At the Democratic National Convention, Michelle Obama said Kamala Harris “is more than ready for this moment. She is one of the most qualified people ever to seek the office of the presidency.” I’ve been interested in the backgrounds of the people who become President, so it’s worth looking at how Kamala Harris’s resume would compare to that of previous Presidents were Kamala Harris to be President.
This seems like a topic worth exploring objectively. She worked for decades as a prosecutor culminating in six years as Attorney General of California, managing the second-largest justice department in the United States. Then she served four years as Senator, ran an unsuccessful presidential primary, and served four years as Vice President. It’s a solid CV, even if Michelle Obama oversold it.
This got me thinking about which previous Presidents were clearly more experienced than Harris on paper, and there are more than a few. Harris’s resume is roughly in the middle of the pack for future Presidents. I will note that qualifications don’t necessarily match the level of leadership. Abraham Lincoln was a former one-term Congressman but deserves to be on Mount Rushmore. Some Presidents had accomplishments in different fields but ranked quite low.
I’m looking at the resumes of people on the day they became President, either by winning an election or the death of a predecessor. I prioritize the variety of experiences and the significance of previous offices. It’s entirely possible that I’m missing important details, and may not understand which member of Congress was more important than their committee titles would suggest, or which cabinet members delegated all the work to others and thus rank higher on my list than they would deserve. That said, there are about 21 Presidents (out of 46 or 47 depending on how you count it) who seem to have more impressive resumes than Harris to be President.
Past Presidents and Qualifications of Kamala Harris to be President
I’ll go in chronological order, although the founding fathers are ridiculously qualified. George Washington was the most consequential general in American history and the savior of the Articles of Confederation. John Adams was a major figure during the Revolutionary War, and later the first ambassador to the United Kingdom. He spent eight years as a loyal veep to Washington before that position became mostly insignificant for a century-and-a-half. He was notable for casting more tie-breaking votes than any Vice-President since. He largely wrote the Massachusetts constitution, the first in the world to feature a bicameral legislature and a distinct executive, as well as mechanisms for the executive to veto legislation, and for the legislators to override the veto.
As author of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin’s successor as Ambassador to France, Governor of Virginia, Secretary of State, and Vice-President, Thomas Jefferson is the most qualified man to ever hold the office of President. He also made sure that his good friends James Madison and James Monroe had impressive resumes when it was their turn to seek the office. With Madison, you have to ask the question: How do you rank “Wrote the bill of rights” as a qualification for the White House? I would say that it’s pretty damn high on the list. Madison was also a founding member of Congress, and Secretary of State under Jefferson.
During that period, he was partly responsible for the Louisiana Purchase. He also played a significant role in the Constitutional Convention. Monroe was a Governor of Virginia, Senator, Secretary of State, acting Secretary of War during the close of the War of 1812, ambassador, and Revolutionary War hero.
John Quincy Adams served as a prominent Senator and Ambassador to four different nations (Prussia, The Netherlands, Russia, and The United Kingdom) before his appointment for two terms as Secretary of State, when that was essentially a stepping stone to the Presidency and the #2 position in the country. Before that, he was also the nation’s chief negotiator in the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. As a former President turned Representative, he would later become the most ridiculously overqualified member of the US Congress in the history of the institution. The first six Presidents qualifications surpass Harris to be President on paper in terms of earlier resumes.
Andrew Jackson’s on the twenty dollar bill, but his resume is more eclectic (a military commander with incomplete stints in Congress) especially compared to earlier Presidents, so he’s the first former President whose prior resume doesn’t overshadow hers. Martin Van Buren is the only man other than Thomas Jefferson to serve as Secretary of State, Vice President, and President. His tenure as Secretary of State was uneventful, and meant that he would only serve as Governor of New York for 2 1/2 months, which probably isn’t enough time to develop executive experience. He wasn’t head of the state department for very long, as he had to resign due to the petticoat affair. However, he remained an unofficial adviser for
President Jackson as a member of his kitchen cabinet, selected as Jackson’s running mate in the next election, and his successor in the election after that. Before this, he had been a generic Senator for eight years, and a state legislator for eight more, four of which he spent as state Attorney General. On paper, he looked good.
William Henry Harrison’s tenure as President is most notable for how quickly he died. He was the oldest man ever elected to the office until Ronald Reagan. However, those years allowed him to build an impressive record as a legislator, executive, and military commander. In any of those three fields, he built up a CV more impressive than a few Presidents.
Harrison briefly served in Congress as a delegate from the Northwest territory, before he became the Governor of the Indiana Territory for twelve years. During his later years in that office, he served as Commander of the Army in Indiana during the War of 1812. He then returned to Congress, serving as a Representative for Ohio. Later he became the state’s senator and an ambassador to Columbia.
There’s a stretch before the Civil War when the resumes get less impressive. James Polk is an exception, serving as Speaker of the House and Governor of Tennessee. He is one of the few Presidents to lead a national legislative body and the only one of those to also have major executive experience. He’s likely the most qualified person to achieve the presidency before turning 50.
James Buchanan’s five terms in Congress included two years as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. After a year as Andrew Jackson’s Ambassador to Russia, he spent twelve years as a Senator from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania at the time was the second most populous state in the country. He later served as James Polk’s Secretary of State, and Franklin Pierce’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Andrew Johnson is widely considered one of our worst Presidents, but the list of elected and appointed offices he held was quite impressive. The only man to ever serve in every possible local and federal elected office, Johnson served as Tennessee state representative, Tennessee state senator, Congressman, Governor, Senator, and Vice-President. He had also been a small-town mayor, as well as Military Governor of Tennessee during the Civil War.
