What President had the least prior experience?

Factual Questions
1

One of the big criticisms dogging Barack Obama is his lack of experience. I’m not interested in debating whether that is true. What I am interested is which President had the least experience prior to entering office.

Obviously, this is a bit of a subjective measure, since “experience” isn’t necessarily easy to define. But were there any Presidents with no prior political experience*? (One of the generals, perhaps) If we include military leadership in the prior experience category, who has the least prior experience (i.e. time in office, or time in command)?

*George Washington being the most obvious answer

2

Depends on what you mean by political experience, of course. The last two presidents with no executive experience were Kennedy and Lincoln. Wikipedia has a good list to get the discussion started .

3

I don’t know about that list. I know the VP is part of the executive branch but I wouldn’t consider it having executive experience. Being VP is not the same as being a governor or president or even mayor. The only people you have control over is your staff.

4

Wow. According to that link, Abe Lincoln only had 3 years in the House prior to the Presidency (he was also in the State Legislature, too, right? There must be something about Illinois state politics that grooms a man for the Presidency). I always think of him being in the Senate, but I forgot that he lost to Steven Douglas.

I see Warrin Harding was just a Lt. Governor…that’s pretty scant before rising to the Presidency.

5

That just lists their “executive” experience. If you click on Harding it shows that he was also a US Senator.

6

This raises the long-standing debate of whether being a general constitutes experience. What does time in office mean when being a general? How high up do you have to be for it to be experience?

If it doesn’t count, and there are many reasons why it shouldn’t, then the least experience has to be that the three generals who became president with no previous political experience. Take Eisenhower. He never had a civilian job except as president of Columbia University, which he treated solely as a sinecure to allow him to make speeches and network with the upper echelon of Republican movers and shakers. He never officially announced any political affiliation until 1952, however, and that was when he was already being put up for primaries.

Grant also never held any kind of political office outside of being general. Neither did Zachary Taylor. He had never even voted before becoming president, not unusual for career military men. I don’t remember for sure, but it’s possible that Eisenhower didn’t either, although he may have in 1948.

7

If you are a general in command of something at the flag level then you have executive experience. That would be if you were a division, corps, army group commander. Executive as in you make executive decisions. You have a staff which parallels a cabinet. The staff is run by a Chief of Staff. They recommend courses of action but the buck stops with the general. A Senator or Congressman just has to form opinions and vote on it. One vote out of many. Yes they have staffs but they are just running an office, not a country or army. Over simplified of course.

8

Actually, Washington was a longtime member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and attended the first two Continental Congresses, prior to commanding the Continential Army.

9

But this is also true of a business CEO. Some people do make the case that a president is a CEO, or the closest equivalent. The case against is that being either a CEO or a general is not comparable to that of being in politics, when accommodation, compromise, and persuasion are more important than command.

As I said, it is a long-standing debate and we’re not going to settle it here. However, I will say that from my reading of history, my opinion is strongly that political experience and military command experience (and corporate experience as well) are as different as chalk and cheese, as the British say.

10

Not meaning to hijack this into Great Debates territory, but in her campaign speeches Hillary Clinton keeps touting her “35 years of experience.” As far as I can tell, the only elective office she has ever held is her current gig as senator from New York, which she has had for 8 years. Since when does being First Lady (either state or national) count as “experience?”

11

When you have a desperate need to pad your resume?

12

There’s a story about Truman sitting in the Oval Office just before Ike was inaugurated, and Truman was making fun of how President Eisenhower was expected to pound on his desk, bark out orders, and expect that people would carry them out, as if he was a general who could count on his troops to do what he told them; when in fact he would be president and the bureaucracy would do nothing. I think Truman probably told the story better than I can.

One that stands out in my mind is Woodrow Wilson. He had a career in academia, served as President of Princeton University for 8 years, Governor of New Jersey for eighteen months or so before he was elected President. Since his tenure at Princeton mostly consisted of arguing about fraternities, raising money for the endowment, and improving the University’s physical plant, I’d say one can cast a questioning eye on how well that time qualified him to run the country.

13

Well, the only major difference between the CEO and the General Officer is that many general officers DO have political experience as they regularly are consulted by or summoned to Congressional hearings on appropriations, budgetary or otherwise.
This is particularly true in branches like the USAR Engineers where there’s a lot of political finangling going on for project funding, environmental impact of projects, public works, etc.

14

Going through the list:

