Sep 05 2008
‘68 Recreated? Yes! (Well, Sort Of…)
In this year’s presidential election something has happened for the first time since 1968. No, it’s not a bunch of rioters outside (with some finding their way inside) the Democrat convention. Instead, it has to do with the educational background of the four principal candidates:
John McCain: Bachelor’s from the U. S. Naval Academy in 1958, also attended the National War College 1973-1974.
Sarah Palin: Bachelor’s from the University of Idaho in 1987.
Barack Obama: Bachelor’s from Columbia University in 1983, Law Degree from Harvard University in 1991.
Joe Biden: Bachelor’s from the University of Delaware in 1965, Law Degree from Syracuse University in 1968.
What, you may ask, do the academic resumés of these four candidates have to do with the year 1968? I’ll offer two clues. First, it’s not what they have, but what they lack, that is significant. Second, what these four people lack is something that John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, Bill Clinton, both George Bushes, and even Dick Cheney have in common.
All right, if you haven’t already figured it out, what I’m talking about is
Yale University, where Senator Kerry and both Presidents Bush earned their Bachelor’s degrees, and President Clinton and Senator Lieberman earned their Law degrees. We all may remember the 2004 campaign, with the presidential choice being between two C-average Yale grads.
Proceeding backwards, the candidates with degrees from Yale have been:
2004 George W. Bush (R-Pres) Bachelor’s, John Kerry (D-Pres) Bachelor’s
2000 George W. Bush (R-Pres) Bachelor’s, Joseph Lieberman (D-VP) Law
1996 Bill Clinton (D-Pres) Law
1992 Bill Clinton (D-Pres) Law, George H. W. Bush (R-Pres) Bachelor’s
1988 George H. W. Bush (R-Pres) Bachelor’s
1984 George H. W. Bush (R-VP) Bachelor’s
1980 George H. W. Bush (R-VP) Bachelor’s
1976 Gerald Ford (R-Pres) Law
1972 R. Sargeant Shriver (D-VP) Bachelor’s and Law
That’s right, the presence of a Yale alumnus on at least one of the two major party tickets went back all the way to 1972. The Wikipedia article on Yale Law School mentions both President Ford and Ambassador Shriver, who also received his Bachelor’s from Yale.
As for the major party nominees of 1968:
Richard Nixon: Bachelor’s from Whittier College in 1934, Law Degree from Duke University in 1937.
Spiro Agnew: Attended Johns Hopkins University 1937-1940, Bachelor of Laws from University of Baltimore in 1947.
Hubert Humphrey: Pharmacist’s License from Capitol College of Pharmacy in 1930, Bachelor’s from the University of Minnesota in 1939, Master’s from LSU in 1940, returned to U. of Minn. in 1940 to start a PhD program, but dropped out in 1941.
Edmund Muskie: Bachelor’s from Bates College (Lewiston, Maine) in 1936, Law Degree from Cornell University in 1939.
Nothing from Yale for the GOP and Dem tickets of 1968. However, while Nixon, his running mate, and their rivals did not attend Yale, the more recent Tricky Dick (the one you don’t want to go hunting with) did indeed attend Yale, but flunked out.
3 Responses to “‘68 Recreated? Yes! (Well, Sort Of…)”
Is this why someone invented the Yale lock - to protect us from the graduates of that establishment?
If so, then I guess it just proves again that old adage: they sure don’t make ‘em like they used to.
I’m glad someone found the old manufacturing specs in time for this election cycle.
Excellent round up BF…somethings I would have never known had I not read this. Interesting too.
Yale Lock. Great term CT.
Raven,
Thanks. I knew about Kerry, Clinton and the Bushes, so I realized that there had been Yale alumni on the tickets for quite some time. But until I did some clicking, I did not know about Lieberman, Ford and Shriver.
CT,
Ironically, we might have to give credit for finding those old manufacturing specs to Barack Obama, who defeated Yale Law alumna Hillary Clinton for their party’s nomination.