Simonton wrote 30 years ago about greatness and suggested that the presidential candidate of lesser intelligence usually won. This was , however, in the context of that candidate having been the most intelligent among the party nominees. So you have to be smarter than the others in your party to get the nomination, but you run the risk of not being "relatable" enough. Regression to the mean (Simonton says about 119 IQ is best) carries advantage.
Discussions like this usually quickly move to people incensed because their candidate has Good Quality X that the other guy does not, so this theory is obviously bogus. The Republican/Democrat is always the smarter candidate you fool, you fool. But if we force ourselves to stick to the main point, the definition of intelligence as IQ, of raw brain power, I think the idea has a lot of merit. But he's an asshole. Doesn't matter. He got us into War A, which was stupid idea. Not the point here. But he cured cancer, ran a business, wrote books. You aren't paying attention here.We're not talking accomplishment, or wisdom, or charisma, or morality here.
If you can't get that, you have no place in the conversation.
Given that, let's look at it. I think we see quickly that this is clearly rather powerful, but other factors intervene. Second terms with the added dynamic of "Don't rock the boat" versus "This boat clearly needs to be rocked" overrules the pure intelligence factors much of the time - though maybe not all.
Herbert Hoover was clearly smarter than Roosevelt. The other terms don't seem to matter as much.
Dewey was smarter than the relatable Truman.
Stevenson was smarter than Eisenhower.
Nixon was smarter than Kennedy,
Goldwater was smarter than Johnson.
Nixon was smarter than Humphrey. Exception.
Ford and Carter, I don't know. I think I give the nod to Ford.
Reagan was smarter than credited, but Carter and Mondale were likely smarter
Bush 41 was probably smarter than Dukakis, Swarthmore be damned. Exception.
Bush was smarter than Clinton by a lot.
Dole and Clinton about even up.
Bush 43 smarter than advertised, but Gore probably smarter.
Bush smarter than Kerry.
McCain smarter than Obama. How Barack beat Hillary to get the nomination seems to be the relatability factor operating in the primaries. He was above-average, she was a National Merit Scholar.
Romney smarter than Obama.
Hillary smarter than Trump
But Trump (also underrated) smarter than Biden.
Interesting theory.
Was Stevenson really smarter than Eisenhower? Is there any evidence for this, other than that he talked in the manner expected of an intellectual of the time?
ReplyDeleteIt's a fair question. He was known to be intellectually curious. However, Eisenhower can be considered thoughtful.
ReplyDeleteWhich leads to another question. He was known as a golfer, but was also a fly-fisherman. When was the last time we had any kind of outdoorsman as president? Reagan and Bush 43 sort of qualify.
"When was the last time we had any kind of outdoorsman as president?"...or a person with *any* serious interests other than politics and the related acquisition of power & money??
ReplyDeleteApplies to a high % of CongressCreatures, as well. I remember seeing some Indian jewelry at the Museum of the American Indian, made by Senator Ben Nighthorse Jones, very fine work to my non-expert eye. A rare exception, I'm thinking.
Agricola's classic 16th-century work on mining was translated from Latin by Herbert Hoover and his wife Lou!
https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi139.htm
Again, hard to imagine anything like that from our current crew.
He and I do not see eye to eye on everything, but Bill Foster is a good physicist.
ReplyDeletedidn't know there were any. I thought Chris Sununu was one of the few trained scientists in politics, as his father and brother had been before him.
ReplyDeleteI worked with him for a while--he had a good eye for key problems.
ReplyDeleteWhy does anyone think that the architect of victory in Europe during WWII wasn't more intelligent than a one-term governor of Illinois?
ReplyDeleteRead my second paragraph again.
ReplyDeleteI'll give this a go from the other direction.
ReplyDeleteGHWB (1988) and Bob Dole (1996) were both smarter than Jack Kemp?
Clinton was smarter than Paul Tsongas or Bob Kerrey?
I admit I didn't think much before 2008. The theory is that the candidates aren't ever stupid because they manage to defeat a field in the primary - but maybe that doesn't mean they were smartest. No way Trump is smarter than Ted Cruz, for example. Cruz is one of the few top-shelf intellects to run, recently, but he is textbook unrelatable.
ReplyDeleteGoldwater was smarter than Johnson
ReplyDeleteMaybe,maybe not. I attended a Goldwater speech in the fall of '67. when I was in high school. Being disappointed with LBJ's performance (on Vietnam mostly), I was willing to give Goldwater a chance. I was not impressed. A family friend's take on hearing Goldwater: "He's just plain dumb."
I'd not be surprised to find out that Lady Bird Johnson was smarter than her husband. She had guts- she had a whistle-stop tour of the South after the passage of the Civil Rights Bill. LBJ consulted her continually on political questions. She had excellent political instincts- she called my brother's elementary school to chat with his classmate, who had written her about highway beautification. Five minutes of her time gave her and her husband a lot of support.
Clinton was smarter than Paul Tsongas or Bob Kerrey?
Given what I had read about Clinton getting through Yale Law by partying all semester and then cramming for the finals, I would not underestimate Clinton's intelligence.
Was Stevenson really smarter than Eisenhower? Is there any evidence for this, other than that he talked in the manner expected of an intellectual of the time?
The "intellectuals" liked Adlai. Regarding Adlai's intellectual interests, I read somewhere that the Social Register was on Adlai's bedside table when he died. (Trivia: A My sister tells me that my parents attended an Adlai whistle-stop speech at a nearby railroad station in 1956. Decades later, Adlai IV's then-current girlfriend attended my father's memorial service.)
It was easy to underestimate Eisenhower.In fact, he encouraged it. Recall his press secretary being concerned about what Ike would say on some foreign policy question(Quemoy/Matsu?). Ike told him that he'd just baffle the reporters with something incoherent.