At this late hour, there is a chance—admittedly a very slim one—that Donald Trump might wish to avoid a catastrophic loss to Hillary Clinton, or that Republican leaders might petition him to step aside as their nominee. There is time enough yet for such a thing to happen, and there is a remote—a very remote—chance that it could happen. More pertinent, however, is the fact that this sequence of events is possible, and that there is precedent.
In late July 1972, shortly after the Democratic National Convention, it was revealed that George McGovern’s vice-presidential running mate, Thomas Eagleton, had been hospitalized in the 1960s for depression, and undergone electroshock therapy. Whether this psycho-biographical fact would be a disqualifier today is an open question; but Eagleton had never mentioned it to McGovern, and in any case, he had been chosen after several other potential candidates had refused McGovern’s offer. After a brief public controversy, featuring McGovern’s famous pledge that he supported his running mate “a thousand percent,” Eagleton resigned from the Democrat ticket.
