<<What are the chances McCain is going to pull a William Henry Harrison and croak within a month of being inaugurated? Probably close to zero. McCain is grooming a successor. The chances of her actually having to take the reigns before gaining substantial executive branch exposure and experience are not zero, but they're pretty close to it. The Vice President is highly unlikely to be called upon to perform presidential duties in any substantial manner, and anyone being honest recognizes that. The Vice Presidency has been used as an opportunity to groom successors since at least Teddy Roosevelt.>>
You and McCain must be reading from a different copy of the Constitution than the one I have. Mine doesn't say anything about the duty of the President to "groom a successor." This isn't a monarchy we're talking about. The American people will pick the next President their own unique little way, by voting for him or her, the way they always have.
If it only takes a month to "groom a successor," then all that "experience" that McCain was babbling about earlier doesn't amount to a hill of beans. You need a lot of experience for this job but you can learn it all in a month? Huh? Impressive. I hope our local surgeons have more than a month's practice behind them.
The chances of her being handed the reins are not as slim as you think. You can't get at it statistically, because the U.S. has never elected a 72-year-old President before, let alone a three-time cancer survivor, let alone a three-time cancer survivor with a visible growth on his head, but I don't think they're negligible, and I don't think Americans who cared enough about their own security to make it their number one concern (i.e., McCain voters) are going to be overly pleased about the senile old coot putting their security at risk in a gamble on whatever those odds turn out to be, just to gain an edge over his opponent in an election.
