The "Barack Obama is going to replace Joe Biden next year" meme is once again circulating around the blogosphere, and this time the speculated replacement is not Hillary Clinton, but New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Besides from the obvious truth that regular voters are not looking forward to a Presidency and Vice-Presidency dominated by corrupt politics, politicians and political machines, does anyone remember the last time one of our President's replaced their number two before the election for whatever political reason?
1976.
Almost four decades ago, when Conservative activists were agitated over the Republican President's administration, Gerald Ford replaced his hand selected Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller with Kansas Senator Bob Dole, which made absolutely no difference in the soon-to-be-held election that Jimmy Carter won with relative ease because of the unpopular pardoning of Richard Nixon.
Ever since Ford's decision, which he later regretted, pundits have been obsessed with incumbents "dumping" their problematic number two for somebody else. I can recall at least three victims of this dumb political speculation: Dan Quayle in 1992; Dick Cheney in 2004 and now Joe Biden in 2012.
This same old, usually wrong, song will always be sung.
Until proven otherwise, Biden will be the Democrat number two next year.
What say you?
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