When Push Came to Shove

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Dan Quayle is hardly the first Vice President to become a political liability for his boss. Three times in this century incumbent Presidents have chosen new running mates. Those left behind:

JOHN NANCE GARNER (1940). As F.D.R. dithered over whether to run for a third term, Garner, who had opposed Roosevelt's pro-labor New Deal policies and his attempt to pack the Supreme Court, entered the presidential race himself. With the Nazi threat to Europe looming larger in the summer of 1940, Roosevelt engineered his own renomination and shunted Garner aside in favor of Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, a former Republican but a loyal New Dealer.

HENRY WALLACE (1944). Overshadowing Roosevelt's choice of a running mate was the suspicion that he might not live to the end of a fourth term. Vice President Wallace's advocacy of civil rights and his utopian rhetoric about a global New Deal made him anathema to big-city bosses and conservative Southern Democrats. F.D.R. toyed with the idea of picking Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas to replace him, but finally settled on Missouri Senator Harry Truman.

NELSON ROCKEFELLER (1976). With Gerald Ford facing a challenge from Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination in 1976, Rockefeller served as a lightning rod for conservatives, who had never forgiven him for opposing Barry Goldwater in 1964. Rocky tried to appease the right wing by attacking welfare "cheats." To no avail: Ford's campaign manager described him as the President's "No. 1 problem" in winning the G.O.P. nomination. In November 1975 Rockefeller jumped off the ticket before Ford could push him. Ford replaced him with Kansas Senator Bob Dole, but the ticket lost to Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.