Friday, October 17, 2003

Who can really be elected President asks Jonathan Rauch.
With only one exception since the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, no one has been elected president who took more than 14 years to climb from his first major elective office to election as either president or vice president.

George W. Bush took six years. Bill Clinton, 14. George H.W. Bush, 14 (to the vice presidency). Ronald Reagan, 14. Jimmy Carter, six. Richard Nixon, six (to vice president). John Kennedy, 14. Dwight Eisenhower, zero. Harry Truman, 10 (to vice president). Franklin Roosevelt, four. Herbert Hoover, zero. Calvin Coolidge, four. Warren Harding, six. Woodrow Wilson, two. William Howard Taft, zero. Theodore Roosevelt, two (to vice president). The one exception: Lyndon Johnson's 23 years from his first House victory to the vice presidency.

Once you take out the crank candidates like Sharpton and Kucinich, Rausch believes that only Edwards, Dean, Clark and Bush can win the thing.

Assuming Hillary chickens out, I think articulate Dean will eventually beat the neophyte Clark for the nomination.


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