Do "Normal People" have any chance of being elected El Presidente/Prime Minister?

And talent. To go back to Bill Clinton once again, no one could kiss ass better than Bill. He could kiss the ass of the powerful, he could kiss the ass of a waitress in a truckstop, and even when you knew he was just kissing your ass you still appreciated that he made the effort to kiss your ass.

Put Bill Clinton into your average everyday office job and within a month Bill would have the CEO thinking the sun shone out Bill’s asshole, he’d be sleeping with both the morning and afternoon receptionists, the copy repairman would service the copier on Bill’s floor first, he’d joke around with the janitors, he’d grab the Peterson account away from that old sourpuss Barnes in the marketing department, put on a proposal that would knock Peterson’s socks off, and before you know it Bill would be running the company.

So how much chance does that old sourpuss Barnes have in becoming president, when he has to compete against the likes of Bill? Sure, Barnes might have had a chance if he were the scion of a rich and powerful political family and such, but if Barnes is just an average joe with a BA in marketing from a state college, why would anyone vote for him over the charismatic uber-outgoing master-ass-kisser Clinton?

But lets not kid ourselves, they didn’t just go from “average Joe” to president. I’m not sure if that’s what the OP is asking, but there were lots of step inbetween “average Joe” for those guys and being elected president. Carter, Reagan and Clinton all were governors first, and lesser politicians before that.

To phrase it slightly differently than has already been said, average people don’t spontaneously rise to positions of great prominence overnight. People would no more pick Joe Blow to be President than Bill Gates would pick a janitor to be his successor.

Political connections, business acumen, technical skills, and all the other traits that help people rise to prominence are not the result of a bolt from the blue. They are things that are earned.

That’s true. All had political careers before becoming president, except for Eisenhower, and Ike’s previous career had included managing some of the largest operations in WW2.

Reagan, GW Bush, and Schwarzenegger were all elected Governors of major states with no political experience.

Richard Nixon was famous for not being rich; the Checkers Speech.

Recently minted Canadian PM Stephen Harper was an ordinary schmoe who became a popular policy guy in his party of choice and ended up stumbling into the job when the last leader of his party turned out to be a moron.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is from a comfortable and academic, but anonymous and middle class, background.

Australia’s current Prime Minister John Howard has a fairly unremarkable background hasn’t he? Attended public schools. failed maths then ran the economy etc etc.

I’ve often wondered how Howard actually ended up as PM (not the technical aspects, more the “Why do people keep voting for this guy???”), but you’re right, he does seem to be fairly close to the idea I had behind the OP, in that someone with no real “Connections” or serious financial backing (when he got into politics) has indeed ended up running the country.

Of course, I have my own views on Mr. Howard’s politics, which would be an un-necessary sidetrack best kept for The Pit…

And because the Labour Party had been out of power for 18 years when Blair won the 1997 election, he became PM without ever having served as a government minister beforehand. He wasn’t even a member of Parliament when Labour were last in power in 1979. I can’t offhand think of any other examples of someone going directly to the top job, at least in Britain.

This is probably as near to an “ordinary person” becoming PM as we can get. But even Blair had worked his way up to Leader of the Opposition, and for the last few years before the 1997 election everyone knew he was going to win. I imagine he had plenty of “connections” by then.

I don’t know about the others, but Schwarzenegger was in Reagan’s cabinet at minimum, and I assume had been politically involved quite a bit previous to his run for the Governorship. If not, he never would have been able to get the backing of the Republican party.

Secretary of Pumping (clap) You Up is not a real cabinet position.

Yes, but being elected state governor isn’t even close to being elected President, even if it is of the most populous of our states.

Reagan and Schwarzenegger are both interesting examples. On paper, no, they hadn’t held elected officer prior to being elected Governor of California. However, both of them were political active. From the 1950s (and even a bit earlier) Reagan was very politically active. For an average Joe, being politically active isn’t usually enough to get you elected to any serious office, but when you have some name recognition like Reagan did, it can be. Schwarzenegger was also fairly politically active. Meaning, these guys were hobnobbing with the people who you need to know in order to get elected. They were spreading themselves around doing what political things they could as celebrities without any actual political power. Surprisingly one can build serious influence this way. While Alec Baldwin is probably too left-leaning to get elected, he’s sort of a current example of an actor who is highly active in politics and has even expressed some desire into spinning that off into a political career.

