Jonathan Rauch Is a Mainstream Journalist. Jonathan Bernstein Is a Weblogger. Which Is a Source You Can Learn More From?
Jonathan Bernstein, of course:
A plain blog about politics: 14 Year Rule? Not So Much: Jonathan Rauch has been asking for it this week over at Sullivan's place.... Rauch is pushing his idea that "you can't be elected president in America if it takes you longer than 14 years to make it from governor or senator to president or vice president." Sorry, but it's bunk.... [I]n 2003... he could argue that every president but one elected beginning with Teddy Roosevelt fit, and 12 of 18 losing major-party nominees.... Since then, he's one-for-one with newly elected presidents, but 0-for-2 on losing nominees.... As Rauch admitted in 2003, one can in fact come up with all sorts of patterns, although he later claims that it's hard to find one that works for a century. I disagree! Let's see if I can do it...we're talking 19 people, and he's giving himself one mulligan. Here's a list by date of birth -- guess what? None of the 19 were born in the three months from February 7 through May 7. That's a quarter of the year, and no presidents! Or: only one president was born from the 16th through the 26th day of the month. That's 11 days, over a third of all possible days -- and yet only a single exception defied the 16-26 rule....
[W]e know a whole lot about who wins presidential elections, and we can almost certainly eliminate any major proposed factor that is candidate-based and large. There just isn't enough unexplained variation, once you account for party and familiar "fundamentals" such as the economy and war.... But if you think that the candidates' height, or hair color, or handedness, or whatever, matters, it just really can't, very much.... [I]t's easy to conclude that if any candidate or campaign based effect "works" for the general election but not for nominations, it's almost certainly bunk. Which is exactly where I'll file Rauch's 14 year rule.
