Pathways to the Presidency (since 1900)

This year, we have a fairly typical mix of presidential candidate:  Governors, Senators, and Representatives.  Earlier, partly triggered by a dispute I was reading about "leadership experience", I got to wondering things like:  "How likely is it that a Senator gets elected President? How about a Governor?" etc.    

So I made a quick, simple visualization to try to help me answer my questions.  I thought it was somewhat interesting, so I decided to share it here.  If you're interested, join me below.

I also used this as an opportunity to try out IBM's "Many Eyes" site for creating visualizations.  If you click on the thumbnail below, you'll be taken there and you'll be able to zoom-in-on and explore this picture:

What this shows is the political pathway each US president (going back to 1900) took to get to the presidency.  I think it's striking that there have only been two Senators that have been directly elected to the Presidency (ever), Harding and JFK, while no Representatives have been directly elected (since 1900).  

Aside:  Although it's new, I was somewhat disappointed with the options at Many Eyes.  I wanted to be able to also represent how long each person served at each post.  I tried a network visualization with the idea that I might be able to represent this with different node sizes, but that feature didn't seem to work.  (Also, in my mind, I can see an HMM representation of this data, but I guess that was too much to hope for.)

Anyway, here's a table of the "raw" data (all of which came from poking around in Wikipedia).  The numbers in parentheses are approximations of how many years were spent at each post.

President	Political Service (reverse chronological order)
George W. Bush	Governor(5)
Clinton	Governor(10) Governor(2)  Attorney_General(2)
George H.W. Bush	Vice_President(8) Ambassador(4)  CIA(2) Liason(2) Representative(4)
Reagan	Governor(8)
Carter	Governor(4) State_Senator(8)
Ford	Vice_President(1) Representative(24)
Nixon	Vice_President(8) Senator(2) Representative(4)
Johnson	Vice_President(2) Senator(12) Representative(4)
Kennedy	Senator(8) Representative(8)
Eisenhower	General(11)
Truman	Vice_President(1) Senator(10)
FDR	Governor(4) Secretary_of_the_Navy(7) StateSenator(3)
Hoover	Secretary_of_Commmerce(8) Humanitarian
Coolidge	Vice_President(3) Governor(2)
Harding	Senator(6) Lt_Governor(3) State_Senator(4)
Wilson	Governor(3) University_President(8)
Taft	Secretary_of_War(4) Governor_General_of_Philippines(2) Federal_Judge(8) Solicitor_General(10)
Teddy Roosevelt	Vice_President(<1) Governor(2) Assistant_Secretary_of_the_Navy(1)
McKinley	Governor(4) Representative(11)

•  Enjoy.

  Just to be clear:  I am not posting this to stir up any sort of argument amongst supporters of different candidates about who is and is not qualified or likely to be elected.  Again, I just thought it was interesting and wanted to share.

  by shock on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 09:05:27 PM PDT

•  Thanks for this diary.

  I find it interesting. What do you make of Kennedy winning over Nixon, as the last Senator elected in decades?

  by miss scout finch on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 09:13:14 PM PDT

  •  I'm not a historian, but...

    From what I've read and seen in some intro classes, I think this is attributed to the televised debates.  But I do think it must have been quite an upset, given the dominance of VPs over Senators.  I've also read that odds tend to favor candidates who fashion themselves as Washington "outsiders" who are going to change things, which explains some of the dominance of Governors.  But the Kennedy/Nixon debates were between "insiders", so in that case, I think youth and charisma win.  

    by shock on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 09:21:08 PM PDT

    •  interesting

      and thanks for answering my question. your diary cheered me up. i was reading another diary prior, and the comments were downright mean. i am new to DK, and i was actually pretty disappointed that my candidate of choice was being criticized really harshly. i tried to ask a question, explained that i was new around here - and that my question was sincere, in an attempt to understand a certain candidate's supporters' point of view. no responses.

      anyway, sorry for venting in the middle of your lovely diary. just wanted to let you know that i appreciated your answering my question, and in a friendly, non condescending way! :)

      by miss scout finch on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 09:39:16 PM PDT

      •  No problem.

