NY Times political analysis about the presidency leaves a lot to be desired

By James J Devine

I was a little surprised to read that, “No Democratic governor has become president, or even won the nomination, since Bill Clinton in the 1990s, and Republicans haven’t had a governor-turned-president since George W. Bush.”

That’s more like something one finds in a treatise on political astrology from the cult of meaningless metrics rather than a political report in The New York Times.

To engage in solemn prognostication based on the premise that “no governor has won the nomination since…” is to participate in a particularly hollow genre of political astrology. It is the practice of drawing bold, predictive constellations from a handful of stars, ignoring the vast, empty space between them, and declaring the pattern destiny.

Let us first dissect this profound insight with the blunt instrument of fact.

The Republican “drought” of governors-turned-president since George W. Bush is a masterpiece of statistical derangement.

The roster of GOP presidents elected since Bush is exactly one man: Donald Trump. The lineup of nominees is three: McCain (senator), Romney (former governor, but presented as a businessman), and Trump (reality television star).

To declare a “pattern” from a sequence of three unique individuals, only one of whom reached the presidency, is not analysis; it is numerology.

It would be equally profound to note that no left-handed peat farmer from Delaware has been elected in that time.

On the Democratic side, the “since Bill Clinton” framing is equally myopic. Yes, the nominees have been a vice president (Gore), a senator (Kerry), a senator (Obama), a secretary of state (Clinton), a vice president (Biden), and a vice president (Harris).

This is not a pattern that excludes governors; it is merely a list of what happened recently. It reflects the specific political circumstances, strengths, and weaknesses of individuals in those years, not a cosmic decree from the political gods that “Senator” is now the anointed title.

It feels like a cheap shot to note that Romney breaks the pattern, since he was a governor, but that exception accounts for one-third of the Republicans nominated.

The entire exercise collapses under the weight of American history, a story written by the irregular and the exceptional.

George Washington set a two-term precedent broken by Franklin Roosevelt—both considered giants. Abraham Lincoln was a former one-term congressman and serial election loser before becoming the nation’s savior.

FDR was a governor. Jimmy Carter was a governor. Ronald Reagan was a governor.

The path to the presidency has been walked by generals, senators, vice presidents, and at least one peanut farmer. Reality TV stars have captured the White House twice in the last three elections. The resume is not a blueprint; it is a receipt.

To fret that “no governor has won in thirty minutes” (or thirty years) is to play a desperate game of political bingo, staring at the board of past winning numbers and shouting that B-12 must be next because it hasn’t been called in a while.

It ignores the actual game: the seismic shifts in media, the collapse of local political machinery that once buoyed governors, the nationalization of all politics, and the sheer, terrifying randomness of events that propel one candidate and sink another.

Typically, it’s about the campaign with the most money even though finances are a counterindication of what we need.

America’s problem is not a shortage of governors in the pipeline.

It is a desperate, aching demand for leadership of courage, vision, and integrity—qualities utterly unconcerned with one’s previous W-2.

To wallow in anxiety over whether that leadership will emerge is at least a substantive worry.

To waste energy speculating whether it will emerge from a statehouse, a Senate cloakroom, or a boardroom is to fiddle with organizational charts while the foundations smolder.

The bottom of the barrel is not defined by a lack of gubernatorial experience. The bottom is defined by a poverty of character, ideas, and civic responsibility.

And whether the next great president—or the next catastrophic one—is a governor, a senator, or a poet is a trivia question we will answer only in retrospect.

Until then, this brand of conjecture is just silly noise, a comforting ritual for a political class obsessed with maps and metrics but increasingly blind to the territory of a fracturing nation.

The resume is the least interesting thing about any candidate. Perhaps we should start looking at the person holding it.