I was having some fun, trying to rank the recent presidents by 'resume' to see how it correlated with success. And of course fitted the 2 current candidates into the list. It looks like this (your mileage may vary...)
- Nixon 8 Years VP 2 years Senate 4 years house Rep. 1 previous Presidential Bid
- Bush I 8 years VP 4 year House Rep. 2 years U.N. Ambassador 1 year director CIA
- Eisenhower SHAEF in WWII, Military Governor Germany, 2 years Commander Nato
- Johnson 3 year VP 12 years Senate 12 years House
-- McCain 22 years Senate 4 years House 1 previous presidential bid
- Reagan 8 years Governor 1 previous Presidential Bid
- Clinton 12 year Governor
- Kennedy 8 Years Senate6 years House
- Bush II 6 years Governor. Son of President
- Ford Less than 1 Year VP 24 years house Rep.
- Carter 4 years Governor 4 years state senate
-- Obama 3+ years Senate 8 years state senate
VP experence would seem like the most natural experience for POTUS. Senate came next followed by House and other important offices. Ike comes from a different world in terms of experience, making his rank more subjective. Seems sensible to list Son of President as experience since Hilary was running on wife of President (which i guess is even better).
Nixon and Ike were almost overqualified for the office IMO.
There's some correlation with how well things went. 4 of the 5 ex-presidents at the top were re-elected. The 3 of the 4 lowest were not re-elected (Kennedy caveat).
But what stuck me was that the list correlates even better with foreign policy success.
Nixon(Detente, China, Got us out of Nam,)
Bush(Iraq I, Panama)
Eisenhower(Cold War)
Reagan(Russkies)
were all quite effective on the world stage. Strong foriegn policy performance. LBJ was the only weak spot(Got us into Nam in a big way)
They're far better than
Kennedy(Cuba twice, and got us into Nam...didn't listen to Ike).
Carter(Iran, Afganistan)
Bush II(World),
Ford (Incompete grade)
Pretty darn good correlation in terms of foreign Policy performance.
Submitted for your approval.