BONUS | The presidents who’ve tried to win back the White House

It's a presidential election year and a former president is looking to regain the White House. He had served in office for one term but didn't get reelected. Now four years later he's fighting hard to get back in. As the election draws near it looks like he might just be successful. And who is he? He is Grover Cleveland. And the year is. The year is 1892. So not 2024 Michelle, you're sure? When you think that something is unprecedented and it's never happened before, go back and look at another time. Because you'll probably see parallels some of the language and some of the use of the media. So not to say that we aren't living in times that are unique and have their own challenges. But I think people would be surprised to see how many parallels they can find in previous elections. Well previous elections when former presidents who were out of office tried to get back into the White House, that's what this episode is all about. I'm Lillian Cunningham with The Washington Post and this is a special episode of presidential. I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. What your country can do for you. It takes between 11 and 10 for me. It's great to be back with a second bonus episode leading up to the 2024 election. Our first bonus episode looked at the historical context of Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign. She's the Democratic nominee. This episode will put in context the campaign of Republican nominee former President Donald Trump. Now Trump as you heard is not the first president to leave the White House then try several years later to get back there again. He's actually the seventh former president in US history to try it. The other six were Martin Vamburin, Millard Fillmore, Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover. Only one of those men was successful Grover Cleveland, but all of their efforts have really interesting parallels and lessons for us today. So with me to explore all of this is someone who long time listeners love and will remember from many of the early episodes. I'm Michelle Krell and I'm the Civil War and Reconstruction Specialist in the manuscript division of the Library of Congress. Michelle you're back. I'm back. Happy to be here. Thank you so much for being here. I think the last time you're here in the Washington Post studio was 2016. I believe that's true. I think it was when we were just finishing up the, or you were finishing up the presidential podcast. Yeah. Well you two went away. So why don't we start with the very first former president to try this. And that was Martin Vamburin. Now I'm sure everyone remembers all the details from our Martin Vamburin episode, but just in case they need like a little refresher, why don't you just give us the quick rundown on who Martin Vamburin is? Other than that he was called the little magician because he was such a skilled political operator. Well, he had been Andrew Jackson's vice president and then he was Jackson's successor. So he was the eighth president and he served from 1837 to 1841. But Vamburin was only a one term president and he was defeated when he tried to run for reelection in 1840. So he lost reelection. He left the White House. But then eight years later in 1848, he ran for president again. At the time he ran with the third party, the anti-slavery free soil party. Michelle, he's the very first former president to try to make a comeback like this. How was that seen at the time? Well, he had become more anti-slavery in those years since the White House. And the free soil party was free soil, free men, free labor. They were very much a party that was in opposition to the expansion of slavery into the territories. That the United States had gained after the Mexican-American War. And it's something of a hybrid party too. So the free soil party had brought together elements from the old wig party, from some of the Democratic party as well as an abolitionist liberty party. And perhaps it was the idea of having this former president who at least had some cash A and then maybe had some anti-slavery kind of bona fides was one way of taking care of the ticket. Yeah, I mean that 1848 election did not go well for him though. No, it did not. I think I saw he got only 10% of the popular vote. No electoral votes at all. That's correct. Well, he was also running against the wig party with Zachary Taylor, who had been something of a hero of the Mexican War. And then also the Democratic party, which was obviously much more established than the free soil. At least they got 10% of the electorate. That's the way to look at it. So there's that. But he had no hope of actually winning. But it was a stronger showing than many of the previous third parties had been able to achieve. So you think the impression we're left with is that Vamburin, he ran more to make a statement, draw attention to a cause than actually thinking he might end up in the White House. Many of the third party candidates throughout US political history, if they're being realistic, most of them don't really have a realistic shot of winning. What third parties often do is that they bring issues into the national conversation in other ways. And sometimes that's what then forces the two dominant parties to think, okay, well this party has 10% of the vote. So maybe these are issues that are going to be things that we have to deal with or maybe need to look at how we appeal to that part of the electorate. So the next former president we see try to run again for the