You could fill the hayloft right now, as they say, with all the talk about Representative Michelle Bachmann’s (R-MN) candidacy for the Republican nomination for president. And yet I haven’t seen a single discussion of what, from a political science perspective, is perhaps the most unusual aspect of Ms. Bachmann’s campaign:
She is a sitting Member of the House of Representatives.
It is hard to overstate how rare it is for major candidates for the Presidency to be Representatives. Only one person — James Garfield — has ever gone from the People’s House to the White House.*** One other sitting Representative has won electoral votes, Speaker of the House Henry Clay in 1824. Since the onset of the modern party convention system in 1832, no major political party has nominated a sitting Representative (save the Republican nomination of Garfield in 1880) for the presidency. Representative John Anderson (R-IL) ran as an independent candidate in 1980, and won 7% of the national popular vote. Only a handful of other sitting Members — Dick Gephardt and Jack Kemp in 1988, Mo Udall in 1976 — even come to mind as serious contenders for major party nominations.
[UPDATE: Reports indicate that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) may be seriously considering running. He’d be an instant serious contender.]
This is not to say that having previously served in the House is a detriment for a Presidential candidate. To the contrary, 19 Presidents and 33 major nominees had, prior to their candidacy, been Members of the House.
Why is this? There’s no definitive answer, but here are four explanations with probable marginal effects:
1) Sitting Members of the House lack political experience: In many cases, House Members are on the younger side of most voter’s expectations of a presidential candidate (a fair number of Representatives aren’t even old enough to Constitutionally assume the Presidency). Even among Representatives who are older or have more political experience, the House is often their first federal office/job, and their first time in Washington. The vast majority have never held statewide office. For better or worse, the typical voter/party does not usually consider such a resume as sufficient for nomination to the Presidency. (There are, of course, myriad exceptions: Lincoln was a one-term congressman who never held statewide office or another federal post.)
2) Sitting Members of the House lack political stature: It’s hard to get a national audience when you represent less than a million people in a concentrated geographic district. And since most Representatives aren’t typically thinking about the Presidency, they tend to focus their time and energy into representing said district, not the nation. As one of 435 Members, the national press isn’t exactly beating down your door in the House, and there’s little that local press can do if your ambition is the Presidency. In other words, getting exposure for your candidacy as a Member of the House is a lot harder than one might think.
3) Experienced Members of the House have a lot to lose: Of course, there are Members of the House who have a lot of exposure, like the leadership and the committee chairs. It’s not hard for the Speaker to get the ear of the press, nor is it hard for the chairman of the Appropriations Committee to get his message out. But it takes a long time to rise through the seniority system for these jobs, and they bestow upon their recipients a fair amount of political power. Power which the Member would almost certainly have to give up in order to run in the general election. And a career in Washington that the Member would inevitably have to give up in 8 years, even upon winning the presidency. This is partially why so few House leaders run for Senate; by the time you have risen to power in the House, the benefit of being there tends to outweigh whatever benefit might come from being a freshman Senator.
4) Legislators have inherent disadvantage: It’s no secret that legislators have a tough time winning the Presidency. For one, the presidency is an executive position, and that naturally tends to favor those with backgrounds in executive capacities, be it governor, secretary of state, or CEO of a corporation. Furthermore, the voting history of a Representative tends to work against their candidacy. Having taking hundreds or thousands of public positions on complicated issues, opponents inevitably are able to find things to attack.
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***The Garfield case has an asterisk: he was Senator-elect as the time, having been selected by the Ohio legislature (under the pre-17th amendment rules).
