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There is supposedly a tension between the President you'd rather drink a beer with or President who is smarter than you. Which would make a better President? This is something we can actually leverage science to test.

Pundits are saying that the ''Culture War'' is in full swing again this election. This is nothing new. At least part of the "culture war", the part that associates liberalism with intellectualism and snobbery, is simply a new manifestation of the anti-elitism that dates, in Presidential politics, to at least Andrew Jackson and probably as far back as Thomas Jefferson. In a country as large and diverse as the United States, a certain form of this might be inevitable, but the degree to which anti-elitism operates is, to my knowledge, particularly American.

Conservatives practice overt anti-elitism that can be mixed with a type of subtle racism in a way that, I imagine, is also uniquely American. Of course, liberals practice their own opposition politics, in the form of a more covert snobbery. Despite protestations, and that what he was saying may have been accurate, in describing certain Americans as "bitter" and "clinging", Barack Obama was using a form of snobbery what many on the left articulate regularly without realizing it. It is the anti-guy you'd like to have a beer with politics. Reading liberal blogs and columns, there is an unstated understanding that Sarah Palin's moose-hunting is something that a certain type of person doesn't do: the persons you want to be President. To many liberals, persons like them don't hunt moose.

In an earlier blog entry, Michael Tesler touched on aspects of this current of American politics. Michael raised what is a legitimate question about electoral preference, that is why shouldn't we care about educational attainment and, what he called, "innate intelligence". He believes that we should care. Michael's question becomes especially meaningful in the context of U.S. elections because concerns about education and intelligence are associated with anti-elitism and its liberal equivalent. There is no doubt that anti-elitism has electoral currency. And it raises concerns if anti-elitism can be leveraged to bring victory at the expense of qualities we want in leaders: educational attainment and innate intelligence. We assume these qualities are associated with capability as a leader.

From the perspective of political science, this is an empirical question. Does it make a difference if smart people are in the White House. To test this, we need to measure whether Presidents are smart and whether they were successful as President.

We don't have a good measure of intelligence for nearly anyone, let alone public figures, so seeing if Presidential capability is associated with intelligence is fruitless. However, it is probably true that intelligence is partially reflected in educational attainment. Certainly this is part of the implication in the comparison of Palin's University of Idaho B.A. to Obama's Harvard J.D.. Of course, outside of the privileged circles from which most of our politicians come, there are many institutional detriments to the innately intelligent attending the elite universities. I'm willing to bet that Alaskans are under-represented in the Ivy League. Nevertheless, innate intelligence probably can be predicted, albeit imperfectly, by educational attainment.

However Presidents, are an example of people for which educational attainment might not be a good predictor of intelligence or capability. The economist Alan Krueger demonstrated that the career success differential between Ivy League graduates and graduates of other institutions is greatly diminished when controlling for other factors that contribute to success, like hard work. The idea being that most people that go to Ivy League schools are hard workers, so it is hard work that is driving their success, not the Ivy League. Equally hard workers that go to other universities are also successful. It is probably safe to say that most people that become President of the United States are hard workers and talented (protestations to the contrary aside), so this might be a good example of Krueger's finding.

Using anecdote, we can see how the Ivy League might not be a good predictor of Presidential success: there are quite a few Presidents that graduated from what might, generously, be called obscure educational institutions: most recently Lyndon B. Johnson from Southwest Texas State Teachers College and Ronald Reagan from Eureka College (in Illinois). And there was even a bunch that didn't go to college at all. Not going to college was more of a Nineteenth Century phenomenon, however, more recently Harry Truman achieved the highest office in the land having not obtained a degree. I also might add that Truman had a lack of experience, when he became Vice President, that would rival that of both Barack Obama and Sarah Palin.

Fortunately though, we don't have to rely on anecdote. The beauty of science is that we can attempt to leverage measurement to answer these questions. Of course, measurement is not without problems. I will not even attempt to enter the problematic world of measuring the quality of universities, instead I will just note if a President's alma matter is Ivy League or not. I will, though, attempt to enter the problematic world of measuring the quality of Presidents.

In surveys, historians and regular people tend to consistently rank some presidents the best and some the worst. There are many more that are relegated to obscurity and, as such, ranked in the middle of the pack. I believe that, more than anything, these rankings reflect capability. There were those that proved capable to handle their responsibility and those that did not. Those relegated to obscurity seem to be those that had the misfortune of leading during times of relative peace and calm - which may be an accomplishment in itself. However peace and calm precludes fewer Presidents since the turn of the 20th Century as the United States has seldom enjoyed eithersustained peace or calm. In the court of public and expert opinion, those that lead during tumultuous times seem to clearly be divided into those that we capable during the tumult and those were not. You know who they are. Capable, names like Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt; incapable, names like Buchannan and Hoover. Of course, there were Presidents that did not preside during a tumultuous time and managed to undo their legacy anyway, names like Grant and Harding.

There are a variety of rankings of Presidents and they all have idiosyncracies. The way to best capture the consensus of these rankings is to take their average. In general, taking the average of different rankings tends to reduce the influence of idiosyncracies of any particular ranking. This type of averaging, a form of the 'wisdom of crowds' often proves remarkably capable of finding measurements close to the truth. Of course, there is no objective truth in these rankings, only opinions, so by averaging, I am merely reducing the leverage of inconsistent rankings.

