Political Insider‘s Scott Keyes has looked at the resumes of the declared and likely 2008 presidential candidates and concludes that “the prospects of another all-Yale election this cycle are nil and the chances of an all-Ivy League election are quite slim. If 2008 is indeed an Ivy-free presidential election, it will be the first time in 24 years where neither major party nominee was educated at an Ivy League university.”
I suspect the Republic will weather this storm.
Hillary Clinton certainly counts as Ivy League (she went to Wellesley, one of the “Seven Sisters” in the pre-coed days of the Ivy League). So does Obama who matriculated from Columbia. Joe Biden went to U. Delaware. Richardson attended Tufts.
On the Republican side, however, McCain went to Annapolis and Rudy Giuliani attended Manhattan College so it’s pretty unlikely that an Ivy Republican candidate will emerge.
Dave: Of the Republicans, none have an Ivy undergrad degree and only Romney (Harvard Business) has Ivy connections. Of the Dems, only Obama has a true Ivy undergrad (Columbia) and, as you say, Hillary has a quasi-Ivy undergrad degree. Many of the Dems have Ivy grad/professional degrees, including both Obama and Clinton.
Bithead: Is this an indictment of the qualifications of those of the Ivy who would be president, or a rejection of their politics by the electorate, or both?
Likely, neither. It’s just an anomaly of the self-selected candidates this year.
