In 1999, The New Yorker published a transcript indicating that Bush had received a cumulative score of 77 for his first three years at Yale and a roughly similar average under a non-numerical rating system during his senior year.

Kerry, who graduated two years before Bush, got a cumulative 76 for his four years, according to a transcript that Kerry sent to the Navy when he was applying for officer training school. He received four D's in his freshman year out of 10 courses, but improved his average in later years.
Now, those of you that followed the election last year will recall that Bush was presented by his critics as being something of a dunce while Kerry was presented by his as a waffling egghead. Four years ago, interestingly, the same dynamic existed between GWB and Al Gore, whose academic career was also not remarkably distinguishable from the President's.

What I find a bit interesting here is how we basically had the same narrative in two consecutive reasons with the absense of proof. Now it's possible that Bush really is an idiot who happened to make good grades while Kerry's and Gore's mediocrity in spite of their genious is the product of disinterest.

But interestingly, three of the last four Republican presidents (GWB, Reagan, and Ford but not so much for policy-wonk GHB) have been derided as intellectual lightweights. Every Democratic presidential nominee since 1976 (Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, and Kerry) but one (Carter, whose selling point was earnestness) has been regarded as particularly intelligent by Democratic boosters. Maybe Republicans like nominating idiots while Democrats like nominating eggheads.

Or, perhaps, Democrats like to believe that those they nominate are or should be more intelligent while it's not a priority for Republicans or even is perhaps a negative. I suspect that the dumb Republican versus nerdy Democrat framing persists because neither side has a particular interest in busting it.

It is my personal belief that a lot of voters who lean left do so because it makes them feel more intellectual. A lot of voters who lean to the right, on the other hand, do so because it makes them feel more self-righteous. Politics very often comes down not to policies but to self-image. For the record, I haven't commissioned any studies to prove this conjecture, but it's been my experience that political free agents - those whose livelihoods are not greatly affected by which party is in power - seem to break along these lines more often than not. Agree or disagree with these impressions that I have, but I mention them because they have helped me come to the conclusions outlined in this post.

With Democrats valuing integence (or at least intellectualism), it makes sense that a Democratic presidential candidate would do his best to come across as intelligent as possible. I believe that regardless of the grades they made, John Kerry and Al Gore are both intelligent men, and being such were able to swing a bit higher than their intellectual weight class. Being Democrats, they had more motivation to do so. Democrats, wanting to believe that their guy is smarter than the other team's guy, were quick to play this up. And they're quick to dress down the intelligence of the other team's leader.

Republicans, on the other hand, have a more acrimonious relationship with the intelligencia. Many of the rank and file have been looked down upon because of the drawl in their accent or their lack of a master's degree in the liberal arts. Many of them feel that they have been talked down upon by the opinion leaders not just because of the opinions they hold, but because of who they are. They also believe, not incorrectly, that a lot of "middle America" feels the same way. So while intelligence may be an objective good, they are suspicious of those that try to come off as such, not particularly quick to nominate such a person, and definitely not particularly quick to portray him as such when nominated (which is why they unsuccessfully attempted to frame George H. Bush as a war hero and not a genious). To compensate for this, they tend to portray the other team's guy as an egghead and a nerd that is out of touch with the American people.

So when the media picks up on the theme of Smart Democrat versus the Amiable Dunce Republican, neither side is inclined to refute that picture. Democrats are more likely to believe that the public wants a smart leader and Republicans are more likely to believe that the public does not want a leader that believes he is smarter than they are. Whichever side is right (and I think they both are, the Republicans being only slightly moreso), the dynamic is interesting to watch and consider.