presidency was Millard Fillmore. He had been Zachary Taylor's vice president in 1849 and 1850, but then Taylor died in office and Fillmore ends up serving out the remainder of his term as president. And so like Vamburin, Fillmore tried to win re-election, but also like Vamburin, he lost that re-election. So why four years later in 1856 does he try running again? Well he ran in 1856 as the presidential nominee of the American party, which some people also know as the no nothing party. Another third party at the time. Exactly. It's another third party that is primarily known for being anti-immigrant and anti-catholic. And apparently Fillmore didn't really say much in terms of the anti-immigration or some of those issues, but this one I think got like 21% of the electorate. So actually a little better than Martin Vamburin's at times. Right, a little bit better. And since the Republicans were a brand new party at that time, there were kind of a couple of parties that were still sort of establishing themselves. So if we skip ahead to our third former president to try, that takes us to Ulysses S. Grant. And so unlike Vamburin and Millard Fillmore, Grant served two terms. Originally, he was a pretty popular figure. And there weren't term limits back then. So he actually could have tried running for a third term while he was still in the White House, but he decided not to. And he changes his mind four years later, and in 1880, he does sort of make an attempt to return to the White House. What do we know of like why he has this change of heart or change of mind? With Grant, I think you have to look at his two terms and how one ended. Okay. So when he came into the White House in 1869, he was still the hero of the Union Army and the Civil War. So I think most historians would look at his first term as being fairly successful, and he was also very popular. But his second term, he ran into a lot of problems. He often trusted the wrong people who let him down. So there were a whole series of scandals and a whole lot of corruption rings that some of his associates or cabinet members were running. So he had that taint of a corrupt administration. So when his term ended in 1877, he left voluntarily. But what Grant decided to do is he and his wife went on around the world to her. They were also doing a little bit of informal diplomacy on behalf of the United States. He was meeting other world leaders. So he came back and I think was interested in being nominated as the Republican candidate in 1880. And I think people had maybe kind of forgotten a little bit about the scandals and what had happened before. So that's in 1880 that he tries to get his party, the Republican party's nomination again. How does it turn out? Let's just say he didn't get it. But when the first votes were taken at the Chicago Convention in 1880, Grant had the most number of votes. Yeah, it looks like he was actually a leading candidate. Oh, absolutely. But he kind of stayed about that same level. at the end. He had 306 delegates who were with him the entire time, but he just couldn't quite get the support that he needed to get those minimum number of delegates. And so after 36 ballots, then some of the delegates decided, let's just do a compromise candidate, and they nominated James Garfield who wasn't even running at the start of the convention. - Yeah, I'm fine. - So that's why he's literally called the Dark Horse. - Yeah. - I feel that that's absolutely. (laughing) But I will say that, to his credit, despite some disappointment, he actually did throw himself into the race and was helping Garfield give me speeches and doing other things. - So it sounds like we see two key differences between grants attempt and those before him, right? One, grants served two full terms. He didn't ever lose a reelection bid when in the White House. And two, I mean, when he did try to get back into office, he wanted the support of his original party. And when he didn't get that, he let it go. He didn't try the third party route. So that brings us up to the late 1800s. So far, there have been three attempts. All of them are sort of various degrees of unsuccessful. But now we're about to get to the first and the so far only attempt by a former president to regain the White House that actually works out. Grover Cleveland. Michelle, you are on the original presidential episode about Cleveland. So why don't you just paint me a portrait of who he is, especially as he's running for president the first time in 1884? - Well, Grover Cleveland was originally born in New Jersey, but was very associated with Buffalo, New York. And in quick succession, he was mayor of Buffalo, governor of New York, and then in 1884, the Democratic nominee for president. He was elected by a razor thin majority over James G. Blaine. And I think that election is memorable for a lot of people because of some scandals that happened sort of towards the end of the election. The scandal came out of him having fathered an illegitimate child. - Yeah, so what happened was Cleveland, who wasn't married, had slept with a woman years earlier. She ended up pregnant and she told him the child was his. He didn't know for sure, but he accepted responsibility and gave her money to help support the child. Now, fast forward to his campaign and a minister in Buffalo leaked this to the press. Sex scandals coming out in election years was nothing new. It still is nothing new, but what was unique was Cleveland's response. When advisors asked him, like, how should we spin this? He famously said, tell the truth. Everyone was