Why Few Senators Become Presidents

By Aziz P. -

Why Few Senators Become Presidents (By David S. Broder, Sunday, June 23, 2002; Page B07 )

Here's another Broder article in the WaPo that is presciently devoted to Howard Dean as a topic, but doesn't once mention his name! It dates from June, which was actually before the landmark artcles in TAP/TNR. Note that it also precedes Broder's essay drawing heavy comparisons to Carter and Dean by about two weeks (see here)


In all of American history, only two men -- Warren Harding and John Kennedy -- have gone straight from the Senate to the White House. Bob Dole in 1996 was the last sitting senator to win a party nomination (though he resigned his Senate seat a few months before the convention) and, like most of his predecessors, he was whomped in the election.

In 2000, two men who had spent most or all of their public careers as senators, Al Gore and Bill Bradley, and a sitting senator, John McCain, were in the race -- and all three lost.

The statistics show that vice presidents (many of them, like Gore, former senators) and governors and former governors (such as George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter) have far greater success in winning nominations and in making it to the White House than do senators.

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