Presidential facts about experience
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| Sun, 09-14-2008 - 7:31am |
Since we continue to address the issue of "experience", I gathered some Presidential Facts to put things in perspective. out of 43 US Presidents in our history -
- 5 were never elected to an executive or legislative office prior to their Presidency
- 18 were elected and served as governors of a state; 3 were appointed and served as governors of territories
- 15 were elected and served as US Senators
- 18 were elected and served as US Representatives
- 9 served in both houses of Congress: thus a total of 24 served in the legislative branch (removing redundancy)
- 4 served as both governor and US Senator; thus 20 served in the legislative branch only and 14 served in the executive branch only
So it appears qualifications for the Presidency rested on experience as a federal legislator 20 times vs experience as a governor 14 times in the past.
And some of those 20 who had no executive experience within the federal government prior to their presidency: Washington, Lincoln, Grant, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Bush Sr.
Can we agree that "experience" as a Senator is at least equal to experience as a governor? and then focus on another issue?
Bea
BTW here's how recency may skew a perspective: 4 of the last five Presidents were governors - but prior to Carter, 4 out of 4 were congressmen. that means out of the 9 Presidents since Eisenhower (who had no elected experience), 5 were legislators and 4 were governors. if you were born after 1980, it might effect how you think about experience even though history tells a different story.
note on the math: GWB is the 43rd President but Grover Cleveland was President in two separate terms. I initially reduced him to one person (thus there were only 42 individuals across 43 Presidencies) but changed it back to 43 and counted him twice. And he was a governor, so that actually inflates that count by 1 depending on how you look at it.
Edited 9/14/2008 10:20 am ET by queenbea4

Excellent information, Bea!
I personally think that the president should be someone who can inspire people, chooses people in cabinet positions and others who can make good things happen, someone who is intelligent and can think outside of the box, someone who is strong and can represent us throughout the world, a person that other countries can work with.
Shannon, I completely agree with you.
Bea, Thanks for the information!