Policasting

Long range forecasts belong in the Farmers Almanac,                not in journals.

   Time was, as John Nance Garner famously said, the vice presidency "ain't worth a bucket of warm ..." More recently, however, vice presidents have been more in the loop around the Oval Office, and have had more knowledge and responsibility for daily and longer range operations.
    One problem for any hope of moving up to the Big Chair is to overcome the tradition against three-term dominance in the White House.
    Presidents, of course, cannot serve three terms (or a total of ten years if they move in to a vacated presidency). So the question now is, will Joe Biden seek the presidency in 2016? And if he does, what are his chances?
    Consider the background.
    Before Franklin D. Roosevelt, only tradition prevented one man's election to a third term. A constitutional amendment changed that, with the proviso that one could serve up to two years of an unexpired term, plus two terms on their own. (This did not apply to the incumbent at the time, Harry S. Truman. The point was moot, however, since he choose not to seek re-election.)
   Since then, the only three-term occupancy of the Oval Office was the GOP Reagan-Bush era.
   Barring conditions that would warrant electorate confidence in a third-term occupancy, any Democrat will face an uphill struggle for election in 2016. Consider also the short-term memory of the American electorate.
   A thriving economy could be attributed to successful Democratic programs. Or, that same thriving economy could convince voters that Democratic policies are no longer needed. Or the opposition party could come up with a candidate who was considered impossible to defeat. This may have contributed to Truman's decision not to take up Dwight D. Eisenhower's challenge.
   Conclusion: It's a toss-up.

    Only once since 1860 have Democrats managed to win the Oval Office in more than two consecutive presidential elections, and that was the Depression and wartime era of FDR and Truman.
   The GOP, on the other hand, has turned that trick four times. First, with Lincoln, Grant, Hayes and Garfield for a string of six victories. Second, with McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Taft for four consecutive wins. Third, with Harding, Coolidge and Hoover for three GOP terms in a row. And fourth, with the Reagan-Bush succession, yielding three presidential terms.
   But note that in only one of these -- the Reagan-Bush string -- has the vice president moved up to the Big Chair after scoring a double win with the President.
   So the odds of a vice president picking up a third term for his party after serving two with the same President are slim. It's only been done once since 1860.
   Will Biden break the pattern? Will he even try? We'll know in four years.