Offs, people (not you guys).
Offs, people (not you guys). The media has apparently decided that they, too, will swallow the propaganda about Sec'y Clinton's health. I mean, I know I have specific reasons for not having the same perspective as some people, but even the consulting tv doctors are all They should have told us! This is serious!
Nonsense. You have absolutely no idea of how many times a sitting president may have had a headache, an upset stomach, a cold, walking pneumonia, etc. We've had a president vomit into the lap of a foreign prime minister because they had a stomach flu but were determined not to cancel any activities. (The same president - George HW Bush - was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and Graves' disease in office.) Clinton had surgery on his knee while in office; George W Bush had a follow-up colonoscopy for polyps while in office - both those things involved some anesthesia.
In fact, Bush activated the 25th amendment, which meant Cheney was temporarily in charge. This would be the man who had 4 heart attacks before he became VP, as well as a 4 vessel coronary bypass, coronary artery stent and angioplasty, and placement of a cardioverter-defibrillator 5-6 months after the start of his term as VP in 2001, and then had surgery on arteries in his legs, as well as treatment for DVT while in office.
Talk about a heartbeat away from the presidency. Speaking of which, guess who the Speaker of the House was at the time, you know, on the off chance that Bush didn't wake up, and Cheney died. In hindsight it would've been a real winner if he'd become president. Ready? Dennis Hastert.
Having avoided that dystopian future, back to Sec'y Clinton. You did not need to know, nor did we, that she had pneumonia. Had she not essentially fainted in public, we would still not know, and no one would care. Even with fainting in public, had we not all been primed with weeks of disinformation propaganda, this would have amounted to an announcement that she had pneumonia, did not follow advice to rest, and was now doing so. The news story would have been, hey, this culture of showing up to work even if you are ill helps no one, and we really need to rethink our attitude because no one should be afraid of being fired for staying home sick, etc.
Unfortunately, the media is now promoting the story that the disinformation is suddenly valid, and OMG PNEUMONIA SHE'LL DIE. Could she? Yes, of course, pneumonia is still potentially fatal.* So is getting in a car, and presidents and candidates do that constantly. Once again, Trump's campaign has successfully diverted attention from a total lack of any hope of governance on their part to a reality show, soap-opera distraction.
Thanks, media.
(She better not die, because President Trump and an unopposed Republican Alt-Right government and agenda is something we may never recover from. They will also be insufferable in their claiming of non-existent prescience.)
*Good luck looking up the numbers. Influenza and pneumonia get lumped together, and there's no required reporting, nor required testing. Plus, there's no agreement on whether or not a secondary pneumonia due to primarily having the flu counts as one or the other. Nevermind other confounders. Shaking my head, walking away.
Nonsense. You have absolutely no idea of how many times a sitting president may have had a headache, an upset stomach, a cold, walking pneumonia, etc. We've had a president vomit into the lap of a foreign prime minister because they had a stomach flu but were determined not to cancel any activities. (The same president - George HW Bush - was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation and Graves' disease in office.) Clinton had surgery on his knee while in office; George W Bush had a follow-up colonoscopy for polyps while in office - both those things involved some anesthesia.
In fact, Bush activated the 25th amendment, which meant Cheney was temporarily in charge. This would be the man who had 4 heart attacks before he became VP, as well as a 4 vessel coronary bypass, coronary artery stent and angioplasty, and placement of a cardioverter-defibrillator 5-6 months after the start of his term as VP in 2001, and then had surgery on arteries in his legs, as well as treatment for DVT while in office.
Talk about a heartbeat away from the presidency. Speaking of which, guess who the Speaker of the House was at the time, you know, on the off chance that Bush didn't wake up, and Cheney died. In hindsight it would've been a real winner if he'd become president. Ready? Dennis Hastert.
Having avoided that dystopian future, back to Sec'y Clinton. You did not need to know, nor did we, that she had pneumonia. Had she not essentially fainted in public, we would still not know, and no one would care. Even with fainting in public, had we not all been primed with weeks of disinformation propaganda, this would have amounted to an announcement that she had pneumonia, did not follow advice to rest, and was now doing so. The news story would have been, hey, this culture of showing up to work even if you are ill helps no one, and we really need to rethink our attitude because no one should be afraid of being fired for staying home sick, etc.
Unfortunately, the media is now promoting the story that the disinformation is suddenly valid, and OMG PNEUMONIA SHE'LL DIE. Could she? Yes, of course, pneumonia is still potentially fatal.* So is getting in a car, and presidents and candidates do that constantly. Once again, Trump's campaign has successfully diverted attention from a total lack of any hope of governance on their part to a reality show, soap-opera distraction.
Thanks, media.
(She better not die, because President Trump and an unopposed Republican Alt-Right government and agenda is something we may never recover from. They will also be insufferable in their claiming of non-existent prescience.)
*Good luck looking up the numbers. Influenza and pneumonia get lumped together, and there's no required reporting, nor required testing. Plus, there's no agreement on whether or not a secondary pneumonia due to primarily having the flu counts as one or the other. Nevermind other confounders. Shaking my head, walking away.
Hypothetically, if Clinton were to die now, could the Democrats still run someone else on an also-not-Trump platform?
ReplyDeleteThere are procedures in place for this sort of stuff. I'd have to look to find an explanation to share. However, I don't know what the state-by-state issue about changing the name on the ballot would be if that came up.
ReplyDeleteThe other problem, of course, is how do you get any familiarity of the voting public with anyone else in this short a time. Donald Trump is a highly recognizable person and a lot of people might just go with the person whose name they recognize if that happened.
Maybe they could sub in Biden? At least he's recognizable.
Jasper Janssen Conceptually, the answer is simple-- we don't vote for candidates, we vote for electors, and they'll sort it out.
ReplyDeletePractically, the answer is a mess of party rules, state laws, and the practicality of printing new ballots. But generally, no, the death of a candidate does not result in automatic default to the other guy.
(If it happened late enough-- say, a week prior to the election-- a big issue would be getting through to people that they could still vote meaningfully in such an unprecedented situation, even if it mostly devolved to voting for a party without a central leader... although I kinda suspect that the VP candidate might assume that de facto position in the media.)
ReplyDeleteJohn Novak It might be similar to what happens in Senate elections. I still recall a bit fondly the MO election where the dead democrat (Mel Carnahan) beat out the living John Ashcroft and Mel's widow Jean Carnahan was appointed to his seat instead.
ReplyDeleteNo, it can't be like that because no one has the authority to appoint a president in that fashion.
ReplyDeleteGiven the rather weird way in which you vote for electors, but put your X next to the president's name, I suppose that part is the crucial part — if you vote for a dead gal, are you still voting for that same elector? And that probably varies by state, at least...
ReplyDeleteAnd later on: what are the Dem Party's rules for an elector that has to vote in an election in which the person he was supposed to vote for is dead? Would they have to vote for the veep candidate? For the number two in the primaries? Something else entirely?
Here you go: http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/heres-what-would-happen-if-hillary-clinton-dropped-out-of-election-due-to-illness/
ReplyDeleteBasically, the party gets to pick someone. Clinton's name would probably remain on the ballots and they'd have to get the message out as to who the new person was that they were really voting for, but the party makes the choice.
The one weird situation is if it goes to the electors. The electors are bound by a patchwork of laws and customs that vary by state, so if it went to them deciding, that would be the diciest situation.
If it's after the electors vote, it's easy; that's what the VP is for.