like, what? But that is what he did. And it kind of worked or it did work. He ended up narrowly winning the election and became the first Democrat in the White House in decades. I should say though, obviously the parties stood for very different things back then than they do now. So he was actually a lot closer to what we think of today as a Republican. Anyway, Cleveland carried this sort of unapologetic, I'm a straight shooter approach into the White House. And, you know, to be fair, it was sincere. He really didn't care about the political game. And his rise to the presidency had been fast enough that he managed to bypass a lot of the standard party machinery, which became both a strength and reliability for him. He considers when he's in office that a public office is a public trust. And so for him being honest and being upright about everything is something that's really important to him. He's not a politician per se. And he's not a product of political machines. And I think that was what appealed to people that he was never somebody who was beholden to party bosses. So to a pretty high degree, that gives him some freedom. And he's never in it to be liked. As long as he feels that he's done the right thing and has stuck to his principles, that's what's important to him. But at the same time, that means that when he thinks he's really right, he can be stubborn. And it takes on something of kind of a moral crusade. And I think we may have even said this in the first episode that the last words that he spoke are the last ones that someone recorded in 1907 were, I have tried so hard to do what is right. And I think that's the phrase that you can really associate with Grover Cleveland. - And what was his relationship like with the press at the time? - I don't think he ever had a warm relationship with the press at any point in his career. Because I think he's a different kind of figure than we've seen in some of the other presidents that he doesn't use the press to get his message out often in the way that some other presidents like Theodore Roosevelt will use them as another mechanism to communicate with the public. And I think he just sort of holds a lot of that at arm's length. Another thing about him as he comes into the White House is, he also doesn't like things that are fancy. He likes to eat and drink, but he likes chops and a beer somewhere. He's always complaining because his predecessor, Chester Arthur, really loved fine dining and fine things and had been done the White House. And he brought in a French chef and Cleveland hates it. He writes to his friends like, I'm gonna get some of that French stuff tonight, hate that kind of stuff. So he's very much coming in as a bachelor who lives above the store. He also gets married while he's in the White House? Yes, he gets married in 1886 and his new wife, Francis, who goes by the nickname Frank. She's hugely popular. She is better at the social elements of the White House and can kind of help humanize him a little bit. That's something that people often remember about Cleveland is that his wife was actually the daughter of one of his best friends. I remember that. Yes, that is one of the things I remember. Most people do. Yes, her father had been Oscar Fulsome, but he had died in an accident when Francis was very young. And so Cleveland is sort of like a trustee. So he's been in her life for most of her life and was very friendly with her mother. And some people thought maybe it was the mother who was going to be the Mrs. Cleveland. But Grover and Francis fell in love. And even though there was a 20, 27-year-age difference, they got married in 1886. So by the time his first term is coming to an end, he's running for reelection. How good do his chances look? Like how popular is he at the time? In some ways, he was still popular, but in other ways not. So there are some issues where he's very adamant about them and he loses support even among his party members. So there's a lot of things that are not necessarily to his benefit when he starts running in 1888. And they ran a terrible campaign. And well, first of all, they had a vice presidential candidate who was, I guess this is something that we'll understand too, was just too old and informed to really do the job. Because at that point, candidates don't go out in campaign for themselves, the way that we're so used to them doing now. You really have to have something of an organization on the speaking circuit to really drum up support. And Cleveland just didn't have a good organization behind him on that level. Whereas Benjamin Harrison and the Republicans did. So how did his reelection play out? He actually won the popular vote. He had a lot of support in the South and some of the mid-Atlantic states. But because of where the votes were, and we've seen this happen before, that you can get the popular vote, but if they're not in the electoral college heavy states, it can go the other way. And that's exactly what happened to Cleveland. So the return scheme in, Benjamin Harrison, officially won the 1888 election, kicks Cleveland out of office. And we should say Harrison was a Republican in favor of trust-busting voting rights for black Americans, higher tariffs on imports. He was also the first president to have his voice recorded, though it's definitely not the clearest, but here it is. That's very good. I do remember the votes. I remember the votes of the first half American kind of that happened in Greenfield. So how does Cleveland take this loss, especially given not only has he been sort of booted