The 14-Year Presidential Rule (Jonathan Rausch)

On the Road

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Wed Dec-07-05 04:08 PM
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The 14-Year Presidential Rule (Jonathan Rausch)

Last week, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida pulled out of the Democratic presidential race. It was sad but inevitable. Graham is a good man and a fine public servant, but he can never be president. Only four candidates have a shot next year. They are President Bush, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina. The rest are history. Sorry, Dick. Sorry, John. Sorry, Dennis, Joe, Carol, and Al. Turn off the lights behind you.

---snip

As every grocer knows, many products have sell-by dates. Bread lasts a day or two, milk maybe a week. Well, presidential aspirants have a sell-by date, too. They last 14 years.

---snip

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.

http://www.reason.com/rauch/101703.shtml

It's from Oct 2003, but I've never heard of this rule. It certainly makes a difference in evaluating who's a viable candidate.

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shoelace414

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Wed Dec-07-05 04:10 PM
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1. All these "rules" are just a fluke of statistics.

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Kagemusha

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Wed Dec-07-05 04:12 PM
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3. They exist because perception affects support.

Being a fast-riser helps; being a slow-riser doesn't.

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sendero

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Wed Dec-07-05 08:40 PM
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7. Another good rule..

...is how rare it is for a sitting senator to be elevated to president. Only JFK in the last 40 years.

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blm

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Wed Dec-07-05 04:12 PM
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2. Bull. GOPcontrol of media and the voting machines is ALL Dems need to

Edited on Wed Dec-07-05 04:14 PM by blm

concentrate on and expose.

There haven't been any RULES since the GOP gained corporate control over the media and the electronic voting machines.

Everything else is sheer bullshit the media will pump out so the public and the Democratic party will waste their time never seeing the forest for the trees.

You want to argue that Bush won because Kerry was a senator over the FACT that media pumped Bush into a heroic figure post 9-11 and covered up the truth about his crimes and his incompetence since BEFORE 2000?

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longship

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Wed Dec-07-05 04:30 PM
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4. This, from a Web site at "reason.com"????

This isn't reason, this is a statistical anomaly based on arbitrary and artificial circumstances. It's like the 20-year rule (presidents elected in a "0" year since Lincoln do not live to complete their terms of office). Well, Reagan blew that one to hell.

Any attempt to connect this to reality is bunkum.

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peacetalksforall

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Wed Dec-07-05 04:57 PM
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5. That means Hillary has until 2014. That's a relief, because 2008 is

too soon based on the polarization 'rule'.

My polarization rule says that you can't combine a female and a polarizing candidate following an era of blind support and the hate momentum impassioned by a certain segment of the born agains, war lovers, illogical and full of fear patriots, along with feminism bigots - without polarizing the country more.

(And this from a person who praised, admired, and applauded her in the 90's and was all for her running for Senator.)

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hvn_nbr_2

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Wed Dec-07-05 08:25 PM
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6. There's probably something to that.

Anyone who has what it takes to become president, both in terms of appeal and ambition, isn't going to take 25 years to do it. And someone who's been around in the public consciousness for too long gets stale and/or a record and/or too many enemies. 14 is probably an arbitrary cutoff, but may be pretty close to the right number. The Lyndon Johnson exception isn't really an exception--he ran for president in 1960 and failed; he only won election as president when he was already the incumbent. Harold Stassen, anyone?

I think the emotional context of this "rule" relates to my reaction, and probably a lot of others, to Gephart last year. It was kind of like, he's been around forever. Why isn't he already president if he has what it takes?

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skipos

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Wed Dec-07-05 09:34 PM
Response to Reply #6

9. This "rule" isn't that surprising to me.

But if people don't buy into it, that is fine by me. It isn't surprising that politicians who are percieved as being around along time (or "forever," as you put it) don't excite people as much as someone who is "new." Gephart is a good example of that. Now do I think that someone who takes 15 years to run for pres. isn't going to get elected no matter what? No. But these kinds of rules might remind us that such a candidacy might be more challenging.

I think many of the "rules" we have heard (candidates typically win their homestate, senators have a tougher time getting elected, northern dems don't do as well as southern dems, etc) make sense. Sure, the rules will be broken (like Gore losing his homestate in 2000), but I think they can be indicators of additional challenges a candidate might have.

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ruggerson

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Wed Dec-07-05 09:20 PM
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8. Augurs well for Warner and/or Schweitzer n/t

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