# Have we ever elected a US president with no prior political experience? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [May 4, 2015, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266 "2015-05-04T19:37:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/41 "2015-11-08T03:41:40Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Although a central contention of any effort to revive Adams always required looking at the Alien and Sedition Acts and basically saying that while they were bad he did a lot of other things in his life as a Founding Father/Revolutionary and as a President that make up for it. I tend to think he did do a lot of good, but the initial reason he attained a poor reputation as _President_ were those four laws that made up the A&S acts and frankly, he deserved the criticism he got for them in 1798 and he deserves it now, they are a black mark on his Presidency. > > With Eisenhower it’s more difficult, because it’s hard to point to anything like that that he’s particularly known for; Eisenhower was best at using soft power in foreign relations. But by its very nature that doesn’t create the same kind of “hard” record as legislation or other Presidential actions–although I’ve seen it argued that given the President’s limited constitutional role in legislation, the economy, and most of the things voters actually seem to elect President based on, a fair analysis of a President should focus firstly on their success at foreign relations as it is one thing almost wholly in the executive sphere. Wouldn’t the red-baiting, blacklisting, anti-communist hysteria that Eisenhower allowed and/or participated in be a similar black mark on his Presidency? Seems like they were similar to Adams’ Alien & Sedition Acts, as an attack on the civil liberties of Americans. Much of this gets blamed on McCarthy, but Eisenhower let it happen without doing anything to stop it (until the very end). ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/42 "2015-11-08T04:03:02Z")
I like that Trump’s lack of holding office never came up. (If he had, people wouldn’t have been surprised he was a Republican.) ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/43 "2015-11-08T04:49:05Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I like that Trump’s lack of holding office never came up. (If he had, people wouldn’t have been surprised he was a Republican.) Never came up where? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/44 "2015-11-08T11:50:06Z")
Just because Obama’s pre-Presidential experience occasionally gets collapsed to “a community organizer who also was a Senator for part of one term,” here’s the timeline: 1985-88: community organizer. 1988-91: Harvard Law School. 1990-91: President of Harvard Law Review. (And in those shark-infested waters, the chance that this was an affirmative-action thing were approximately zero.) 1991-2004: University of Chicago law school faculty. 1997-2004: State Senator, Illinois. 2004-2008: U.S. Senate representing Illinois. So he had 12 years of hands-on political experience when he was elected President. His community organizing experience was unquestionably a formative experience for him, but it was something he did more than 20 years before becoming President. It wasn’t exactly the last line on his resume before U.S. Senator. > [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Regarding Hoover, does being a Cabinet member count? It’s not an elected office. I would personally think not. Even among the people on this board - a group that is, on the whole, much more smart and knowledgeable, including politically knowledgeable, than the general public - how many people could tell you who the current Secretary of Commerce is without looking it up? I could, but I work for a government agency that ultimately reports to the Secretary of Commerce, so we get the occasional broadcast email from the Secretary’s office. Otherwise, I’m sure I wouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/45 "2015-11-08T12:45:45Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Even among the people on this board - a group that is, on the whole, much more smart and knowledgeable, including politically knowledgeable, than the general public - how many people could tell you who the current Secretary of Commerce is without looking it up? Hoover was not selected as a candidate because of his cabinet post. He was selected due to the worldwide fame and respect he earned for the humanitarian missions that he ably led during and after WWI. I do agree that counting the post as political experience is iffy. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/46 "2015-11-08T12:52:23Z")
No, but he certainly had relevant experience even if it wasn’t political. Heading the relief effort for Europe was no small task. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/47 "2015-11-08T15:15:40Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > No, but he certainly had relevant experience even if it wasn’t political. Heading the relief effort for Europe was no small task. Bill Bryson goes into that in his _One Summer: America, 1927_. That was the summer Hoover started thinking about running, and Bryson goes into his background. He didn’t have many good things to say about Hoover – apparently Coolidge couldn’t stand the guy – and even made an accusation of treason for an incident during WWI. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2015, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/48 "2015-11-08T16:10:44Z")
John M. Barry’s [Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America](http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Tide-Mississippi-Changed-America/dp/0684840022/ref=la_B000APJ76S_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446998489&sr=1-1) closely examines Hoover’s role in heading the response to the Great Flood. His assessment is that Hoover bungled the response, allowed African-American neighborhoods to be selectively destroyed while they were moved into camps starting the shift from their voting Republican to their being solidly Democratic, and created the seeds for future ecological disasters. This wasn’t what made the headlines, which were all valiant humanitarian Hoover standing against nature’s fury. He became President at a time when he was considered the single most qualified person in America to be President. Eisenhower followed, for remarkably similar reasons, but no other President in the 20th or 21st century ever had such esteem before taking office. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/49 "2015-11-10T01:04:57Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > John M. Barry’s [Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America](http://www.amazon.com/Rising-Tide-Mississippi-Changed-America/dp/0684840022/ref=la_B000APJ76S_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1446998489&sr=1-1) closely examines Hoover’s role in heading the response to the Great Flood. His assessment is that Hoover bungled the response, allowed African-American neighborhoods to be selectively destroyed while they were moved into camps starting the shift from their voting Republican to their being solidly Democratic, and created the seeds for future ecological disasters. This wasn’t what made the headlines, which were all valiant humanitarian Hoover standing against nature’s fury. Bill Bryson details all of this in his book too. