Governor Mitt Romney was our guest on today's Northern Alliance Radio Network, and we spoke with him for eighteen minutes as the Presidential candidate made his way between flights. Despite the frantic nature of his schedule today, Romney presented a calm, thoughtful, and unhurried demeanor as we introduced our audience to one of the presumptive Republican front-runners. Here's the entire interview, podcasted for your convenience:

Romney Interview

One of the more intriguing questions Romney answered had little to do with his own campaign. I asked him why the election cycle seems to have started so early in both parties, and instead of giving the usual analysis about the 24-hour news cycle and the rise of the bloggers, he said that the lack of a vice-presidential presumptive nominee seems to have forced everyone to start raising funds earlier.

That got Mitch and I wondering later in the show about when we didn't have a sitting VP running for President. We figured that would be 1952, when the Democrats nominated Adlai Stevenson for the first of two attempts to win the White House (losing both times to Dwight Eisenhower). However, Alben Barkley did run for the nomination in 1952; Stevenson beat him out for the nomination.

So who was it? After a little research, it appears that honor goes to Charles Dawes, the VP of Calvin Coolidge, as I speculated at first on the air. Dawes, it turns out, was a disaster as VP. He started his term of office by insulting Coolidge and the Republican-controlled Senate. He refused to attend Cabinet meetings, and then when he was inaugurated on the Senate floor as was the tradition in those days, he gave a speech that blasted the various traditions of the Senate. Since that speech preceded Coolidge's own inaugural, which followed immediately after, it overshadowed Coolidge's address, infuriating him even more. Dawes wound up botching his job in helping to push a difficult Cabinet appointment through the Senate a short time afterwards, and later convinced the Senate to pass a bill that Coolidge vetoed. He fared no better as an ambassador to the UK after his term of office; he insulted the British by rejecting the traditional dress at the Court of St. James, as well as rebelling against the expectation of introducing American women to the King.

The interview covers a lot of subjects, but does not touch on anything in too much depth. Later, as the Governor visits us during the campaign, we will spend more time drilling down into the various issues that resonate with the Republican base. Enjoy the clip, and let me know what you think.

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