For 2004, Bet On A Governor

(CBS)  If you ask a Vegas bookmaker which Democratic presidential hopeful is most likely to get the party's 2004 nomination, don't be surprised if he passes on heavyweight names like Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt or the bevy of senators vying for the right to bear the Democratic mantle. Instead, you're likely to get the best odds on Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont making an acceptance speech in Boston in 21 months.

That doesn't mean Dean should start looking at fabric samples for the Oval Office, but history does seem to be on his side.

In fact, since the nation's founding, just two sitting senators – John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Warren Harding in 1920 – have been elected president. Both parties, historically, have plucked their presidential nominees from statehouses instead of Capitol Hill.

A glance at the last 20 years shows how true that rule of thumb has become:

Three of the last five presidents – Carter, Clinton and Bush – came straight from their respective governors' mansions. A fourth, Ronald Reagan, was a former governor of California.

Since 1988, Democrats have tapped governors for three of four presidential elections - Dukakis of Massachusetts once and Clinton of Arkansas twice. Al Gore and Walter Mondale, both former senators, lost in the 1984 and 2000 contests.

In the last six presidential cycles, Republicans have nominated two current or former governors (George W. Bush and Reagan), one vice president (George H.W. Bush) and one senator. The only one to not win even a single time? That would be Bob Dole of the U.S. Senate.

It's hard to quantify why the short move from Capitol Hill to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has been so difficult.

Barry Burden, an assistant professor of government at Harvard University, published a study earlier this year on why senators seem to make such bad presidential candidates. In part, he said, it's because senators have the luxury of being able to consider presidential bids without giving up their day jobs on Capitol Hill.

"Senators don't try as hard as governors, in general," Burden said in an interview. "They're more willing to try, to put their toe in water, but a lot of them seem to do it half-heartedly while maintaining their Senate lives. Particularly if it's a midterm, there's not risk because they can always go back to Senate."

A perfect example, Burden said, is former Sen. Phil Gramm's 1996 campaign. After losing, badly, in the Iowa caucuses, the Texas Republican dropped out of the race and returned to the Senate – no harm, no foul.

On the other hand, Burden found in his study that governors have a vested interested in taking their presidential bids as far as possible. Shorter terms, term limits and sheer ambition seem to make governors successful.

"The levels of investment by governors are deeper than those by senators," Burden said. "Essentially, they are forced to fish or cut bait."

Another key element to gubernatorial success on the campaign trail is the ability of a state's chief executive to set the agenda during his term. So if Howard Dean wants to be the education governor, he can be. On Capitol Hill – where there are a whole lot of Indians and not enough chiefs, along with long paper trails – it's much harder for presidential aspirants to define themselves exactly how they'd like.

"A member of Congress has the agenda forced on them," Burden explains. "Members of Congress have these roll-call votes forced upon them – hundreds of them – and have to take positions that they might not want to take."

Dean himself sees his position as a non-member of Congress as an asset, especially after Al Gore's decision to stay out of the race.

He told CNN Monday night: "Now that the vice president is out I am so very different than all the other candidates who are running, all of whom are from inside the Beltway, because I'm a governor."

By Douglas Kiker