George Washington: General, colonial legislature, Continental Congress
John Adams: Colonial legislature, Continental Congress, ambassador, Vice President
Thomas Jefferson: Colonial and state legislature, Continental Congress, ambassador, Governor, Secretary of State, Vice President
James Madison: Continental Congress, House of Representatives, Secretary of State
James Monroe: Colonial legislature, Continental Congress, Senator, Governor, ambassador, Secretary of State, Secretary of War
John Quincy Adams: Ambassador, Senator, Secretary of State
Andrew Jackson: General, House of Representatives, Senator, judge
Martin Van Buren: State legislature, Senator, Governor (he only served as Governor for two months before resigning to become Secretary of State), Secretary of State, Vice President
William Harrison: General, state legislature, House of Representatives, Senator, Territorial Governor, ambassador
John Tyler: State legislature, House of Representatives, Governor, Senator, Vice President (became President after Harrison’s death)
James Polk: State legislature, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Governor
Zachary Taylor: General (had never held any political office before the Presidency)
Millard Fillmore: House of Representatives, Vice President (became President after Taylor’s death)
Franklin Pierce: House of Representatives, Senator, general
James Buchanan: House of Representatives, Senator, ambassador, Secretary of State (he was the last Secretary of State to be subsequently elected President)
Abraham Lincoln: four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives, one term in the U.S. House of Representatives
Andrew Johnson: State legislature, House of Representatives, Governor, Senator, Vice President (became President after Lincoln’s death)
Ulysses Grant: General (had never held any political office before the Presidency)
Rutherford Hayes: General, House of Representatives, Governor
James Garfield: State legislature, General, House of Representatives (the only serving member of the House of Representatives to be elected President)
Chester Arthur: General (served in the Quartermasters Corps and did not serve in battle), Collector of the Port of New York, Vice President (became President after Garfield’s death)
Grover Cleveland: Sheriff of Erie County (1871-1873), Mayor of Buffalo (1882-1883), Governor of New York (1883-1984) (he resigned the office of Mayor to become Governor and resigned the office of Governor to become President)
Benjamin Harrison: General, Senator
William McKinley: House of Representatives, Governor
Theodore Roosevelt: State legislature, NYPD Commissioner, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Governor, Vice President (became President after McKinley’s death)
William Taft: Solicitor General, federal judge, territorial governor, Secretary of War
Woodrow Wilson: Governor of New Jersey (1911-1913) (resigned to become President)
Warren Harding: State legislature (1899–1903), Lieutenant Governor of Ohio (1903–1905), Senator (1915–1921)
Calvin Coolidge: City Council, mayor, state legislature, Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts (1916-1919), Governor of Massachusetts (1919-1921) (resigned to become Vice President), Vice President of the United States (1921-1923) (became President after Harding’s death)
Herbert Hoover: Secretary of Commerce (1921-1928)
Franklin Roosevelt: State legislature (1911–1913), Assistant Secretary of the Navy (1913-1920), Governor of New York (1929-1932) (resigned to become President)
Harry Truman: County and state offices, Senator (1935-1945), Vice President (became President after Roosevelt’s death)
Dwight Eisenhower: General (had never held any political office before the Presidency)
John Kennedy: House of Representatives (1947-1953), Senator (1953-1961)
Lyndon Johnson: House of Representatives (1937-1949), Senator (1949-1961), Senate Majority Leader, Vice President (became President after Kennedy’s death)
Richard Nixon: House of Representatives (1947-1950), Senator (1950-1953), Vice President
Gerald Ford: House of Representatives (1949-1973), House Minority Leader, Vice President (became President after Nixon’s resignation)
Jimmy Carter: State legislature (1963-1967), Governor of Georgia (1971-1975)
Ronald Reagan: Governor of California (1967–1975)
George H. W. Bush: House of Representatives (1967-1971), Director of Central Intelligence, Ambassador to the United Nations, chairman of the Republican National Committee, chief liason (ambassador) to China, Vice President
Bill Clinton: Attorney General of Arkansas (1976-1978), Governor of Arkansas (1979-1981, 1983-1992)
George W. Bush: Governor of Texas (1995-2000)

15

So what you’re saying, therefore, is that Roger Clemens has the qualifications to run for president. :slight_smile:

16

Well, he knows how to lie and to stonewall. :smiley:

17

In the middle of Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Abraham Lincoln was a political genus. Most highly recommend the book not only for insights on Lincoln but Stephen Douglas turned out to be a hero. I’m at the part were president-elect Abe steps into the lion’s den of unprotected Washington DC and the Southern Senators, military, etc are leaving town.

18

OK, I’ve edited Little Nemo’s list to delete everyone who had served as Senator, Governor, Cabinet Secretary or Vice President, other than those identified as serving only a short term (less than four years) in those roles (Ford was only VP for 9 months; FDR served two full two year terms as governor of N.Y.).

Of the remainder, I think we can knock out those generals who were commander in chief or theater commander in time of war (Washington, Grant, Eisenhower). Likewise, we should delete those who served at least 10 years in the House of Representatives (Garfield, Ford).

That leaves the following: Zachary Taylor, Abraham Lincoln, Grover Cleveland, and Woodrow Wilson.

It is difficult to compare whether Taylor’s 40 years as an army officer was more or less experience than Wilson’s service as a professor and university president before his short governorship, and how that compares to Cleveland’s succession of offices in the Buffalo area before his two years as Governor of New York.

However, I would have to say that of the whole list, the fellow who just served in his state legislature and a single term in the House would have to fall out as the President with the least experience going into the Presidency. He didn’t do so bad.

19

And Chester Arthur. He served as a staff officer during the Civil War, held a mid-level federal civil service post for a few years, and worked as a lawyer. He essentially was a competent but not outstanding person who happened to belong to the right political faction and geographical region to be chosen as Vice President. And then Garfield got shot six months into office.

On paper, Arthur was probably the least qualified person to ever become President. And then he did something very surprising - he rose to the occasion and was a good President.

20

:smack: Chester A. Arthur, Chester A. Arthur, how could I forget Chester A. Arthur.