James Corndan

**James Robert Corndan** (born October 17, 1966) is an American retired politician who served as the 47th Vice President of the United States from 2009 to 2013 and Acting President of the United States from 2012 to 2013.

Before being elected to the Vice Presidency, Corndan served in United States Senate from 2001 to 2008 and as Senate Majority Whip from 2007 to 2008. Corndan also served as a top Clinton White House adviser in his first term as president before serving two terms as a Representative from Michigan's 13th Congressional District from 1997 to 2001.

## Early Life

Born on October 17, 1966 in Lansing, MIchigan to Daniel Corndan Jr (1930-) and Mary Corndan (1933-). James lived with his oldest sister Michelle in a small, lower middle class home on the outskirts of Lansing for just over two years, before the family moved to Kalamazoo since James got a new job there.

A year after moving to the city, James's youngest sister Lisa was born. James attended Oak Park Elementary School from 1971 to 1977, Grandview Middle School from 1977 to 1980 and Loy Norrix High School from 1980 to 1984. While attending a summer camp in the Upper Peninsula, James meet his future wife, Rebecca. James graduated from Loy Norrix High School with top marks, and was accepted into the Political Science program at the University of Michigan.

He attended the University from 1984 to 1989, receiving a Masters of Arts Degree in Political Science with a Minor in American History. James accepted a job offer to work as a clerk at a law firm in downtown Kalamazoo, where he sleeped in a small, one bedroom, one bathroom apartment with Rebecca while working there.

## Early Career

In early July of 1991, James decided to get into politics, so he quit his job as a clerk and quickly became a staffer of the Mayor of Kalamazoo, Beverly Moore. in late September of 1991, he was contacted by the deputy chief of staff to then Governor of Arkansas Bill Clinton, asking him to join the newly created campaign staff for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign in 1992. James quit his job as staffer and moved down south to Little Rock with Rebecca for the rest of 1991 and for the first seven and a half months of 1992.

There James proposed to Rebecca the first night in Little Rock and the two got married that December. After Clinton won the 1992 Democratic nomination, he was tasking to head back to Kalamazoo, to help organize and lead the Clinton Campaign in Michigan, a key swing state in the general election. Due to the help given by James and the rest of the Michigan staff, Clinton was able to not only win the state of Michigan, but to win the election as well.

President-Elect Clinton invited James and Rebecca to a meeting in late November in Little Rock, where he asked him to work as a senior advisor to the President in the White House. James rented a very small one bedroom condo in Washington D.C to stay in while working for Clinton. After Clinton was sworn in, James worked with Chief of Staff Mack McLarty and President Clinton in the West Wing to work on lowering the federal deficit, as James was given responsibility to help get NAFTA finished and ready to be ratified by President Clinton.

After the 1994 Republican Revolution, President Clinton assigned Corndan to his possible re-election campaign in 1996, which Corndan worked on for several months in 1995.

## U.S House Career

In late September of 1995, Corndan's incumbent congresswoman announced that she would not be seeking re-election in the house in 1996, and Corndan decided to run for that open seat, under advice from President Clinton himself. Corndan soon was given active leave from the Clinton White House till the end of the current term. Corndan did well in primary, defeating his opponents by a margin of nearly 2 to 1. In the general election, Corndan faced off against Joe Fitzsimmons, who was defeated by Corndan by a margin of nearly 15% on election day. While serving in the house, Corndan seemed to get all with the majority with his fellow Democrats, becoming good friends with Senator Steny Engel while serving in the house.

## U.S Senate Career

After being re-elected by a very large margin in 1998, Representative Corndan decided to run for the hotly contested senate seat in Michigan in 2000 that was Republican controlled. After gathering a large amount of money to spend in the primary, Corndan formally announced his candidacy for senate on September 11th, 1999. He quickly was able to gain front runner status in the Democratic primary, as Corndan was able to win the Democratic primary with ease. In the general election, Corndan faced a much tougher challenge.