        I think you'll find that, while people tend to be more on edge (and focussed only on certain topics) during primary season, there's quite a bit of "civilized" (and interesting) conversation to be had around here.

        Thanks for the compliment on the diary!  I'm glad you liked it.

        by shock on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 09:47:18 PM PDT

    •  I think there is also a lot to be said for the...

      2 term and out theory.

      Both parties get two terms then it changes over.  Since 1952 the only exceptions to that have been Carter losing for the Democrats in 1980 after just one term and Bush winning for the Republicans in 1988 after 2 terms of Reagan.

      Of course, the Vice Presidents, Nixon and Gore, both went down in practical ties and may have both actually won.  So, the theory certainly isn't a law by any means.

      by Adam T on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 01:21:12 AM PDT

•  Nice work. So, it should be Gore vs Cheney

  in 2008?

  by wag z dog on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 09:43:00 PM PDT

  •  I was kind of hoping for...

    Representative Dennis Kucinich vs. Representative Ron Paul.   ;-)

    by shock on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 09:49:52 PM PDT

    •  Richardson vs. Huckabee?

      Unless we have a hung convention and Gore gets drafted as the compromise candidate on the tenth ballot. Who do the Republicans have to draft as a surprise compromise candidate if their convention is hung--Schwarzenegger or Gingrich or some other solid "family values" candidate a la those two?

      by glaser on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 12:30:37 AM PDT

      •  Bush resigns and hand the Presidency to Cheney

        who then use the Patriot Act to declare everybody who opposes him as an "enemy combatant".  

        by wag z dog on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 06:58:26 PM PDT

•  The fact that the Dem nominee will most likely be

  a Senator is the main reason why I think too many folks around here are overconfident with regard to our chances to win the White House next year. Sure, the Dems go into the election with a huge advantage - the Republican brand is in the toilet. But will that really be enough to put a (former) senator over the top against a (former) governor or mayor? We'll see.

  by brainwave on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 09:51:24 PM PDT

  •  Yeah.

    Although, if Obama's the candidate, I think think his "inexperience" may actually help him in the general.  I believe he really is still perceived as a Washington "outsider" and, in my opinion, he has charisma to rival Kennedy.

    However, that's not to say that he's my preferred candidate... my comment here is only limited to the scope of the diary.  And of course, as they say, "past performance may not be indicative of future results".

    by shock on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 09:57:26 PM PDT

    •  Why exactly is it that Obama

      and not Edwards should be at the receiving end of the inexperience meme? They're both one-term senators. But Obama was a state senator before that and a community activist before that - so at least he has more experience than Edwards, no?

      by brainwave on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 10:22:32 PM PDT

      •  what constitutes "experience" anyway?

        Seriously, who wouldn't want Albert Einstein as president??  Well I guess the Constitution...ummm.  What about other factors of service, like decisions made as a mayor or community organizer?

        by siamesewonka on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 11:31:10 PM PDT

        •  einstein wasn't adept at politics

          carter, one of the smartest presidents we've had in decades, wasn't able to work over the congress anywhere near as ruthlessly as LBJ or bush the lesser.

          without a knack for the exercise of power and pursuasion, intelligence doesn't really equal the passage of intelligent legislation.

          i ageree that experience is best defined more explicitly than pundits like to.

          by wu ming on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 12:18:38 AM PDT

      •  all three frontrunners have similar levels

        of experience in government. clinton has 7 years in the senate, edwards has 6 years, obama has 3 as well as 8 years in the illinois state senate. all of them were and/or are junior senators, none of them have built up a noteworthy policy legacy, and the only coherent ideological platform of the bunch (edwards, regardless of whether or not he believes in it) came after he left government.

        experience in government isn't a distinguishing factor in this primary, until you get down to the no-hopers.

        by wu ming on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 12:00:57 AM PDT

  •  good point

    that's why i think it's truly important to pay attention to who polls best with independents, and who can pull republicans. i personally don't want another election that comes down to one state, and it scares me to think that might be the case if we aren't careful during the primaries. thoughts?

    by miss scout finch on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 10:04:41 PM PDT