If we examine the educational attainment of Presidents in relation to the ranking of Presidents a pattern does emerge. Presidents that attended Ivy League universities are, on average, far more highly ranked than Presidents overall. Even when controlling for other factors, like graduate degrees and century in which they were President, having attended an Ivy League school has a large effect on the perceived capability of Presidents and the effect is statistically significant (meaning the relationship is unlikely to have happened by chance). In fact, Presidents that either did not attend college or went to obscure colleges do worse than the average President.

How much does having an Ivy League degree matter? On average, a President with an Ivy League education scores about 8 points better than a President with no Ivy League degree. That is the equivalent of moving from James K. Polk to Franklin Roosevelt, or James Monroe to Theodore Roosevelt, or Dwight Eisenhower to Abraham Lincoln.

If you're curious: the Roosevelts both went to Harvard. Polk to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Monroe to William and Mary (which graduated more Presidents than anywhere next to Harvard and Yale). Eisenhower, of course, graduated from West Point. Lincoln didn't go to college.

Does this mean that being from the Ivy League causes you to be a good President? No, not in the least. However, it does indicate that Michael might be right in that educational attainment is something we should consider when choosing our Presidents. Educational attaintment, in the form of an Ivy League degree, seems to be a pretty good predictor of how a President is going to perform. Or, at least, it is a good predictor of how history will judge him. And, in voting, isn't predicting what we are trying to do?

Of course, Bush is an Ivy Leaguer and, apparently, also somebody many of us would like to share a beer with.

(One note on this, I was pleased to see that when I coded Stanford University as an Ivy League, which I imagine many in Palo Alto consider themselves to be equal to or greater, this relationship between Ivy League education and Presidential capability became much more murky. It failed to achieve the commonly accepted standards of statistical significance. However, I do have to admit that this probably more of a reflection of the fact that the lone Stanford alumni to become President was Herbert Hoover. In statistical measurement, is usually considered bad to let one case have to much leverage. So despite the fact that I would love to see Stanford prove that good schools don't make good Presidents, I think it is safe to consider this case as an outlier. It should be notedthat when Hoover attended Stanford in the late 19th century, it hardly had the prominence of today, so there is good reason not to code it as Ivy League. Public universities also do very well, until you eliminate the College of William and Mary (yes, that is a public university).)

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LilyM says:

Smart people?? All I wish for are people with common sense, with genuine care for the people, for the nation they are working for~! Yes, it would be a plus if they are smart (as in with high IQ) and yes, it would be great if they know what they are doing~ but really, how many of them in the White house can we really label them as "smart" or "with common sense"?? http://www.flightsite.co.za

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wczasy LAST MINUTE says:

It is refreshing to see Ryan Enos and Michael Tesler addressing this important topic. Putting the political leadership realm aside for the moment, psychologists have found an extremely robust relationship between intelligence and leadership success in numerous professions. It is hard to believe that political leadership would be any different. The psychologist Dean Simonton has published several analyses of presidential performance and intelligence that show a strong relationship between the two. He finds that the correlation http://www.odlotowewakacje.com of presidential http://www.harvard.edu leadership performance (a composite index of 12 different rankings) to intellectual brilliance is .56 and to IQ is between .30 and .35. Clearly intelligence (and possibly educational attainment) is something the public ought to take into consideration when choosing a president.

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Does it matter if smart people are in the White House? It is like asking "how important is the IQ level to the success of a president?" http://divorceline.org/blog/

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The general point is that the anecdotal examination of these candidates can lead a person to make judgments about there readiness for political office, which may prove false upon more systematic examination. http://itcomputerzone.com

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Ryan Enos says:

John - I am not sure what A.A. is - nevertheless, the use of racism as a political tool by the candidates from the Republican Party is quite well established by reputable sources. There is no serious debate among political historians on the matter - it is completely accepted that racial appeals have made up a strong part of the Republican message since at least Nixon in 1968. For a readable summary, President by President, I suggest Nixon's Piano by Kenneth O'Reilly. Many argue that recent and current elections fit a similar pattern of racial appeals. I think time will give scholars the ability to evaluate these claims.

John says:

better the (non-existent) "subtle racism" than the overt condescending racism from the left in the form of A.A.

Robinowitz says:

Ryan, The elaborate sausage making procedure Simonton uses to estimate IQs is explained in a 2006 article published in Political Psychology. But the short answer is that it involves combining the work of different scholars who have studied presidential bios for things that are known to be associated with IQ, for example: indications of intellectual precocity (childhood and adolescent achievements), originality of ideas, openness to experience, etc.

Ryan Enos says:

Robinowitz - that is interesting - how does Simonton determine presidential intelligence?

Robinowitz says:

It is refreshing to see Ryan Enos and Michael Tesler addressing this important topic. Putting the political leadership realm aside for the moment, psychologists have found an extremely robust relationship between intelligence and leadership success in numerous professions. It is hard to believe that political leadership would be any different. The psychologist Dean Simonton has published several analyses of presidential performance and intelligence that show a strong relationship between the two. He finds that the correlation of presidential leadership performance (a composite index of 12 different rankings) to intellectual brilliance is .56 and to IQ is between .30 and .35. Clearly intelligence (and possibly educational attainment) is something the public ought to take into consideration when choosing a president.

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Does it matter if smart people are in the White House?

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