JD Vance may follow a similar path to former VP William Howard Taft
By Don Mooney
When JD and Usha Vance chose a home for their growing family in Cincinnati, they picked a stately Pre-Depression mansion on William Howard Taft Road in the East Walnut Hills neighborhood, not far from the banks of the Ohio River.
Was it just coincidence that the Vance family chose a street named after the last Cincinnatian to occupy the Oval, way back in 1909 to 1913?
William Howard Taft grew up in Cincinnati, attending Woodward High School before heading off to Yale. Taft returned to study law, then served as a local and federal judge before hitching his wagon to President Teddy Roosevelt. Taft served in the cabinet and was handpicked by Roosevelt to succeed him as GOP presidential nominee in 1908.
Vance adopted Cincinnati as home after growing up in nearby Middletown. JD and Taft have just a few things in common.
– Yale: Vance went to New Haven for law school, Taft for his undergraduate degree.
– Facial hair: Taft sported a well-groomed handlebar moustache; JD has that not quite Lincolnesque beard.
– Anti-DEI: As an early adaptor of MAGA outrage about diverse, equitable and inclusive (DEI) workplaces, Vance should be happy to know that Taft fired Black post office supervisors his predecessor had appointed after complaints from their white underlings.
Otherwise, the two seem poles apart.
Taft was an internationalist, supporting U.S. intervention in World War I. Vance is an isolationist, opposing U.S. assistance to Ukraine.
Taft supported free trade with Canada and lower tariffs. Vance and Trump want higher tariffs and started a trade war with our neighbors to the north, threatening them with annexation.
A former judge, Taft got his dream job of chief justice after losing the presidency. He was very much a “rule of law” guy. Vance attacks federal judges and says team Trump should simply ignore court decisions that get in their way.
Taft carried his hometown in both the 1908 and 1912 presidential elections. While Trump and Vance won Ohio handily, they got clobbered in Cincinnati and Hamilton County, which have shifted blue in this century.
Now that Vance is the proverbial “heartbeat away” from a president pushing 80, Cincinnatians must come to grips with how their world might change under President Vance.
First, there’s the sheer annoyance. Vance’s neighbors in Walnut Hills are already bemoaning the blocked roads and angry protesters that comes with having a vice president as a neighbor. The security measures will be immeasurably more disruptive should Vance become president.
More uncertain is the direction Vance might tack if Trump moves off the stage. But that requires us to know who JD Vance really is.
Is he the guy who once was a “never-Trumper” and compared Trump to Hitler?
Or is he the guy who recently went to Germany and cuddled up the leader of the ADF party, heir to Hitler’s National Socialists?
Will he continue to vilify “childless cat ladies” and immigrants? Or will he become the more tolerant fellow his college and law school chums describe?
William Howard Taft ultimately had a falling out with his mentor Teddy Roosevelt, who unsuccessfully opposed Taft for the 1912 GOP nomination. The more charismatic Roosevelt then played the spoiler as a third party “Bull Moose” candidate that November. The result: Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. Taft lost Ohio and won only Utah and Vermont. Ouch.
Will Trump sour on Vance before 2028, as Roosevelt soured on Taft? The signs aren’t good. Trump has refused to acknowledge Vance as his favored successor and continuously raises the threat of a constitutionally prohibited third term.
It’s never been easy for a VP to escape the boss’s shadow. Ask Kamala Harris and Al Gore.
So maybe JD’s neighbors will be spared those annoying presidential motorcades after all.
Don Mooney is an attorney, a past member of the Cincinnati Planning Commission and is active in local politics.
