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The president that counts twice for some reason.
If you've had a shitty demoralizing office job, you've probably resorted to some pretty strange ways to pass the time. During one particularly soul-crushing stretch of my career, I became pretty partial to the US Presidents by Number quiz on Sporcle. Since I'm wicked smart, it didn't take me long to memorize the correct order — even the weird bit right in the middle of the sequence where Grover Cleveland shows up twice.
"Twice?" you might ask. "Well, that's kind of odd!"
Turns out, while we refer to current POTUS Joe Biden as the 46th president, he's actually only the 45th different person to hold office.
And no, it's not because the last guy was an oversized gym sock stuffed with moldy mashed potatoes or because Millard Fillmore was really a duck. It's actually because Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms, making him both the 22nd and the 24th president. Which is kind of dumb. But this is American politics, so the fact that it is kind of dumb should not be remotely surprising.
So how did Ol' Grover Double Dip end up with two entries on the List of US Presidents Wikipedia page? That outcome came as a complete surprise to pretty much everyone.
You see, as a young Erie County sheriff, Grover Cleveland had once made the papers when he personally oversaw the execution of two convicted zoophiliacs by hanging. But other than that, he had virtually no name recognition for most of his life.
By the ripe age of 44, he was just a moderately well-known lawyer in Buffalo. But around that time, he gained some notoriety when he served as Head Counsel in the landmark local case Blue Cheese vs. Hidden Valley. Not long after that, he had his 15 minutes of fame rescuing a baby seal from the icy January waters of Lake Erie wearing nothing but a top hat and one of those old-timey bathing costumes. I tell ya, 1881 was a hell of a year for our guy.
After the TikTok of his heroic rescue went viral, he was tapped by local Democrats to run successfully for mayor. Once in office, he built a solid reputation by cracking down on corruption, eventually bringing the Falcone crime family down on RICO charges by capturing their accountant in Hong Kong and flying him back to the states via dirigible. Two years later, he was elected Governor of New York. From the statehouse, he continued his crackdown on organized crime, bestiality, and ranch dressing. He generally rubbed the political establishment the wrong way because they liked all three of those things. A lot.
So initially when it became time to choose a nominee for the 1884 presidential election, absolutely nobody was throwing the Grovester's top hat in the ring. And yet, the Democrats struggled to find anyone with suitable credentials who wasn't embroiled in some kind of scandal (see above). Since Governor Grover's political career was like eight seconds old at this point, he hadn't been around long enough to scuff up his clean record. And so, just four years removed from his stint as a quiet Buffalo attorney, he became the Democratic nominee and eventual president.
Sheesh, and you thought 1881 was a crazy year.
Looking back, most historians attribute his meteoric rise in popularity to his walrus-like mustache. It was pretty legit and was even at one point assigned its own secret service agent to prevent political saboteurs from shaving it while Cleveland slept. He was also 6' 1" which was basically a giant by 1800's standards. According to Architectural Digest, the reason the Oval Office was shaped that way was to accommodate his rotund frame.
Anyway, his presidency was pretty boring. He got into lots of arguments about gold-backing US currency, Reconstruction, Texas grain subsidies, and all-gender restrooms. One not-boring thing he did was become the only president to get married while in office, marrying a woman 28 years younger than him. That lip sweater was really, really something.
In 1888, he ran for reelection against Benjamin Harrison, beating him in the popular vote but losing the electoral college. This anomaly had occurred only once before (in the 1876 election of Rutherford B. Hayes), and wouldn't happen again for another 112 years when George W. Bush hung his chads all over Al Gore.
Since this is American politics after all, the Republican party was heavily suspected of Falcone-backed voter fraud in several swing states which, if true, really stunk up Big G's chances. But regardless, the walrus 'stache couldn't save our boy and for the next four years he went back to being a regular ol' corporate defamation lawyer for Jasper Hill ("Ask not what your curds can curdle for you, ask how you will curdle your curds").
But in 1892, the Overton window on acceptable condiments began to widen for Americans, with adventurous eaters now embracing everything from mango habanero to Sriracha aioli as their dipping sauces of choice. This tectonic shift allowed G-Money to confidently tout his Blue Cheese vs. Hidden Valley bonafides once again. Bravado and bushiness at an all time high, our corpulent commander beat out his rival Harrison in an epic rematch dubbed by beltway insiders as "The Romp in the Swamp".
And thus, Grover Cleveland's 22nd and 24th presidencies became the shaggy slices of bread around a Benjamin Harrison sandwich. His legacy lives on as the answer to a great bar trivia question and as the face on the $1000 bill (no, seriously... look it up).