from the White House, but the fact that he did win the popular vote and that it did seem like, you know, in some ways, it was very close election. How does he sort of state and move does he leave the White House in? I mean, I don't think anybody likes to lose, but I don't think he was overly bitter. He wasn't bitter in the same way that he would create a third party or contest the election or anything like that. One of his biographers said he was almost like, a schoolboy who was about ready to go on vacation. Because, you know, with many people who are seeking the job at President, they have the same vision to be President or they sort of have this fire for the position. And I don't think that was really Grover Cleveland. He was glad that the campaign had brought out very stark policy differences between the Republicans and the Democrats, because Republicans did have a very different policy platform than the Democrats. And I think he had this thought that, you know, well, they'll find out that I was right or, you know, we'll see how this plays out. But I think personally, I think he was happy to, to Juddison the job, because now he's married and he wants some privacy and he wants to have a family life. Now, on the other hand, his wife Francis, you know, theoretically told one of the White House staff, like, you know, don't move anything 'cause we're gonna be back in four years. So, you know, if she actually said that, she may have had more of a hope or a premonition that they would be returning than he did. - So, four years later, there he is. So, so what happened, like at what point does it become apparent that he does actually want to get back to the White House? - I think what had happened by 1892 is that he was seeing what the Republicans had done, like an unraveling of some of his work. - Yeah, I think so. And again, I think the kind of mangrove or Cleveland was, is that it was a duty to the nation to do what he could, to protect it, to be sort of an executive on that score. And also, when he was seeing some of the other people who were being discussed as a possible Democratic nominee, he had no faith in them either. - So, in that election of 1892, how does that campaign go for him? - Well, it went better than the 1888 campaign, that's for sure. You know, that he had learned some lessons from 1888 for one thing, that he needed to have better lieutenants and people who would be out there, who would be funding the campaign, because that's another thing about Cleveland. If you're not supported by party bosses, if you're not part of the political machinery, you can't rely on those networks to do your job for you. So, in '92, he had, I think, more competent people behind him. I'm sure it also helped that Harrison was not entirely popular within his own party. Another personal thing for Harrison is that, in the last months of the 1892 election, his wife Caroline was dying of tuberculosis and actually died, not too long before the election. So, Benjamin Harrison's heart isn't really in the presidency anymore either. So, once again, Grover Cleveland wins the popular vote, but this time he also wins the Electoral College too. So, Grover Cleveland, in his three runs for the presidency, won the popular vote each time, but only the twice did he win the Electoral College and become president. - Were there any ways in which you feel like he was a different president when he came back? - Something that's a little bit different is he delegates more, that in his first administration, he was trying to do so much of it himself, because he saw that role as an executive. In the second administration, he's delegating things to more cabinet officials. He's more willing or amenable to make deals when he thought it was in the public benefit. - What sort of parallels do you think exists or not between Cleveland's story and sort of what we're living through today with Trump trying to regain the White House for years later as well? - In some ways, it's kind of hard to make parallels because the office and the men are so different. The role has expanded so greatly. Also the sort of media landscape that we live in. Although to some degree, some things go along with that saying, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. That today when you say, "Oh, there's a partisan press that was very much the 19th century. There were democratic newspapers and Republican newspapers. And you could kind of almost be in a little bit of an echo chamber depending on what your new source was and your community." And I think we understand that a little bit more viscerally. - Hmm. So one other obvious parallel I see is that of all the former presidents who've tried to return to the White House, Cleveland and Trump are the only ones who successfully secured the nomination of their original party, right? They didn't try to get it, but fall short. They didn't run as third party candidates. - Right. - Trump is the only former president other than Cleveland to make it to the general election with a mainstream party's official support. And that feels like a pretty big similarity. - So last very important question about Cleveland is just that his winning the presidency again, just really messed up the presidential numbering system. - Usually. - Explain why his serving a non-consecutive term has foiled all of our nice numbering. Because at least through Benjamin Harrison, you had the same number of presidents as presidential administrations. So Grover Cleveland, the first time around was number 22 and he was the 22nd person to hold the office. Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd. Then we get Grover Cleveland coming back and he's got the 24th administration, but we still only have 23 people. - Yeah, he's not the 24th difference. - He's not president. - Right, he hadn't been cloned and become another person. So at least as of today, we still have 46 administrations, but only 45 people to have held the office because of Grover Cleveland. - Yeah. - But it also means that he is an excellent trivia question. (laughing) - That's true. If you remember this now, it's gonna come in handy. - Exactly. - After Cleveland, there have only been two other former presidents before now who tried getting back to the White House. One of them was Theodore Roosevelt. And you know what, despite their very different politics, TR's reelection campaign actually has some striking similarities to Trump's. We'll explore that when we return. - Good journalism is even better when it's shared with a premium subscription to the Washington Post. You get three extra accounts to share with friends and family, so they can stay informed too. Right now, you can get a premium subscription to the post for $6 every four weeks. Just $6 unlocks trusted reporting to share with other people in your life. After your first six months, it'll cost $19 every four weeks. You can cancel any time. Head over to washingtonpost.com/subscribe and get premium access to the Washington Post today. That's Washingtonpost.com/subscribe. - The two former presidents who tried running again after Grover Cleveland were Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover. Hoover never had much of a shot though. He only got a few delegate votes at the Republican convention in 1940. So he didn't come anywhere near, getting his party's nomination. The Roosevelt is a different story though. So we're gonna focus on him. Michelle remind us how he left office originally and whether there were some hints, like back then, even, that he would want to return to the White House. - Well, we have to also remember how Theodore Roosevelt came into the White House to begin with. He had been the Vice Presidential candidate in 1900 with William McKinley. They were successful. So McKinley had started his second term of office and Theodore Roosevelt was starting his first term as Vice President. Didn't wanna be Vice President because at that point, Vice President didn't do anything but then everything changed when William McKinley was assassinated in 1901 and then Theodore Roosevelt became president. So he would be serving out the remainder of William McKinley's term having not been elected president at that point. In 1904, he ran on his own right and one spectacularly. And on the night that he won, the presidency in his own right, he very rashly promised that he would not run again, immediately regretted it. (laughing) But to his credit, he didn't run again in 1908 but I think he missed being out of the arena. - I was gonna say, I mean, he was pretty explicit about how much he loved being president and how he thought it was the best job in the world, right? So I mean, he left office knowing it was a thing he loved. - Well, I mean, he would tell people, like I've had a great time as president and I'm gonna go do some other things now but if you know something about Theodore Roosevelt, he is not content to be quiet. So yeah, on the way out of the White House, he endorsed Howard Taft as his successor, Taft One, Roosevelt went off to Africa and Europe but as soon enough, he was back in America wanting to return to politics, well wanting to return to the White House. because he was furious at how Taft was doing the job, right? - God, he's just such a whirlwind in so many ways. There are some less pleasant aspects of his character in personnel. He can be very, very belligerent. And a little bit kind of warmongery in some elements too. He's just such a larger than life character. I think it would have been hard for him to stay out of the 1912 election, particularly given that he was not a supporter of Taft anymore. - So for the 1912 election, TR first tries to get the Republican nomination instead of Taft, the sitting president, right? - Right. - It says like, that's his first attempt. - Exactly. So, you know, he still saw himself as a Republican and TR and kind of his group of supporters were trying to have him win the primaries and thinking that if TR won enough of these popular primaries, then that would force the hand of the Republicans at their convention. He did win a lot of primaries and, you know, came in with certain delegates, but there were questions about some of the delegates. And the other thing is because Taft was the incumbent president. He also had the party machinery behind him as well. So, the convention immediately had these, had the question of which delegates were going to be the official delegates that would be seated at the convention, and most of them went to Taft. And so, TR and his group basically bolted the party at that point. To some degree, that's where you kind of see some parallels of, you know, he thought that it had been rigged and you know, that it had been stolen from him and the nomination. - The nomination. - Exactly. And so, he and his group decided to essentially form their own party and bolt the Republican party. - And so, what is this third party he starts? - Well, it's called the Progressive Party, but once he says he feels as fit as a bull moose, it becomes known as the bull moose party. So, you know, for all intents and purposes, it's sort of, you know, the Fiat Arroz