Presidential Prognosticating

I’ve decided to do some early presidential prognosticatin’ in the wake of Tom Vilsack’s withdrawal from the race. I reckon it was a good idea to call it quits since his election would have been unprecedented. The American people have never elected anyone president with “sack” in his name. We’ve had adopted presidents before, such as Leslie King a/k/a Gerald Ford, but none of them was saddled with a “sack” in his surname.

One assumption I make in my predictions is that the unprecedented will be avoided.

No Mormon has ever been elected, nor has a publicly announced follower of Reverend Moon, so I don’t expect that to happen in ’08. (Although having your Messiah handy to talk to on the phone regularly could be a real plus). JFK opened the door for the Roman Catholics, so I don’t see Catholicism as a bar to the office, as long as the candidate isn’t one of those really Catholicky Catholics. It will be some time before we see a Scientologist in the White House. Still, my money is on a mainstream Protestant in ’08, and I imagine that the more credible candidates will belong to Protestant denominations.

Nobody with a vowel, other than a silent ‘e’, at the end of his name has ever been elected, that is to say we have never had an “ethnic” president. I don’t really count Irish as ethnic since there have been Irish and Scots-Irish folks in America for centuries. Accordingly, Guiliani’s election would be unprecedented, and I am hopeful that his political career will come to a close soon. The only way we’ll have an Italian-American president any time soon is if Nancy Pelosi succeeds Bush and Cheney after they leave office early for some reason. Bill Richardson, being 75% Mexican, is out also.

No woman has ever been elected (tough luck Senator Clinton). Nobody of admitted recent (within the last three centuries) African descent has ever been elected (so long Senator Obama). Nobody over 70 years old has ever been elected (sayanara Gravel and McCain). Nobody under 42 years old has ever been elected.

Since the War Between the States, nobody, other than Herbert Hoover, who was not an incumbent or a sitting or former Vice President, Governor, Senator, or war hero general officer (Grant, Garfield, Eisenhower) has been elected. There are lots of general officers running around, but none are what we might consider “war heroes”. The incumbent is ineligible, and Cheney is slightly less popular than the BTK murderer, so we are looking at a former VP (Quayle and Gore are all that fit the profile), a current or former Senator or a current or former Governor, between 42 and 70 years of age, male, of Northern European descent, mainstream Protestant or Roman Catholic. Others need not apply.

That means the only Democrat candidates (mentioned so far) who can be elected are Biden, Dodd, and Edwards. (I reckon a draft Gore campaign is in order.) The GOP so far has Brownback, Gilmore, Huckabee, Thompson, and Hagel who could be elected without setting a precedent.

Maybe this would be a good election for something unprecedented after all.