A look at the experience previous Presidents had before taking office
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 9/3/08 @ 9:51 pm - Filed Under 2008 National Elections, National Politics, Uncategorized
I went back and researched Presidents from 1977 on. I looked at their experience prior to being elected President.
The experience of the prior five President’s of the United States are varied; however, all were easily more qualified from an experience standpoint then Barack Obama.
President Jimmy Carter
4 years at the Naval Academy
7 years as an officer in the USN, in submarines and then nuclear research
Ran fathers small agricultural business for 9 years after father’s death
8 years in the Georgia Senate
4 years as the Governor of Georgia
His relevant experience for President of the United States included seven years in the active duty military, running a small business for nine years, and four years as the Governor of Georgia.
President Ronald Reagan
4 years at Eureka College
5 years as a radio sports announcer
3 years in the Army
24 years as an actor
8 years working for GE as a Television Host and making guest appearances at GE plants
8 years as the Governor of California
His relevant experience for President of the United States included 3 years in the US Army and eight years as the Governor of California.
President Herbert Walker Bush
4 years in the USN
4 years at Yale
3 years in the oil business
2 years with a small oil company he founded
12 years as President of an oil company he co-founded
3 years as a Republican County Chair
4 years in the US House of Rep.
2 years as ambassador to the UN
1 year as an envoy to China
1 year as Director of the CIA
Updated at 11:12 PM. He also spent eight years as Vice President.
His relevant experience for President of the United States included four years in the USN, 3 years in minor roles in the oil business, 2 years with an oil company he started, 12 years as President of a large oil company, 4 years as a US Rep, 2 years as ambassador to the UN, 1 year as envoy to China, one year as Director of the CIA, and eight years as Vice President.
President Bill Clinton
4 years at Georgetown
1 year at Oxford
3 years at Law School
2 years as a Law Professor
2 Years as Attorney General of Arkansas
6 Years as Governor of Arkansas
His relevant experience for President of the United States included two years as the Attorney General of Arkansas and six years as Governor of Arkansas.
President George Bush
4 years at Yale
1 year at Harvard
Formed an oil business and ran it for 11 years
Managing partner of Texas Rangers for a year
6 years as the Governor of Texas
His relevant experience for President of the United States included running an oil business for eleven years, managing partner of the Texas Rangers for a year, and six years as the Governor of Texas.
When I look back at the past five Presidents I think that I would rank them as follows:
I think the most effective was Reagan closely followed by Bill Clinton.
Then Herbert Walker Bush was in the middle.
It is hard to choose between the last two because both were so bad. I will call it a tie and say that George Bush and Jimmy Carter were both terrible Presidents.
When I look for experience in a Presidential candidate I am looking for some military experience, some foreign policy experience, some Executive Governmental experience, and some experience in the private sector with large or small business. As far as ranking their relevant experience prior to the Presidency I think that:
By far the best from an experience standpoint is Herbert Walker Bush since he has everything except Executive Experience.
Next comes Jimmy Carter and George Bush.
Last comes Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
So in my mind the best two Presidents of the last five Presidents had the least experience…
Next let’s look at the experience of our current two main contenders:
John McCain
4 years at Naval Academy
9 years as a naval aviator
6 years as a POW
8 years in the USN after being a POW
4 years in the House of Representatives
22 years in the US Senate
His relevant experience for President of the United States includes seventeen years in the USN, four years in the US House of Reps, and 22 years in the US Senate.
Barack Obama
4 years of college
3 years of Law School
1 year working as an editor of a publication
3 years as a Community Organizer
Civil Rights Attorney for two years
8 years as a State Senator
4 years in the US Senate
His relevant experience for President of the United States includes four years in the US Senate.
When you compare these two men to the previous five Presidents it is easy to tell that Barack Obama has by far the least relevant experience, it is not even close.
John McCain’s experience is more comparable to that of the average of the previous five candidates.
That being said I think many of us would agree that Clinton and Reagan were the best two of the previous five Presidents and both were the least experienced of the five Presidents analyzed.
Mike Sylvester
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12 Responses to “A look at the experience previous Presidents had before taking office”
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I always thought that Reagan’s V.P. was elected president. I must have some really crappy history books.
Badgett,
I updated the post. That just makes Herbert Walker Bush even more qualified…
Mike
Mike,
Interesting observation. One did some good things outside the US and one did some good things inside the US. A true flip of the coin as to which one did better. Then again I am from the middle right….