of El Party. - Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, and this made for the magnitude of the task, the new body opposite self as the instrument of the people, the sweet-for-way-old abuses to build a new and no-bler common ground. - But it has a lot more progressive reform agendas. Therefore, old age pensions from minimum wages, for more workers' rights, for women's suffrage, more women get involved. It's a lot more about conservation. - And our task as Americans is to strive for social and industrial justice, achieved through the genuine rule of the people. This is our end, our best. - But it's a really, it's a tough thing because this was an election that was really difficult for people personally, too, because TR had been so much a part of the Republican Party for so long as had many of his friends and supporters. So, some of his, his most dear friends didn't follow him. Some did, some didn't. - So, in one horrible parallel to this year's election, at one of Roosevelt's campaign events, he survives an assassination attempt. - A lot of times people weren't campaigning on their own. But TR, he is going around barnstorming, giving talks, and he's in Milwaukee on October 14th, and he's gonna be giving a lecture, so he's picked up at the hotel. He just got into an open top car, and he's just started waving to people when a mentally disturbed man named John Schrank shot him in the chest while he's waving from the open car. And the reason that he did that, or at least what he described, is that he had had a dream in which William McKinley had come to him and identified theater Roosevelt as his murderer, and that he should avenge his death. And so, Schrank gets a gun and did manage to actually shoot TR in the chest. But this is why being blinded and verbose can really come in handy, because TR had a metal case for eyeglasses and a folded up version of his speech in his coat pocket, and the bullet went through this folded up speech and through the eyeglass case, which slowed it down before it got into TR. And it stopped just short of his lungs. And the speech was also in sort of TR fashion going to be very long. So it was a lot of actors. And because it had slowed the bullet down enough, and he knew when he coughed and he didn't see any blood on his handkerchief, and no blood was coming up through his mouth, that his lungs hadn't been penetrated. So he-- His chest is bleeding. He's not coughing blood, but he is still bleeding. Yes, and has a bullet in his chest. He has a bullet in his chest. Everyone around him is trying to tell him that they need to get to the hospital. He insists on going to the venue and giving his speech. And so he goes on stage. And he kind of says, "Well, I don't know if you've heard, but I've been shot." And then, you know, kind of pulls back his jacket. And he shows the blood in his shirt. But this is so TR, though. I mean, this is why it's so hard to kind of encapsulate him, because he's just such an interesting character. But he says, "You know, I'm going to go on with my speech." And even though, you know, he's kind of tottering, I think, a little bit towards the end. He gives a 90-minute speech. I was going to say-- So I actually-- I looked up the transcript of his speech, and I'll just read part of it. Yeah, please do. So this is from the start of it. He says, "Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don't know whether you fully understand that I've just been shot. But it takes more than that to kill a bull moose. But fortunately, I had my manuscript. So you see, I was going to make a long speech, and there's the bullet. This is where the bullet went through. And it probably saved me from it going into my heart. The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech. But I will try my best." And then he does a long speech. And then he does a long speech. And at times, you know, he sort of acknowledges that there are people on the sideline staffers who are like, "You need to stop. You need to wrap it up." And he's like, "Okay, I'm getting some queused to wrap it up." But just a couple more things. There's more. So then he does go to the hospital. I mean, we have to wrap this up for the listeners because they take him to the hospital. None of the vital organs were hit. And actually, he keeps that bullet in his body for the rest of his life. And, you know, he -- one of the documents that we have at the Library of Congress was the telegram that he sent to his wife like, "Oh, don't bother coming. I'm just shot, but not too badly." I've been worse hurt falling off of a horse. And of course, she goes anyway. But that just tells you something about him. I was like, "Okay, my lungs haven't been penetrated by a bullet, so I'm going to go give a 90-minute speech anyway." So, I mean, for all of TR's popularity and this assassination attempt, I mean, it doesn't put an end to his campaign or anything. But so how does that election go? Why doesn't it ultimately work out for him? So there was Woodrow Wilson representing the Democratic Party, William Howard Taft, who was representing the traditional Republican Party, TR representing the Bull Moose or Progressive Party, and then Eugene V. Debs, who was representing the Socialist Party. The difference between Mr. Wilson and myself is fundamental. So, ultimately, the race really comes down to TR and Wilson. We propose, on the contrary, to extend governmental power in order to secure the liberty of the wage workers of the men and women who toil and industry to save the liberty of the oppressed from the oppressed. But