Garrett Hobart

August 25, 2008 - 11:54am

Trivia: New Jersey hasn't supported a border state VP candidate since 1908

Joseph Biden is the seventh vice presidential nominee from a state that borders New Jersey since William McKinley picked New York Gov. Theodore Roosevelt to run on his ticket in 1900, following the death of Vice President Garrett Hobart, a resident of Paterson. New Jersey hasn’t cast its electoral votes for a border state VP candidate since U.S. Rep. James Sherman (R-Utica) ran with William Howard Taft in 1908. New Yorkers Jack Kemp (1996), Geraldine Ferraro (1984), William Miller, (1964), and Franklin Roosevelt (1920) did not carry New Jersey when they ran with Bob Dole, Walter Mondale, Barry Goldwater and James Cox, respectively. Sherman ran for re-election with Taft in 1912 (he died a few weeks before the election, but Taft decided not to replace him), but New Jersey supported favorite son Woodrow Wilson instead.

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July 18, 2007 - 1:26pm

Potentially useless trivia for a July afternoon

Lady Bird Johnson lived for nearly 44 years after her husband left the Vice Presidency following John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. That is the longest a former Second Lady of the United States has lived after leaving office.

The second longest tenure as a former Second Lady belongs to a New Jerseyan, Jennie Tuttle Hobart, who died in 1941 -- 42 years after the death of her husband, Garrett Hobart.

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