I’ll make a sidenote about Grover Cleveland because he had the most meteoric rise in American political history, going from sheriff of Buffalo to Governor of New York in one year. He’s the only President to serve non-consecutive terms, so his experience on Day One as the 24th President trumps that of all other presidents, but it would be cheating to count that.
As a legislator, William McKinley was significant enough that he launched a credible bid for Speaker of the House, and became Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. He also had a respectable military career in the 23rd Ohio Infantry during the Civil War, serving as a Captain and earning the rank of Brevet Major. Finally, he served for four years as Governor of Ohio, although it was a weak office, prominent mainly due to Ohio’s role as the most crucial swing state. I would still rate him slightly higher than Harris to be President, but I can understand different arguments.
Theodore Roosevelt had a lot of odd experiences before he spent two years as Governor of the most populated state in the Union. He was an accomplished state legislator who took advantage of a year-long stint in a mid-level Cabinet post to be a rather consequential Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was also a successful reformer as president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners, the predecessor to the post of police commissioner, which he created as Governor. You could make the case that from roughly 1898, with the first news reports of the rough riders to his failed presidential comeback in 1912, he was the main character of America.
As Secretary of War, Robert Taft was sometimes essentially the acting Secretary of State. Before that, he was a Military Governor of the Philippines. He also had an impressive legal career, as a judge in the Ohio Superior Court at 30, and Solicitor General at 32, which earned him an Appellate Court judgeship at 34. Herbert Hoover may be the most accomplished businessman to ever be President, and was quite active as Secretary of Commerce.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt wasn’t the most qualified Vice-Presidential nominee in 1920, although he had been Assistant Secretary of the Navy during the First World War. But that was before he served for two terms as Governor of New York, leading the most populous state in the Union during the first years of the Great Depression.
With Dwight Eisenhower, It’s difficult to gauge the applicability of military service to duties as President, but of the Generals turned President, Ike did have the most international experience, so I’m ranking him higher than most. He also served as President of Columbia University, although that was largely a ceremonial title, which he essentially abandoned to become Supreme Commander of NATO.
Richard Nixon was considered the first modern Vice President, due to the responsibilities he held in the Eisenhower administration. He was simply the most prominent VP since John Adams, chairing Cabinet and National Security Council meetings during Eisenhower’s absences, defending America’s industrial accomplishments in a debate with Khrushchev, and undertaking several major foreign trips. Before that, he had a notable six-year career as a young virulently anti-communist bomb-thrower in Congress. In terms of experience before running for President, I’m rating him higher than Harris for his two terms as Vice President.
LBJ’s Vice-Presidency was inconsequential, but he has the most impressive legislative resume of any man to become President. His two terms in the Senate included ten years in leadership positions: two years as Senate Majority Whip, two years as Minority Leader and six years as Majority Leader. While in Congress, he also served in the Navy.
Before he became President, Ronald Reagan spent eight years as the Governor of one of the largest states in the nation. The six-year gap between his tenures as chief executives of California and of the United States allowed him to be a prominent spokesman for his party. Before he was Governor, he was the leader of a major union as President of the Screen Actors Guild.
His running mate George HW Bush had an interesting biography before his eight years as Vice-President. After a successful career as a Houston oil man and an unsuccessful bid for Senate, he was a busier than usual two-term Congressman, first considered as a potential Nixon running mate after just two years in the House. After his second failed Senate bid, he became chairman of the Republican National Committee and Director of the CIA. His most significant duty before national office may have been his role as an unofficial ambassador to China at a consequential time.
Most of the presidents since then have been relatively unqualified. Bill Clinton was a small state Governor. George W Bush had a business career where he benefited from Daddy being President, and he was the executive of a state where the legislature had the power. Obama didn’t serve a full term in the Senate. Trump never held public or military office. Joe Biden was an exception, with 36 years in the Senate (16 years as chairman of Important committees) and eight years as VP. As with Harrison, he shows the downside of experience. When candidates have served in public life so long, it may be better to retire.
Michelle Obama didn’t just compare the qualifications of Harris to be President to everyone who became President, but everyone who sought it. I’m sure she meant to be taken seriously rather than literally on this, but it gets to an interesting trend in the last few generations where parties are typically in the White House for two terms and then get kicked out, which has implications in terms of the resumes of losing and winning candidates.
In the first election out, the parties tend to pick people with impressive resumes who then go on to lose. Walter Mondale was a former Vice President who spent twelve years in the Senate. Bob Dole was the Senate Majority leader and had been Gerald Ford’s running mate twenty years earlier. And when a reelected incumbent is unable to run, the nominee often has a decent resume and then still goes on to lose. Al Gore was Vice President. John McCain was in his fourth term as Senator. McCain. Hillary Clinton was essentially a major advisor to the President who also served as Senator and Secretary of State.
A problem for experienced candidates is that they tend to get nominated in bad cycles when their party has been in the White House long enough for swing voters to get tired or when the other party just got in. After a party’s been out of the White House for enough time, primary voters tend to go for fresh faces who are by definition less accomplished. There’s a chicken-and-egg question about the extent to which outsiders win because swing voters want something new, or because the outsiders tend to run in good cycles.
Harris has an odd advantage right now that Biden dropped out of his reelection bid, so her political party has only been in the White House for one term. Part of that is that Trump is the second individual in 120+ years to get his party kicked out of the White House after just four years. This may be a reason why she’s rather qualified compared to Clinton, Obama, George W Bush ,or Trump.
I’m curious about how the 2028 race will go. Who would Democrats nominate if Trump returns? What will Republicans do if Harris is in the unusual position of running for reelection and a third term for Democrats in the White House?
Were Kamala Harris to be President how do you feel she compares to prior Presidents? Does this have a impact on how well Harris would perform? Let us know below and if you liked this article check out our other articles on the 2024 election.
