“We should remember one other thing: it was rare, extremely rare that a VP would go on to be President. Not since Martin Van Buren had it happened.”
Van Buren? What about Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, Chester Arthur, Andrew Johnson? Yes, I know none of them were elected outright for their first terms, but does that matter? President of the United States has historically been a fairly hazardous job considering the nature of the duties the office entails.
Also, you might want to look into Mrs. Cruz before deciding Ted Cruz will be a better president than Reagan. As far as I’m concerned he’s more of the same and playing us all for fools.
Yes, it matters. As you finally acknowledged all those VPs you list came to be Presidents without first being elected as President. And there are plenty of VPs that tried to get in by running for the office but failed.
It matters because very very few presidents leave office more popular than when they arrived; RR was one of those rare ones. People thought GHWB would carry RR’s spirit and persona into the next cycle.
Martin Van Buren was the only President before GHWB that got elected in the clear. And it was all over the press how GHWB had a tough hill to climb because of all the previous failures. In fact, Dukakis led for most of the campaign until the GOP convention when a short film of GHWB’s life showed his WWII service and a few other patriotic heart tuggers.
Heidi Cruz has been discussed plenty of times on FR. She’s a managing VP, not an upper echelon VP. GS has 35,000 employees. Heidi is not one of their big fishes.
She’s an asset to him and he to her.
Cruz is the real deal. He reflects FR’s values better than anyone on FR including longtimers here!