Corndan faced off against one term incumbent senator Spencer Abraham, who had trailed in the polls behind Corndan for much of the summer. The race seemed to be a too close to call tossup until October 23rd, 2000 when the only debate of the election season was held. Polls taken after showed that Corndan appeared to have defeated Abraham by a margin of 55 to 45, which helped Corndan keep his momentum into election day.

On election night, despite the national presidential election taking over a month to be finished, the senate race was called for Corndan on election night. Corndan was sworn into office as the newest senator from the state of Michigan on January 3rd, 2001 alongside his wife of nearly 10 years Rebecca and their 3 young children by then outgoing Vice President Al Gore. In his first few months of being a senator, Corndan was alligned with the more left wing of the Democratic party lead by fellow Michigan Senator Steny Engel.

On Setember 11th, 2001, Corndan was in Washington D.C when several planes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York City and at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Corndan strongly supported the U.S intervention into Afghanistan, strongly supporting the AUMF against Terrorists. Later in 2001, Senator Corndan begrudgingly voted aye on the USA PATRIOT act despite his own personal concern of American's civil liberties being violated but he believed at the time that the act was vital in fighting terrorism. Later in 2002, Corndan was strongly opposed to the U.S invasion of Iraq, saying that he supported further sancitons against Iraq, however he said that military action was unnecessary.

In 2003, he briefly considered running for the 2004 Democratic nomination but decided against it, believing that he had no chance of winning the nomination or even doing well in the primary due to his age. Corndan supported Howard Dean for the 2004 Democratic nomination, but after Super Tuesday supported nominee John Kerry. Corndan campaigned for Kerry several times throughout the campaign, but Kerry ultimately lost the election to President Bush. On May 1, 2005, Corndan formally annouced that he would be seeking another term as senator in 2006.

Corndan was easily able to win his primary in 2006, facing off against Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard in the general election. Despite a midly close race to begin the election, Corndan's lead quickly began insurmountable throughout August, September and October. Corndan was easily able to win re-election over Bouchard on election night, being one of the first senate elections to be called.

In the 110th Congress, Corndan was elected as the new Senate Majority Whip, replacing Senator Dick Durbin who had decided to retire as whip due to a health conditon. Corndan joined his fellow Michigan Senator Steny Engel who was simultaneously elected as the new Senate Majority Leader. In the first year of the congress, Corndan, Engel and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed Democratic policies and their agenda which clashed against President Bush.

Throughout his tenre as a United States Senator, Corndan remained incredibly popular in his home state. This was due to his very strong union and youth support in Michigan, which helped his two election victories in 2000 and 2006.

## 2008 vice presidential campaign

In May of 2008, Senator Hillary Corning became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president in 2008, the first ever woman to be on the top of a presidential ticket. Later that year, Corndan first appeared on Corning's VP shortlist. Many pundits believed the reason that Corndan was on the shortlist was because of his experience, his youth and the fact that he was from a competitive swing state.

In early july of 2008, Corning had narrowed down her VP shortlist to three people, Corndan, Virginia Governor Caroline Molloy and Wisconsin Senator David Banjeree. For days, Corndan believed that Corning had decided on Banjeree due to his minority status, but was suprised by a phone call in late July. Corndan said that the phone call was "The greatest moment of my entire life." as he was offered the vice presidency. Corndan immediately accepted the offer and the news that Corning had selected James Corndan as her running mate had broke to the public.

From August 25 to August 28, 2008, the 2008 Democratic National Convention was held in Denver, Colorado. Corndan and Corning were nominated by acclmation to formally become the 2008 Democratic ticket for president. Both Corndan and Corning spoke at the convention. While Corndan's speech was well received, Corning's acceptance speech was extremely well received.

