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Answers to the Convention Quiz, Joe Biden's not the only one

8:25 AM Tue, Aug 26, 2008 | Permalink
By John E. Mulligan, Washington bureau

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Greetings from the Mile High City, and yes, we have a winner, kind of.

Yesterday's Political Pop Quiz, you'll recall, asked this:

Before Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, has any U.S. politician ever been chosen to run for vice president after two unsuccessful campaigns for president?

Half a handclap (and kudos for bipartisanship) goes to EZ, who responded one hour later, at 7:24 p.m.: ``Nelson Rockefeller ran for president in the Republican primary in 1960, 1964, and 1968. Gerald Ford nominated him to be VP in 1974.''

But the answer could have been more complete.

Andrew's post, 2:14 a.m.: ``How about Hubert Humphrey, presidential bids in '52 (largely forgotten by now, though he did win the delegates in his home state) and '60,
veep nomination (and victory) in '64.

OK. But how about the immortal Estes Kefauver, whose ghost has surely haunted the managers of Barack Obama's campaign since the end of this year's Democratic primary season?

The Tennessee Democrat, who lent his name to groundbreaking Senate hearings that investigated organized crime, ran for president in 1952 and 1956 - settling the second time for the second slot on a ticket that went on to lose badly to President Dwight D. Eisenower.

In 1952, Kefauver shocked the political world by defeating a sitting president, Harry S Truman, in the New Hampshire primary, during the Korean War.

Campaigning in a coonskin cap, Kefauver did so well in the remaining primaries that he entered the convention with a commanding lead in the race for delegates - this in an era when primaries were fairly novel, party bosses held sway and convention balloting entailed some real suspense.

An eloquent keynote speaker from Illinois, Gov. Adlai Stevenson, defeated Kefauver for the nomination that summer in Chicago - the last time it took the party more than one ballot to choose its nominee.

Not that an underdog could pull off such a feat nowadays. Still: Food for thought as the world tunes in tonight to the highly-anticipated speech by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.