Martin Sheen is also fairly active in politics, although he has strictly maintained he never wants to seek elected office.

So, to say no political experience in reference to Reagan or Schwarzenegger just isn’t correct.

George W. Bush had ran for the House of Representatives in 1978, and had worked with his father’s campaign in 1988. He also had the political connections that come from being the son of a President. So he certainly wasn’t just some average guy, nor were Reagan or Schwarzenegger. They all had some serious political connections prior to being elected governor and some political experience. Bush’s connections came from a variety of sources, his father, his industry pals, and even people he had networked with himself. Reagan and Arnold developed connections, and doing so was far easier for them than just some random purpose because they were celebrities (although Reagan wasn’t a celebrity on the level of Schwarzenegger in his acting days.)

In Australia, Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke had never been a government minister before becoming Prime Minister.

In Whitlam’s case, this is because his party was in opposition 1949-1972, and he was elected to Parliament in 1952.

In Hawke’s case, his party was in opposition 1975-1983, he was elected to Parliament in 1980 (already very well known as the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions), and he became leader of the Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition in 1983 on the same day that the election was called – and he went to to lead his party to win the election and become PM about a month after becoming Leader of the Opposition.

So, does that make the politicians they were hanging around with actors?

But does “politician”==“holding elective office”?

I don’t think so.

Reagan was “politically active” long before he held his first elective office…and so are most politicians. He gave speeches in favor of Truman, became head of SAG, worked with/stooged for HUAC in that capacity.

He didn’t just jump from actor to governor, he laid the groundwork first.

Same with Schwartzenegger. Arnold had long been involved with the Republican party as a fundraiser and spokesmodel before he ran for Governor.

Average Joes do run for office and win…but typically they run for local or state offices. And if they really are an “Average Joe”, then a slightly above average Joe shouldn’t have too much difficulty knocking them out of office next election as Mr. Average Joe finds himself over his head. An Average Joe who’s smart as heck and has a talent for networking ISN’T an Average Joe, but an above average Joe. In a country with 300 million people, wouldn’t it make sense not to pick the guy with an average IQ, with 150 million people smarter than him to choose from? Maybe pick a guy in the top 10% at least? And while Bush isn’t exactly an intellectual giant he’s not in the 50th percentile either. Think about how dumb the average guy is, then realize half the people in the world are dumber than that.

It seems if you have financial backing ,you pick a Governor of a non controvercial state. Teach them what to say and do. Take care of the financing . And Rove or someone like him creates a presidential contender. Carter, Clinton small states and big powerful backers.
With the amount of money it takes and the connections you need to obtain it, you will owe somebody a lot.
Problem is ,and Iraq is proving it, some people just dont stay bought.

The answer is “no” because “normal” (defined as your everyday run of the mill Joe) do not have the skills, talent, connections, finances or aspirations to become President. Normal people go to school, get a non-exceptional job after graduation and focus on their little world of raising a family, going to work and whatnot.

Unless there is something special about them that already makes them stand apart from everyone else, no one wakes up at 40 and says “I think I’ll apply for that job as CEO of a Fortune 500 company or run for President of the USA.” Like any exceptional career, you need to start early and build it up over time.

In Canada, we’ve had six out of our twenty-one Prime Ministers become PM without ever having been a member of Cabinet: Mackenzie (1873), Borden (1911), Diefenbaker (1957), Clark (1979), Mulroney (1984) and Harper (2006).

The 1919 Communist government in Hungary installed as prime minister Sandor Garbai, who IIRC was a common laborer of some sort. However, he was pretty much a figurehead as Bela Kun ran the country.

I would suggest Ramsay Macdonald as a better example. He came from a working class family and had no major connexions with “the right sort of people”. He had sat in Parliament, but only in Opposition - he was never a Cabinet minister prior to becoming Prime Minister in 1924.