Republican Convention Starts in Eight Days; V-P Choice Has Been Known in Advance of the Convention Ever Since 1980

Posted on by July 7, 2024

The Republican National Convention begins on Monday, July 15. There is a strong recent tradition that the front-runner for the presidential nomination always chooses the vice-presidential running mate informally before the convention starts. This tradition has been unbroken in the Democratic and Republican conventions in all cases since 1980.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan didn’t express his preference for George H. W. Bush for vice-president until after the presidential roll-call, near the end of the convention. Reagan took a long time an unusually long time to choose Bush over former President Gerald Ford as his running mate.

Since then, the range of days between the presumptive presidential nominee expressing his or her preference for a running mate has varied from one to twenty days before the start of the convention. The longest advance decision (for tickets that weren’t running for re-election) was the Democratic choice in 2004, when John Kerry expressed his opinion twenty days before the opening of the convention. The shortest was the Republican convention of 1988, when George H.W. Bush didn’t express his opinion until one day before the convention opening.

Comments

Republican Convention Starts in Eight Days; V-P Choice Has Been Known in Advance of the Convention Ever Since 1980 — 56 Comments

  1. I believe this is incorrect. From what I seem to recall, Reagan “chose” Bush over Jack Kemp because the military industrial banking cabal forced him to. Jack had to wait sixteen years.

  2. I remember going to see Bush speak at a mall in Toledo fall ’80 and was not impressed.

  5. FAKE NEWS, anyone who is old enough can remember the Republican convention from 1980, in which Reagan was a hair’s breath away from choosing Gerald Ford for vice-president. No one needs to depend on any one particular first-person account by a witness to the process. It’s common knowledge for anyone who either remembers, or who has read about that very interesting convention.

  8. The above links don’t seem to work as click-thru for non account holders, but by entering the title into search engine, it lets me read the second one. Go figure.

  12. Everyone I know, including those who were at that 1980 convention in person, has always been under the impression that the Reagan-Ford deal was narrowly averted at the last minute. Reagan was already taken very skeptically by the establishment and information gatekeepers. Kemp would have caused a full on insider autocoup / martial law reaction. There wasn’t enough in the way of alternative media to fight back effectively. Reagan had to have an establishment minder to make it over the finish line. Thank goodness Trump isn’t similarly restrained anymore. Trump Jr would be far better. Perhaps in four years.

  13. ABOLISH EXTREMIST MINORITY RULE CAUCUSES / PRIMARIES / CONVENTIONS

    CANDIDATES DECLARE ABOUT 10 MONTHS BEFORE ELECTION DAYS

  19. MBZ

    THE MONARCH/OLIGARCH MINORITY FOLKS HAVE PRODUCED THE CURRENT CIVIL WAR II MESS IN THE USA [

    AND IN MANY OTHER REGIMES – NOW UK / FRANCE/ INDIA/ ETC

  22. PLACE YOUR BETS

    TRUMP THE EGO NUTCASE WILL ANNOUNCE HIS VP ROBOT HACK CHOICE ONLY AFTER BEING CROWNED KING/PREZ CANDIDATE AT ELEPHANTS CONVENTION.

    NO OTHER VP CHOICES ALLOWED.

    HE BARELY TRUSTS ANY DIRECT BLOOD RELATIVE ??? ESP SONS VIA EX-WIVES ???

  23. It is wrong to blame civil war on the slaves. I think it was fault of the whites. Slaves did not have choice about the anything, Even free blacks did not have the power. Or poor whites. Rich whites started the wars then.

  24. In UK, and in the France – they are dealing with consequences of the colonial imperial policies they had. In India it is the conflict with Muslim minority. But none of those are one sided the fault of minorities.

  29. @Save America
    No, no, definitely not. Maybe, just maybe, Eric Trump – Barron Trump 2044.

  33. When was the last time a President decided to let the convention decide on the VP… I seem to remember that occurring

  35. @Bobby G,

    The 1944 D convention chose Truman over sitting VP Henry Wallace. In 1952 Eisenhower let the R convention choose Nixon.

  36. Trump already made his pick. They’re waiting until the best media moment for the announcement.

  37. Come on man! Saying Joe Biden has Parkinsons is just uh… um… yeah. Anyway.

    I’m going to bed.

  38. I just had a bad night. I have a cognitive test every day, and you can all see the results.

  39. TOTAL USA MONARCHY SINCE PREZ UN-DECLARED WAR IN KOREA IN 1950 —

    SO-CALLED *POLICE ACTION*

  41. Can I have Jeff Becker’s crack? Or one of Jack Kemp’s football concussions?

  42. OLDE BOOK HAS 666 HAVING SOME BRAIN/HEAD ROT ???

    HOW MUCH BRAIN/HEAD ROT IN BOTH BIDEN AND TRUMP ???

  44. “Can I have Jeff Becker’s crack?”

    In my country this is illegal.

  46. Nuña, who is dumber than Barron Trump whenever Barron has his head up Melania’s ass, supporting him for president in 2024, presumably as a moldable Grüppenfueher of the alt-white world, is totally unsurprising.

  47. @Just Me

    “neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”
    “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”

    Barron Trump was born in 2006, so while I’m sure his head is by now far too large to fit up Melania’s ass, he still won’t be eligible for VP until 2041. Hence “maybe, just maybe, Eric Trump – Barron Trump 2044”. Though I don’t think you can construe such a strongly qualified statement as anything akin to support.
    And the projection of your own nazism and white supremacism is quite telling… Incidentally, today is the 148th anniversary of your lot committing the Hamburg massacre because you couldn’t stand the thought of black Americans voting or forming a well-regulated militia to secure a free state : https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hamburg_massacre&oldid=1232609577

  48. “I’m sure his head is by now far too large to fit up Melania’s ass,”

    Kind of like arms race?

  53. Stop Trolling: I did no such thing. I said, “I am not Just Me”. That means that I am not the individual who uses the pseudonym Just Me. I am surprised that you do not understand English grammar.

  54. You said “trolling: I am not Just Me”. That means you are trolling under other names, and you admitted it. No amount of after the fact denial changes that you admitted it.

  55. Stop Trolling: Nonsense. Using uppercase case letters for “Just Me” means that it is a name of someone else. If I were referring to myself I would have used all lowercase letters and written “just me”. See the difference? English must not be your native language.

  56. Twist all you want, you can’t twist your way out of your admission that you troll, and not only as yourself.

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