WI: Ronald Reagan Resigns on November 9, 1988?

What if Ronny Reagan resigned the day after the '88 election to let Senior Bush start his presidency right away? Would Bush get more accomplished with two extra months as president? Would the senate hold a vote later in November to let Quayle start his vice presidency right away?
 
It could set a precedent for lame ducks whose successor is of the same party as them. Clinton could maybe resign for Gore in an ATL 2000 election. But I think this would probably just stir the pot when it comes to theories about his health and state of mind. But I don't know why he'd do this, Bush would still have to be sworn in in January, wouldn't he? And Congress isn't going to be in the mindset to be passing large legislation in what is traditionally a more legislatively relaxed period. Honestly there wouldn't be much point to this, as Bush would still have to build his transition team, which wouldn't be as intensive a process given he was the VP to another Republican, but still.
 

Driftless

Donor
Even if the intent is there, wouldn't Reagan wait for the Electoral College to complete the official election... With all of the administrative hooha that goes with that process, the Congress doesn't complete their portion till mid January.
 
It would be silly and pointless and would only contribute to speculation that Reagan was starting to lose it mentally.

When such resignations might have made sense was back when the new president was not inaugurated until March and was of the opposite party--e.g., Wilson suggested that if Hughes won, he might appoint Hughes Secretary of State, whereupon both Wilson and Marshall would resign, making Hughes president a few months early. The idea was that with the World War raging the US couldn't afford a discredited "lame-duck" president. The same thing was suggested (by people hostile to the incumbent president) in 1920 and 1932, and at least in 1932 might have made sense to avoid the awful interregnum of OTL where bank after bank was failing and the outgoing president found it difficult to do anything about it.
 
What would be the point? I don't understand why Bush Sr. wouldn't just wait 2 and a half months to become president.
 
I don't know that the incoming President would even want this in a VP situation. The transition is already an extremely busy time, and Bush is trying to figure out his cabinet, subcabinet and political appointments. During those two months, a President generally makes decision on about 4,000 positions. Then there's the issue of lost momentum. Your official inaugural would be a let-down after you've already been President, so you're losing the chance to really maximize that for bully pulpit purposes. Unless Reagan felt he was unable to perform his duties as President, it's better for the President-elect to have this period to fully plan out their Presidency, hit the ground running, and charge into their first 100 days.
 
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