Of the last eleven elected presidents, five had most recently been elected governor, four most recently elected vice president, one had never been previously elected to office, and exactly one a United States Senator. Historically, the American public is quite reluctant to turn the keys of the White House over to a US Senator. We much prefer governors and vice presidents.

But one of the peculiarities of the upcoming election is that nearly every credible candidate for president on both sides is either a current or former senator. The only two people really standing in the way of a senator-president are Republicans Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney and Democrat Al Gore. The only governors running are Democrat Bill Richardson and Republican Romney, and they're longshots (Mike Huckabee, Tommy Thompson and Jim Gilmore are apprently making a go at it, but "longshot" seriously overstates their odds). At a time when frustration with Washington DC is at a peak, this is a most curious development.

My first thought is that after having buyers remorse by electing an inexperienced governor to the presidency six years ago perhaps people are just putting a premium on Washingtonian experience, but with the exception of John McCain none of them have been a senator very long. Edwards served for six years and quit, Clinton will have served eight, Obama will have served four, and Fred Thompson served eight and quit. Furthermore, Edwards, Thompson, and Clinton had never held elective office prior to their election as senator (though Clinton can obviously claim other relevent experience).

We know why the Vice President isn't running, but where are the governors? I guess that the governors were having something of a rough time of it back in the recession and so you didn't have any of them claiming as impressive records as a governor can during an economic boom. But mainly I'd guess it's the prevalence of foreign policy as an issue and governors don't have much experience in that area. But even then senators (except Obama) are having to explain away or justify their votes for an unpopular war, so what they've done so far in the foreign policy arena isn't entirely an asset. I think some of it comes down to is that with foreign policy so dominant, it's primarily the national lawmakers that have our attention and the bad publicity the senate has gotten has been balanced out by the fact that they're getting attention whereas governors like Mark Warner and Tom Vilsak never really did. And the other of it is just luck.

The only real downside is that every senator already believes that he's going to be president someday and this election (unless Gore gets in and kicks butt) will very much bolster that belief.