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/50 "2015-11-10T01:56:28Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’m not going to argue Eisenhower’s worth as a President, but I do think that whatever the popular opinion of him is worthless, pretty much as it is about every other President. Even when it’s right, as with Washington or Lincoln, it’s not based on anything but air. Well everyone has their opinions–and that’s all there can be on a topic like this, but with Eisenhower I was referring to his historical reputation as of late vs say, 15 years ago, not his popularity in terms of polling. I muddied the waters there with word usage–I think in the popular consciousness most Americans don’t know more than 2-3 of the very famous Presidents that predate their lives. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/51 "2015-11-10T02:00:22Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Wouldn’t the red-baiting, blacklisting, anti-communist hysteria that Eisenhower allowed and/or participated in be a similar black mark on his Presidency? Seems like they were similar to Adams’ Alien & Sedition Acts, as an attack on the civil liberties of Americans. Much of this gets blamed on McCarthy, but Eisenhower let it happen without doing anything to stop it (until the very end). Eh, Eisenhower wasn’t in the Senate, and Presidents have a long history of being basically powerless in terms of stopping Senate witch hunts. Separation of powers and all that. But as you say Eisenhower was involved in putting an ultimate stop to McCarthyism. To my knowledge the “blacklisting” was done by private industry groups, and thus outside the purview of the Presidency. I don’t think Eisenhower gets any negatives, or any positives, for the McCarthy stuff. It’s not comparable to the Alien & Sedition Acts, Adams was a vociferous supporter of them and very specifically wanted them passed to further his political ends. Eisenhower was never too enthusiastic about the McCarthy witch hunts (or most forms of political theater.) Eisenhower had a lot of legitimacy in the public’s eye from his military past, I mean he ran with the slogan “I Like Ike”, which shows how affable he was with the public. He also won in two landslide elections, Eisenhower just didn’t **need** to engage in the sort of political showboating that McCarthy did, and certainly didn’t do anything like Adams did with the A&S acts. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/52 "2015-11-10T02:24:14Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > J… but no other President in the 20th or 21st century ever had such esteem before taking office. And so little esteem upon leaving office (except possibly Geo W. Bush). In the 1970’s, I remember my Grandmother & her sisters talking about Grandma getting a new vacuum cleaner. And the model she liked best happened to be a Hoover brand, and she was seriously considering skipping it because of the name! And one sister was agreeing with her. I innocently asked what was so bad about a Hoover, and was astonished at the reaction. One of the very few times I can actually remember Grandma actually using a swear word out loud! And her sisters agreed, and proceeded to tell me how bad & uncaring Hoover was. 40 years later, and these elderly women were still spitting mad. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/53 "2015-11-10T03:41:13Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Well everyone has their opinions–and that’s all there can be on a topic like this, but with Eisenhower I was referring to his historical reputation as of late vs say, 15 years ago, not his popularity in terms of polling. I muddied the waters there with word usage–I think in the popular consciousness most Americans don’t know more than 2-3 of the very famous Presidents that predate their lives. I believe that presidential ranking polls are meaningless noise. My opinion - and that certainly is all it is - is based on a lot of reading on the 50s I’ve done recently, along with reviews of other books. From that my impression is of a major reassessment, with emphasis on his ability to sit on the military and not get the U.S. involved in wars after Korea. But he also had the fantastic luck to have Stalin die a month into his presidency, which gave him years of Soviet headlessness to coast on. There’s a what if to keep you up at night. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/54 "2015-11-10T04:32:37Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Eh, Eisenhower wasn’t in the Senate, and Presidents have a long history of being basically powerless in terms of stopping Senate witch hunts. Separation of powers and all that… There’s a contemporary joke about Grover Cleveland in which his wife shakes him one night and says, “Grover, wave up! I think there’s a burglar in the house.” Cleveland, still half-asleep, rolls over and murmurs, “No, my dear. In the Senate, maybe, but not in the House.” ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/55 "2015-11-10T04:49:28Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I believe that presidential ranking polls are meaningless noise. My opinion - and that certainly is all it is - is based on a lot of reading on the 50s I’ve done recently, along with reviews of other books. From that my impression is of a major reassessment, with emphasis on his ability to sit on the military and not get the U.S. involved in wars after Korea. But he also had the fantastic luck to have Stalin die a month into his presidency, which gave him years of Soviet headlessness to coast on. There’s a what if to keep you up at night. I wasn’t talking about ranking polls either–I was talking about an increase in books and articles in mainstream press reevaluating Eisenhower’s Presidency. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/56 "2015-11-10T13:13:12Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I wasn’t talking about ranking polls either–I was talking about an increase in books and articles in mainstream press reevaluating Eisenhower’s Presidency. Then we’re talking about the same thing. Assuming mainstream press also includes popular and semi-academic books. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2015, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266/57 "2015-11-10T19:50:12Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Eh, Eisenhower wasn’t in the Senate, and Presidents have a long history of being basically powerless in terms of stopping Senate witch hunts. Separation of powers and all that. But as you say Eisenhower was involved in putting an ultimate stop to McCarthyism. To my knowledge the “blacklisting” was done by private industry groups, and thus outside the purview of the Presidency. I don’t think Eisenhower gets any negatives, or any positives, for the McCarthy stuff. Not to mention that much of the Red-baiting - like what made Nixon famous - happened before Eisenhower was in office. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-we-ever-elected-a-us-president-with-no-prior-political-experience/719266.md?page=2)