[Verginius Rufus]

Some other might-have-beens: Spiro Agnew would have been President if he hadn't taken bribes as governor of Maryland. Hiram Johnson would have been President if he had accepted the VP slot on the Republican ticket in 1920.

[Revenge of Sith]

> Spiro Agnew would have been President

Also, the Democrats were reluctant to impeach Nixon until Agnew resigned and was replaced by Ford.

[kaylar]

General Benjamin Butler was offered the VP slot for Abraham Lincoln's second term. He turned it down , joking that he'd accept only if Lincoln promised to die during that term-so he'd be president.

We all know what happened in April 1865...

(That would have been an odd-looking pair. Had BB accepted, he and Lincoln would have had a 13" difference in height between them. Lincoln was 6' 4", and Butler claimed to be 5' 3" , so if he was like most men , he was probably even shorter. Even in those less looks-conscious years, they would have looked a bit strange stumping together.)

BB never quite recovered from that one, either. He ran unsuccessfully for the presidency as a third party candidate IIRC, and I believe he did get elected as a senator, but I'm not 100% sure of that.