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by mywittyname 1697 days ago
If you look at the set of VPs, Governors, notable Senators, and people who've previously run for president, you get a pretty good list of candidates. Sure, you'll miss odd-balls like Obama, but he was still a Senator; he just got lucky with timing and probably expected his bid for presidency to occur in like 2020-2024.

Future presidents might be someone like, Paul Ryan, AOC, Gretchen Whitmer, Chris Christie, Antony Blinken.
3 comments
dragonwriter 1697 days ago
> If you look at the set of VPs, Governors, notable Senators, and people who've previously run for president, you get a pretty good list of candidates.

Interesting, then that of your list:

> Future presidents might be someone like, Paul Ryan, AOC, Gretchen Whitmer, Chris Christie, Antony Blinken.

3/5 are not covered by ”VPs, Governors, notable Senators, and people who've previously run for president”.

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InitialLastName 1697 days ago
My point is that the intersection of people who become president and had been VP's, Governers, Senators or previously run for president (20 years before) in the modern era is 2 (out of the last 21 presidents). I didn't go through and look at other major candidates, but the other major candidates didn't get elected; my sense is that the losing candidates, at least recently, have been more experienced politicians (hence, "Americans don't elect people who have been in the public eye for a long time"). Trump, Obama, W. Bush, Clinton, Reagan and Carter all got elected as "outsiders" against clearly more experienced establishment politicians.

An interesting thing I noticed going through that list, though, is that a much larger number of presidents came into a more visible position (such as the ones you mentioned) by T-15 years. It seems (and in fact this somewhat mirrors other leadership-oriented career paths) that ~15 years of visibility and experience (usually preceded by a local politics, private sector, or military career to build a network) is roughly optimal for a presidential career path.

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InitialLastName 1697 days ago
I want to add:

10 years out, that selection criteria (VP's, governors, senators, former presidential candidates) would (as far as I can tell) have missed Trump, Obama, W. Bush, Clinton (narrowly), H.W. Bush, Carter, Ford, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, F.D. Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge, Harding, Wilson, Taft, and T. Roosevelt, so 17/21 of the people who actually became president.

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