    •  The truth is, I think, that winning

      over a clear majority of Independents will of course be absolutely essential for the Democratic nominee. Adding a sizable number of Republicans would make it a historic election. But the 1990s model - and that means the Clinton model - of how Democrats have tried to pull this off is by "triangulation" - which to me means by advocating a policy mix designed to please the largest number of people. And this has created the perception of a weakness or lack of convictions. I think the successful candidate will win over the Independents on the strength and attractiveness of their convictions.

      by brainwave on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 10:19:47 PM PDT

      •  ok

        who do you think can pull this off?

        by miss scout finch on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 10:26:26 PM PDT

        •  I used to hope that Gore would be the one

          Now that he's not running I'd love to have confidence in Obama and/or Edwards. I like Obama better on a personality level but I prefer Edwards for his policies. But, of course, both of these are senators. In short, I'm not sure ;-)

          by brainwave on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 10:32:47 PM PDT

          •  Edwards

            Is a former rather than a current Senator, of course.

            by TruthOfAngels on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 10:38:14 PM PDT

          •  gore/obama was my ticket of choice

            that is my idea of a dream team. :)

            by miss scout finch on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 10:43:31 PM PDT

  •  Only one Mayor has been elected President,

    that was Grover Cleveland, Mayor of Buffalo for a year before becoming Governor of NY. So, I think Rudy despite sounding tough as sand-coated toilet paper has his work cut out for him claiming adequate experience -- filling potholes may not be a convincing lead up to running the country.

    by PBJ Diddy on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 08:04:23 AM PDT

•  experience

  it's interesting to me that all candidates are spending so much time critiquing each other's foreign policy experience. based on your chart above, the candidates who won during times of war had plenty of experience, and look at how each scenario played out - korea, vietnam.

  i have to admit that i think good judgment should trump experience from a historical perspective. isn't it time we learn from prior mistakes instead of perpetuating them? just my two cents.

  by miss scout finch on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 10:20:02 PM PDT

•  bedtime

  on the east coast, but i hope this diary is still being discussed tomorrow. i will look for it.

  thanks shock and brainwave for a fun and interesting discussion. :)

  by miss scout finch on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 10:52:12 PM PDT

•  Good read!

  Although, wasn't Ike also the President of Columbia University for a time?

  by ScottyUrb on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 11:02:36 PM PDT

•  Thanks for putting this together

  It's strange how the governorships are a fairly recent trend.

  by Webster on Sat Nov 24, 2007 at 11:12:15 PM PDT

•  it would be nice to see more data

  going back to the founders. i suspect the 19th century general trend would make eisenhower look like less of a weird outlier.

  generally, i think a lot of people conflte the descriptive aspects of looking back on history with some prescriptive or predictive powers that just aren't there IMO. with elections every four years and a society and electorate perpetually in flux, looking to past elections for guidance seems rather foolhardy.

  one interesting aspect of this information is how the parties' selection methods (be they primaries or convention battles) might determine which choices the electorate has in general elections. adding state information here might be illuminating as well:

  texas, arkansas, texas, california, georgia, michigan, california, texas, massachusetts, texas, missouri, new york, iowa, vermont, ohio, virginia, ohio, new york, ohio. big states (at the time) seems to be a strong correlate, and those from small states often got their careers going in neighboring large ones. this year's democratic crop is no different, with several of the candidates in both primaries coming from big states (hillary, giuliani, obama, romney). it is surprising that california hasn't seen a candidate since reagan, given its size.

  the information for losing candidates would also be interesting to see, in both generals and primaries.

  by wu ming on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 12:15:53 AM PDT

  •  If you went back to the founders you would

    get more soldiers and even some farmers in there.

    by Sacramento Dem on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 12:18:11 AM PDT

    •  and publishers, even

      we would do well to have a broader range of candidates today.

      by wu ming on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 12:19:59 AM PDT

  •  Agreed.