After the convention had ended, the convention bump was quite large, with one poll showed the Corning/Corndan ticket leading the Lasseter/Boehner ticket by nearly 15 points nationally and leading by at least 2 points in every swing state. All throughout the months of September and October, polls showed that the Corning/Corndan ticket had expanded their lead nationally by several points. After being heavily criticized for not particpating in the first two planned presidential debates, Daniel Lasseter debated Hillary Corning at Hofstra University in New York on October 15th, 2008. Polls after the debate showed that most people believed that Corning had won the debate over Lasseter, which further cemented Lasseter's campaign as pratically dead.

In the early hours of November 5th, 2008, Hillary Corning was declared the president-elect of the United States by all major media outlets, making Corndan the vice president-elect. Corndan soon resigned as Senate Majority Whip on November 28th, and as a senator on December 21st.

## Vice Presidency (2009-2012)

Corndan took office as the 47th Vice President of the United States on January 20th, 2009 in front of the capital building in Washington D.C.

As Vice President, Corndan wanted to keep a very low profile as Vice President. He made sure to never attract a lot of media attention and instead to focus on many of the tasks that the job gave him. Corndan often held a good relationship with top congressional Democrats, during the 111th congress and with senate leaders like Steny Engel. The Corning administration passed several notable legislation during the first two years of her presidency, such as universial healthcare or dubbed "CorningCare" by many.

In the 2010 midterm elections, Democrats lost a historic number of house seats and lost 3 senate seats, but outside of the house, the Democrats easily outperformed any and all expectations for the elections. After the election, Corndan decided to spend more time outside of congress, as he believed that he would be needed less on capitol hill for at least the next two years.

During his last two years as Vice President, Corndan travelled out of Washington D.C more often, regularly attends world summits and meetings if President Corning was not available to attend.

In the 2012 presidential election, the Corning/Corndan ticket was easily re-nominated for a second term. The Republicans nominated Senator Jason Miner of Pennsylvania, who defeated John Berkman, the Senate Minority Leader in the primaries. Despite a recovering economy, many seemed to want change in the government and that proved vital in this election. Miner was able to defeat President Corning in a solid victory, denying her a second term.

## Acting Presidency (2012-2013)

In the late hours of November 7th 2012, the day after the presidential election, President Corning shot herself in the chest outside of the Oval Office. Corndan was asleep at the time at the Naval Observatory when the event happened, and was rushed out of the house alongside his wife 10 minutes later. Corndan became Acting President after arriving at the White House while Corning was at the hospital. In his first few days as Acting President, Corndan declared that he simply wanted to contiune President Corning's policies if he held the office of Acting President for more than a few days (which was correct).

Corndan faced his first and only major event during his Acting Presidency: The Sandy Hook School Shooting. Several children, were murdered along with several teachers in a school shooting that left around a dozen people dead. Following the shooting, Acting President Corndan annouced his attempt during his last few weeks in office as Acting President, to try to at least get one piece of actual gun control threw Congress. Despite his efforts, it never passed the house.

Corndan left the office of both Acting President and Vice President at noon on January 20, 2013 during the inauguration of Jason Miner.

## Post Vice Presidency (2013-Present)

Corndan left the office of Vice President on January 20th, 2013. Immediately after leaving office, a "Draft Corndan" movement began in some parts of the Democratic party wanting Corndan to run for President in 2016, but Corndan ultimately declined to seek further public elected office, dispelling those rumors. Corndan spoke on Night 2 of the 2016 Democratic National Convention, praising both his former boss President Hillary Corning and Senator Elisa Hale, who went on to both win the nomination and the presidency in 2016.

Much like former Vice President Dan Quayle, Corndan has remained completely out of the public eye, only making public appearances for the funeral of Hillary Corning, giving a eulogy and the Inauguration of President Elisa Hale. Corndan currently resides at his Kalamazoo home with his wife and their three children. Corndan has also continued his friendship with Democratic Michigan politicans Steny Engel and Avianna Panetta, the latter became Vice President herself in 2017.