I had to pause and think about this for a moment. You’re right. Was Herbert Hoover the last former cabinet secretary to be nominated?
As far as I can tell, yes: FDR beat Governor Landon and Governor Dewey, as well as Willikie (seriously?) – and before Hoover beat Governor Smith, the electorate stuck with Governor Coolidge after that VP took over for Senator-turned-President Harding, who beat Congressman-turned-Governor Cox after Governor-turned-President Wilson beat Governor-turned-Supreme-Court-Justice Hughes – so, once in the last century?
I guess it’s right that Hughes was secretary of state after losing the election.
So, I suppose that can be Hillary’s slogan: “Clinton: A Modern Day Herbert Hoover”
Ha. Of course, the gag is that Commerce Secretary – not even Attorney General or the War Department, you understand, but Commerce Secretary – was the capstone for Hoover’s credentials, while Clinton’s time in the Cabinet came after she earned full marks by getting re-elected to the Senate.
FWIW, the last Secretary of State to become President was James Buchanan.
Yeah, it’s not like SoS is her only relevant experience. Regardless of how much you value a cabinet position in itself, senator plus secretary has to be worth more than senator alone.
Hoover was famous, and mentioned as a potential president, before he was a Cabinet member. His relief work during and after WWI was widely recognized around the world and in the US. He was recruited by both political parties, but chose to become a Republican.
Well, by the time he’d be Governor of New York, FDR had already been Assistant Secretary of the Navy and the Democratic VP candidate. He was talked about as a presidential candidate long before he got to be governor.
And (like I’d hinted with considerable surprise) Willkie was talked about, and then actually became, his party’s candidate of choice to run against FDR for President, after his years of service as – Lieutenant Colonel? Deputy Mayor? City Councilman? No, the correct answer was “businessman with a law degree.”
George H.W. Bush was CIA director. Does that count as a cabinet level position?
Wiki sez both that post and the guy’s stint as UN Ambassador would’ve counted as “cabinet-level” during the Clinton Administration – but apparently neither post had that accolade when Bush actually held them. It’s an interesting point, though.
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Executive officials no longer of Cabinet rank
Director of the Federal Security Agency (1939–1952): Abolished, most duties transferred to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (1996–2001): created as an independent agency in 1979, raised to Cabinet rank in 1996,[2] lost Cabinet rank in 2001.[3]
Director of Central Intelligence (1995–2001)[4][5][6]
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
The Ambassador to the United Nations is not a member of the United States Cabinet, but the position is frequently accorded cabinet-level rank. It held this status through the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations but was removed from cabinet rank by George H.W. Bush, who had previously held the position himself. It was restored under the Clinton administration. It was not a cabinet-level position under the George W. Bush administration (from 2001 to 2009).[1][2] but was once again elevated under the Obama administration.
[/QUOTE]
The most important skill that a prospective president can have is the ability to campaign well. Given that cabinet positions are unelected it is not surprising that they are less likely to lead to a presidential nomination.
Question one is what does “qualified” mean? So sure, you have to meet the constitutional requirements, and you have to have enough in your hat that questioning your qualifications does not come up … but what in someone’s background should we be looking for that shows they are capabe?
A president needs to be able to articulate a positive view of our country’s future and chart a realistic course for us to get there. (S)he needs to be able to delegate tasks yet ultimately take the responsibility and keep strong team members functioning within his/her vision of how the team should go. (S)he needs to be able to manage getting things done and able to take the constant heat for what is done and not done (including not done by intent) from all sides. Be able to stay rational in irrational circumstances. Be expert at sales.
What sort of experiences show that someone posseses those traits?
Sure she has seen the inside workings of how things get done within administrations that have functioned in challenging political times. Proven her ability to articulate a positive view for our future? She’s shown herself to be adequate. Yes SoS provides experience at delegating and managing a team of strong members keeping them all with the same vision. She’s taken lots of heat and held up fine. And she has shown herself to be able to stay rational admist irrational circumstances. But what sort of objective scale could be used to say “most”? Being governor also can demonstrate that one has those qualifications, or that one does not. Having the job, the experience, in your resume is not the qualification; how one did in the job under which set of circumstanes, is what determines how quaified one is.
We seem to be arguing past each other. I agree that Washington was highly qualified to be President and his peers all saw that. My point however was that his qualifications were not reflected in his record of positions he had held.
If you put it like that, running for office and winning seems pretty solid all by itself: you’re nothing without a properly-managed team, and the one task you can’t delegate is personally selling your proposals while taking the heat and remaining on-message.
Well, there’s Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, since he’d been a Colonel and a Governor and everything else from Police Commissioner to Vice-President before serving as Commander-In-Chief from 1901 to 1909, at which point he stepped down to spend more time [del]with his family[/del] playing big-game hunter while polishing his Nobel Prize.
Anyhow, he of course eventually returned to politics by running against his successor and winning six states – which is pretty good, considering said incumbent only managed to pick up, y’know, two.
The point is, unlike Cleveland in '92, it’s now illegal to get elected President while as qualified as TR was in '12. “You were a Senator who failed in her White House bid, and so spent four years as a Secretary? Bully! I was the President when I won an election to spend four years as a President; do tell me more of this Robert Reiner.”
Rob Reiner called Hillary Clinton the most qualified presidential candidate ever.
Okay then. I’m convinced.
Mr. Hoover is the man who standardized penny nails, radio station frequencies, and red tail lights on automobiles.
Think of what would have happened had Hoover not existed–we’d all be dead from collapsed homes, overexposure to AM talk, and rear-end collisions.
Bill and Hillary probably owe their very existence to the greatest president we ever had in the late 1920’s.*
*Depression not included
Since Eisenhower had’nt even decided what party he belonged to much before the 1952 election, it’s hard to consider him politically qualified.
It isn’t as if all that high-level diplomacy and leadership of a large governmental organization as Allied Supreme Commander counted as qualifications, no.