cartoon by Richard Yardley.

[politicalrpf]

Richard Nixon on the cover of Collier's magazine, 1956.

[politicalrpf]

Cover of TIME's 1956 election issue.

[deadpresidents]

Of all the Presidential candidates of the 20th century who lost in the general election, who are some that would have been particularly good as President had they won (and maybe even better than their successful opponent)?

I've answered this question or some form of this question many times over the years, so I'm not going to go into details explaining my reasoning behind my answers, but the losing candidates from the 20th Century that I think would have been pretty good Presidents include Charles Evans Hughes (lost to Wilson in 1916), Adlai E. Stevenson (lost to Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956), and Michael Dukakis (lost to George H.W. Bush in 1988; terrible campaigner but an excellent administrator).

Whenever this question comes up, I always can't help adding one person who never ran for office but who I think would have been a tremendous President: General George C. Marshall, who I think is the most underrated giant of the 20th Century. Winston Churchill called Marshall "the noblest Roman of them all" and the "true architect" of the Allied military victory in World War II. The Big Three leaders of the Allies in World War II -- Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin -- all felt that way about Marshall, as did General Dwight D. Eisenhower. FDR and Churchill both believed Marshall was the greatest man they ever knew, and even Stalin once remarked that he would trust General Marshall with his life.