Many presidential candidates try to convince the public that they’re “just plain folks,” common like the most common man, a true representative of the average American. It stretches back as far as the election of 1840, when the very wealthy William Henry Harrison was able to convince the voting public that his roots were as plain as theirs.
But for all their “averageness,” our presidents belong to one of the most exclusive clubs ever, a club that’s had only 42 members in its 219-year history. (President George W. Bush is considered to be the 43rd president, but Grover Cleveland was president from 1885-1889 and 1893-1897, so he’s usually counted twice.).
And though U.S. presidents are as uncommon as one can get, even within that group, there are certain shared traits and characteristics that our “average” presidents are likely to have. How do the current contenders for the office compare to their predecessors? Well, let’s take a look:
*The average president is male. All 42 have been, and it looks like the next one will be as well.
*He lived 70 years and 245 days. (The closest to average: Rutherford Hayes, who lived 70 years, 105 days). John McCain is already above-average.
*He was 5-foot-10 (McCain is 5-foot-7, Barack Obama is 6-foot-1, so they’re each 3 inches off the average).
*He has a better than one in four chance of being named James or John. There have been six James and five Johns (including John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John Tyler, John Kennedy and Calvin Coolidge, whose given name was John).
*He has a better than one in three chance of having been born in Virginia or Ohio. In the current election, either McCain or Obama would be the first son of his birthplace to be president.
*He has had 1.15 wives (one had no wife, six had two each). So in this respect, Obama, who is married to his first wife, is more average than McCain, who is married to his second. (McCain would be the second divorced president, after Ronald Reagan).
*He has 3.7 children (2.1 sons, 1.6 daughters). Obama has two daughters; McCain has four biological children (two sons and two daughters) and three adopted children (two sons and one daughter).
*He is 5 years, 16 days older than his wife. (Thomas Jefferson was closest to average: 5 years, 200 days older than his wife, Martha. Obama is 2 years, 166 days older than his wife; McCain is 17 years, 264 days older than his. The greatest age differential was Grover Cleveland and his wife Frances, 27 years, 125 days.)
* Half the presidents were lawyers, and half served in their state legislatures. Obama is a lawyer and a former state legislator. McCain is neither.
* More than two-thirds of the presidents served in the military in some capacity. Obama has no military experience; McCain retired from the U.S. Navy as a captain.
*43 percent of the presidents were Republicans; 31 percent were Democrats (there were also two Federalists, four Democrat-Republicans, four Whigs and Andrew Johnson, who served under the National Union banner).
* More than a quarter attended Harvard or Yale; one in six did not graduate from college. Obama received his law degree from Harvard; McCain is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy.
*He was 55 years, 117 days old on Inauguration Day. Warren Harding is closest to average: 55 years, 122 days old when he took the oath of office. Obama will be 47 years, 169 days old. (He would be the fifth youngest, about eight years from the average) McCain will be 72 years, 144 days old. (He would be the oldest to be inaugurated for a first term, 17 years off the average.) The oldest to hold the office was Ronald Reagan, who left office 17 days before his 78th birthday.
* Only one-quarter of the presidents served two full terms. The average president was in office for 5 years, 60 days (Lyndon Johnson’s administration, which lasted 5 years, 59 days, makes him the closest to average).
After Nov. 4, we’ll see just how far we have to move the averages.
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Ian Randal Strock is the author of “The Presidential Book of Lists,” which will be released Oct. 21. He is also the editor of SFScope.com
