Woodrow Wilson (Getty, courtesy National Archives)
By the way, arguing against
my last post, there actually
was a president who had less experience in major public office before winning the presidency than would Sarah Palin, were she to win the White House after only two and a half years as governor -- Woodrow Wilson, who was elected president in 1912 after having been elected governor of New Jersey for the first time in 1910.
Of course, Wilson benefited from the split in the Republican Party -- former President Teddy Roosevelt chose to challenge incumbent president/Roosevelt successor William Howard Taft for the GOP nomination at the 1912 GOP national convention, and, failing to win, had left the GOP to form the Bull Moose Party to contest for the presidency in the general election.
Wilson had won the 1912 Democratic presidential nomination on the 46th ballot, after almost dropping out of the running earlier.
In winning the 1912 election for the presidency, Wilson won the only presidential election ever to feature three presidents as general election candidates, and he became only the second Democrat to win the White House between 1860 and 1932.
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Comments
Wilson may have had less experience in "major public office," but he did have a Ph.D. in history and political science, and he was president of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910. Also, I doubt Palin's Wikipedia article would call her a "leading intellectual" of any era.
Posted by: Michael
| July 6, 2009 11:22 AM
The comparison of years as governor is the beginning and the end of any Wilson-Palin similarity.
Posted by: Hellgate
| July 7, 2009 9:32 PM
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