as it turned out, Woodrow Wilson won pretty handily with the Electoral College and got about 41% of the vote. But interestingly, TR came in second. I think it was the strongest third party campaign in US history so far. Definitely. Is there anything that kind of stands out to you as an interesting parallel or sort of lesson from TR's run that begins sort of living through the election we are today? You'd like to highlight? Well, I guess because, you know, with your question about with TR's popularity, why didn't he win or why didn't work out? I think the question is really why did they do so well? And on that score, I think it was really the person that TR was so popular, he was such a dynamic figure. We're talking with TR as a third party candidate as opposed to, you know, today with President Trump being on the Republican ticket and not running a third party. But, you know, sometimes when you're looking at TR's run, the language that they're using and the enthusiasm of the crowds, it almost does kind of have an era of a crusade in it. And sometimes you do see that with presidential candidates that the person creates even more of an enthusiasm than sometimes their policies or-- And a loyalty? Yeah, a certain loyalty. And so I think you can definitely see that with TR with TR. with the enthusiasm that he was whipping up because of who he was and the kind of character that he was. So it's like if Roosevelt was able to do so well as a third party candidate given his huge following, just imagine how well he might have done if he had actually been the Republican nominee. And I mean that hypothetical in a way is what we're seeing today with Trump. Right. Right. So what I'm going to say is that people were looking at the 1920 election because Woodrow Wilson had one two elections but obviously with Stroke and with the after of Roosevelt of World War I, he was not going to be running again. So people started looking at TR for 1920. The problem being is that after he lost the 12 election, then he went on his last great adventure in an uncharted tributary of the Amazon, that river of doubt trip, reopened, wound, nearly died, came back, and not good health. And then the death of his son Quentin during World War I, I think, broke his heart too. So he died in 1919 but had more vigorous health at the end. Who knows if he might have come back in 1920. Any thoughts on why there haven't been more president since Cleveland who tried, let alone succeeded? Well, one thing that we have to look at is for many presidents now, it's illegal for them to run if they've been there for two terms. So after Franklin Roosevelt had won four elections, then there is now a constitutional amendment that says if you've been in office twice, that's it. So bringing in to some of our modern presidents, sometimes you can't run again. I think other people may not want the job or the whole nation has changed by the time they might have been able to come back. So maybe some of them don't represent the time anymore. They may have been the person elected in a particular time, but then there's been a shift. So I'm thinking about Jimmy Carter, for example, because he could have run again since he only had the one presidency. But things had changed so much after 1980. And then in thinking about this, maybe some people don't come back again because they see a life after the presidency too. So I think some of the individuals who have been president find that they have more efficacy or they can focus on what they want to focus on afterwards. And again, Jimmy Carter was coming to mind. And then of course you look at some of our one term presidents in the past and like James K. Polk said, "I'm not running again," and then he died on the way home. So sometimes it's just either the health of the individual or the politics have changed or maybe they just don't have the fire to try again. Well having that fire to try again already puts Trump among a small group of former presidents. And if he wins re-election, that group gets even smaller, just two members. But because of the presidential term limits we have now, a win for Trump in 2024 would by definition mean something it didn't necessarily mean for Cleveland. A win would immediately herald the start of an ending. A return to the White House, but knowing from the outset that it would be the final time. Many thanks to Michelle Crawl for sharing her insights with us in this episode. Archival audio comes from the Library of Congress and the G. Robert Vincent Voice Library at Michigan State University. Original music is by Dave Wessner. This episode was produced by the amazing Eliza Dennis and edited by Allison Michaels with very special thanks also to Ariel Plotnik and Ted Muldoon for their help in the studio. I'm Lilian Cunningham, the host and creator of Presidential. You can find me on Instagram at Lilian Cunningham and if you want to stay in the know about upcoming episodes, events, projects, you can also sign up for my mailing list at LilianCunningham.com. Thank you all so much for listening. I'm really grateful. Bye for now. Better decisions start long before you make them. That's why Deloitte brings together the right technology with the right teams to understand what's connected, what could change and what could break. From AI and data to cloud, cyber and risk, Deloitte's diverse perspectives and deep experience can help you move faster and make decisions with more confidence. Deloitte Together Makes Progress. Visit Deloitte.com/TogetherMakesProgress. 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