- Joe Biden's presidential campaign is built on a return to "normalcy," a time not too long ago, when he was vice president.
- He's selling familiarity, which to date has served him well in the polls, where he has boasted frontrunner status among the 2020 Democratic contenders since he announced his run this past April.
- But there's a danger in running as a continuation of a previous administration, because in the past half-century, the "change" presidential candidate has beaten the "familiar" candidate almost every time.
- From Hubert Humphrey to John McCain to Hillary Clinton, recent history has shown that the "next in line" candidate doesn't fare well against a new face who promises to shake things up.
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Joe Biden is running for president on return to "normalcy," a time not too long ago, when he was vice president. Given the frequent campaign stump invocations of former President Barack Obama, Biden clearly doesn't want voters to forget that he was a heartbeat away from the presidency for eight years.
He's selling familiarity, which to date has served him well in the polls, awarding frontrunner status among the 2020 Democratic contenders since he announced his run this past April.
But there's a danger in running as a continuation of a previous administration, because in the past half-century of presidential elections, the change candidate has beaten the "familiar" candidate almost every time.
Incumbent presidents are largely immune from this phenomenon. They get to enjoy the constant visibility and bully pulpit of the most powerful person in the world, and only sagging economies (Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush) or disastrous wars (Lyndon Johnson) seem to fell them in their bids for re-election.
In fact, each of these elections was won by a candidate promising to take the country in a radically different direction, as opposed to hearkening back to a previous administration's path or the unfulfilled promise of a failed primary campaign.
But whether it's a former vice president or the runner-up in the previous election cycle's primary, the candidate who is perceived as running for president because it's "their turn" tends to flame out against a fresher face. It's hard to quantify just why widely-recognized presidential candidates have so much trouble sealing the deal come the general election.
Maybe losing the previous cycle's primary carries an unconscious stigma for voters. Maybe being a vice president brands them "second banana" for the rest of their careers. Maybe too much familiarity is a drag on voter enthusiasm.
Whatever the reasons might be, the results are clear: the "next in line" candidates pretty much always lose against the fresher faced candidate promising to shake up the system.
Read More: Don't buy into the hype that Joe Biden is necessarily the most electable Democrat
Here's a timeline of such presidential elections since 1968:
- 1968: Hubert Humphrey was President Lyndon Johnson's vice president, but he lost to Richard Nixon (a former VP himself, but out of office for eight years), whose campaign was built on taking the country in a completely different direction from the previous administration's.
- 1976: President Gerald Ford was Nixon's second vice president, ascending to the office as the unelected replacement to disgraced ex-VP Spiro Agnew. Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, a previously little-known governor from Georgia, in large part because Ford represented a continuation of Nixon's tenure.
- 1980: Ronald Reagan is a bit of an outlier, as he was a familiar face, having lost his insurgent GOP primary challenge to Ford in the 1976 GOP contest. But he was the original "Make America Great Again" candidate (that was actually his campaign slogan). The former California governor promised a revolution and a remake of the party, not a continuation of the status quo. He beat Carter in a landslide.
- 1984: Walter Mondale, as Carter's former vice president, was the next Democrat in line. He won exactly one state in the general election.
- 1996: Bob Dole was Gerald Ford's running mate in 1976 and ran failed campaigns for the GOP presidential nomination in 1980 and 1988. He ran one last time in 1996, when he was Senate Majority Leader, making him one of the most nationally familiar faces in US
politics . He lost handily to Bill Clinton in the general election. - 2000: Al Gore served two terms as Clinton's vice president, riding the administration's popularity through a robust economy and the first internet tech boom. He had also run for president twice before, in 1988 and 1992, but when he finally got his party's nomination he lost to Texas Gov. George W Bush - who was then best known as the bumbling son of the former president.
But Bush was not running as a continuation of his father's administration. On the contrary, Dubya's campaign was far more overtly religious and socially conservative than Bush 41's. And unlike his outwardly humble father of the buttoned-down Gore, Bush was perceived as the candidate voters would prefer to "have a beer with." He narrowly beat Gore in a historically controversial electoral college squeaker of an election.
- 2008: John McCain was familiar to voters as the maverick GOP runner-up to Bush in 2000. But the maverick magic was stale to voters by 2008, when the Arizona Senator lost to the "hope and change" candidate Barack Obama.
- 2012: Mitt Romney felt the curse of the runner-up - he was essentially 2nd place to McCain in 2008 - but he, too, lost to Obama.
- 2016: Hillary Clinton, perhaps the ultimate "It's my turn" candidate, was the Democrats' runner-up in 2008 after losing to the upstart first-term Sen. Barack Obama. Eight years later, she'd lose an even more shocking election to another "change" candidate - Donald Trump.
Read more: It's looking like Elizabeth Warren is the 2020 Democratic candidate to beat
Biden's got the numbers on his side, for now. But he's being challenged by a host of fresh faces and one 2020 Democratic candidate in particular - Elizabeth Warren - who is drawing huge crowds, consistently rising in polls, and could legitimately challenge President Trump as a shake-up-the-system newcomer.
That's a marked contrast with Biden, the three-time presidential candidate who spent his entire adult life in the Senate and then the executive branch, who's greatest selling point is he was a popular president's second in command.
But Biden's long career in government is as much a drag on him as a boon. The sharpest jabs against him by members of his own party include his vote for the Iraq War, his staunch support for the 1994 crime bill and other punitive criminal justice policies, and his opposition to busing in the 1970s.
Read more: Joe Biden's dicey past on racial issues could come back to bite him in the 2020 Democratic primaries
Maybe Biden's the one who breaks the "next in line" curse, but if history is any guide, Democrats would be better-equipped nominating a less-worn candidate.