    Yeah, I should have put the standard disclaimer "past performance may not be indicative of future results" into the diary itself instead of just the comments.  This is just a description of the (sometimes very different) past -- I was afraid it might be taken as somehow prescriptive,

    Regarding adding more data, I was thinking of continuing to play with this.  However, I am a little hindered by both lack of time and lack of tools for developing visualizations.  That's why I was hopeful about Many Eyes (on both fronts).

    I would like to go back further and include more information (like state and opponent "status" -- this would also help split out VPs who got elected from VPs who ascended due to the death of the president).  Probably this would take more than one visualization.  

    In the end, I wouldn't want to spend way too much time on this as, again, I realize it really isn't going to predict the future, and we certainly shouldn't use it to pick our party's candidate.  But I think perhaps the best purpose for this sort of thing is to better understand the dynamics at play "on the way up" (I think of this like a dynamic system with attractors in a space) and, more specifically, where these come from (like, mass media portrayals, funding models, internal party structure, that politicians from Washington probably have more salient/relevant records to filter on, and more national-level political enemies, etc.).

    Anyway, please feel free to add to the visualization(s) at Many Eyes, or to suggest ways to do this that might take it in interesting direction.  Maybe others will pick it up and run with it if I can't.

    by shock on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 07:02:39 AM PDT

•  Governors are probably overrepresented recently

  While it's been noted that 3 of the last 4 presidents have been governors leading some to say that Americans as a whole tend to elect governors, I think that has likely been overstated.

  The problem for governors is that they tend to not be known outside of their own state, so winning the nomination is tough for them.  Huckabee has broken out recently, but he's had a rough go with fundraising and certainly still isn't favoured to win the nomination.  Mitt Romney has done better but has big political downsides.  Bill Richardson is still way back on the Democratic side as well.  Of the candidates who've dropped out, 3 were former governors: Tom Vilsack, Tommy Thompson and Jim Gilmore.

  The three governors that got elected president were largely anomolies: Ronald Reagan was well known nationally due to being an actor as well as a spokesperson for General Electric and he had also competed in a very close race with Gerald Ford for the nomination in 1976. Bill Clinton was not well known, but he lucky to compete against a weak field of Democrats for the nomination and then against a weak president.  He also has extraordinary campaigning skills.  Dumbya was well known for being the son of a recent president.  There are no governors at present who have the same fortunate background or luck as those three.

  It wouldn't surprise me in 50 or so years time that people will look back and say that small string of governors getting elected president was an anomaly.  On the other hand, Bill Richardson, Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee could get elected president.

  by Adam T on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 01:31:25 AM PDT

  •  I was going to mention

    Mark Warner as well in the list of former governors, but then remembered his Presidency bid never actually got started.  Fun fact: his mom is called Marge, and he has a younger sister called Lisa :)

    by TruthOfAngels on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 03:09:01 AM PDT

•  Interesting

  diary. Have thought of this a couple of times. Mostly because of all of the yammering about one kind of experience or another. Thanks for taking the time.

  As I look at the information, the first thing I noticed was that 9 of 20 Presidents were Governors as well. Do you happen to know if that holds up if you trace it back to Washington?

  by RustyBrown on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 06:27:30 AM PDT

  •  I don't know yet.

    Yesterday, I stopped at 1900 because I had to go to a birthday party.  When I came back, I just posted it.  However, I think Wu Ming's comment and thread above also speaks to this question.  My guess is that the trends will be fairly different as we go back in history.  Partly because the role of the vice president was different early on, partly because of the differences in broadcasting and mass media, partly due to different societal and party values, partly due to different educational norms, and for a host of other reasons too.

    In fact, when I first started making that, it was very easy at first (I started with GWB and was working back), and I thouhgt I could actually do the representation a different way, with 4 (or at most 5) categories (gov, senator, rep, state-rep, other -- mainly for GHWB).  When I got back to nearer to 1900, I realized the 4-5 categories wouldn't cut it. I think going back even further would show a lot more diversity.

    Maybe I'll have time to update the viz later today.  (Unfortunately, I have a bunch to do though.)

    by shock on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 06:51:10 AM PDT

    •  Thanks

      appreciate the time and effort.

      by RustyBrown on Sun Nov 25, 2007 at 08:15:22 AM PDT