Good post
Clinton was elected governor in 1978, served for two years (Arkansas had a two year term until the mid 1980s), lost his first re-election bid in 1980, won the governorship back in 1982, and served until taking office in January 1993.
That’s twelve years of experience as governor. At the time of his election, Clinton was the longest serving governor in the US.
Mike, your analysis shows that experience, at least on resume, doesn’t make or break a president.
Go back even further to old Abe Lincoln:
No formal education
No formal military experience
Never joined a church
8 years in Illinois legislature
Greatest president of all time
Abe Lincoln—tons of experience as a traveling lawyer (which enabled him to work with a lot of different people) in the State of Illinois, had run against Stephen Douglas, self-trained on formal education–read incessantly everything from higher math to Greek philosophers. Worked on a major Corporate law suit with Edward Stanton (who had the east coast ivy league education–later became a member of his Cabinet), understand the political and infrastructure issues of the time backwords and forwards because he studied a lot. Laid out some of the best framed arguments against the expansion of slavery of any of the Republican candidates.
Tim,
I agree my post does lead one to believe that the success of the last five Presidents was not correlated to their experience.
Mike
8 years in the Ill. senate. 140 present votes
20 years sleeping in the pews at the Rev. Wrights
church.
Man has this guy a hearing or ADD problem?
Jim:
Lincoln may have laid out good arguments against expansion of slavery, but if you read history, he didn’t care one way or the other about slavery.
His comments to Horace Greeley in 1862 are telling as to what he saw as the issue:
“My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it, if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it.”
Lincoln was a politician. He also was infamous or famous - depending on how you look at it - for suspending the protection of Habeas Corpus. Congress approved his suspension, but the Supreme Court ruled against Lincoln and Congress on the issue of suspending the writ while civilian courts were still open.
Call it revisionist history or whatever, but it really is time to look at past leaders with some objectivity.
I disagree wholeheartedly with your comments. Lincoln opposed slavery but was a pragmatist. He knew that the instant abolition of slavery would render the Union asunder and cause a Civil War. It was already about to. Lincoln was for the containment of slavery and its eventual extinction. Your comments fall short of a full review of history. Governor Seward of New York ( a cabinet member of Lincolns and primary opponent) was an ardent opponent of slavery—that didn’t win him the primary against Lincoln. Governor Chase of Ohio was another ardent opponent of slavery and quite vocal, he too was a primary opponent of Lincoln—that didn’t win him the primary against Lincoln. When Lincoln said these things he was a poltician but he also knew, as the entire country knew, that polticians were clubbing each other to death over this issue and it was not getting anywhere. He didn’t want the inevitable Civil War that came upon the nation. He did want slavery to become extinct. He ardently opposed its expansion into the Western terrotories. Even his opponent Stephen Douglas was not all to hep on expansion of slavery. In 1858 Lincoln said at his acceptance speech to run for the Senate against Stephen Douglas these words “A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the house to fall–but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”
Indeed that was the course the Union was on particularly with the arcane decision of the United States Supreme Court under Dred Scott. That pitiful decision by those justices which was defended by Mr. Douglas as “the law of the land” because it was from the Supreme Court stated that nonslave states had to recognize slavery within their borders and that African Americans were not human. Thus proving the point that the US Supreme Court can have its head entirely up its butt. That was the real spark that ignited the Civil War and I don’t care what Sons of the Confederacy have to say in response to that one. They are wrong.
In Lincoln’s debates with Douglas in 1858 he went on to say “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The battle lines around Lincoln were drawn on that Dred Scott decisions pronouncement that African Americans were not “men.” There is no doubt that Mr. Lincoln understood quite clearly that they were men. He had to deal with the situation given to him. If Chase or Seward would have been elected President you would have had your good history. Staunch abolitionist take the White House and history is pure but there would have been nothing left of the United States to write about. Lincoln was one of the few men that could hold it together when it was certain to fall apart without ever being put together again. Chase recognized that and so did Seward. Revisionist history would be well advised to look at the totality of history instead of sound bites.
I must also add that Horace Greely was a Seward man so his job as Editor in chief would be to tell the part of the Story that supported his candidate. Things never change.
Obama went to Harvard… I don’t know why that part was left out but it was clearly stated that Bush went to Yale and Harvard