Why is it that Senators don't = electable presidential candidates?

[jtb33]

I've always wondered this... I think the last senator to be elected President was Kennedy.

Why is this?

[shoelace414]

1. he was only

a little bit less elected than Voldemort.

[Dookus]

2. the main reason

is they have a public record of votes. Governor's don't have such a thing.

You can take a long senate career and find countless votes that can be portrayed badly.

[prodigal_green]

5. amendments

A vote AGAINST some ridiculous pork-barrel legislation can become a vote against something worthy because bills are constantly amended with all sorts of irrelevant stuff.

I wish Kerry had trotted out "voted FOR tax cuts over 600 times" a little earlier in the campaign. First I heard about it was during the debates.

[SeattleDem]

3. in general, they have long complicated records and few

things they can take credit for single-handedly.

Most Americans don't understand how Congress "works". The name of a bill or its major content is weighed down with unrelated garbage, leaving a Senator with a hard choice: vote for the bill b/c you like the major provision and live with the fact that you are also voting for garbage that you don't approve of, OR, take the hard stand and vote against the bill to avoid garbage becoming law but also risk looking like you are voting against something your constituents want.

They did it to Kerry with the war appropriations bill. He voted against funding the troops because the bill was poorly written and designed specifically to trap Democrats. Kerry could never adequately explain this vote, and the GOP trap worked perfectly. This trap will always work when the party in the White House also controls the Congress.

Also, as one of 100 Senators, there isn't a lot of chance to have your name associated with significant legislation, like McCain-Feingold. You can be a behind-the-scenes worker bee, getting much accomplished, but it's hard to point to specific victories and take sole credit.

[gnofg]

4. demonization

The senators are demonized as washington insiders with no management experience. This is partially the result of Watergate. Both Nixon and Kennedy were senators. There has also been a "dumbing down" of the presidency. It is part of the American culture that is jealous of smart people. Jews are disliked because they are smart. I live in the South and it is the only place that I have lived that people are proud to be dumb.

[Scairp]

17. That what I was going to say

We need to run a strong Democratic governor next time. Clearly getting a Senator elected is an uphill battle, regardless of which party tries it.

[aquart]

6. Gore and Kerry were both elected by the people.

The votes were stolen in the machines.

Senators are fine with the American people. Try to focus. They WANT you running off on irrelevant tangents.

[jtb33]

10. That wasn't my question...

I asked why Senators aren't ELECTABLE. I believe that they make great candidates, but no current Senator has been elected President since Kennedy despite MANY running (from both parties).

[aquart]

15. And I said they were both ELECTED.

If you prefer to get your news from FOX and CNN, why are you here?

[jtb33]

19. Not again....

Gore - yes - he was, but he hadn't been in the senate for almost a DECADE when he was elected, so he wasn't a "senator running for president" was he?

About Kerry - we need to face it that we LOST this time around. It wasn't "stolen" from us. * won the PV by more than 3.5 million votes, but there are enough threads on that subject here at DU and it wasn't the point of my original question.

[teh636]

7. to the contrary

Generally Senators are the best choices for Presidential candidates due to the familiarity they have with the public. Its the House reps that don't have a snowballs chance in hell of making it to the oval office. Generally speaking tho, a presidential hopeful needs atleast one southern state to vote for them in order to win, and when you have a candidate from the north you will find the south voting the other way. Look at the most recent democratic presidents and presidential hopefuls that almost made it and where they are from. Jimmy Carter is from the south, Bill Clinton was from Arkansaw, Gore who almost won Florida was from Tennesee. John Kerry who had little chance in Florida is from Massachussetts. It goes without saying that if the dems don't have a southern candidate that might as well not even try for the Presidency.

[jtb33]

11. See my post above... eom

[FlamingLiberal]

8. Because Senators aren't seen as leaders

A governor leads an entire state, its infrastructure and all its various departments. They are the chief of state/ceo for an army (national guard), maintain a state budget process in the billions of dollars, political machine including mayors and judges and district attorneys, education, state and city police, medical, labor, banking and a host of other organizations.

If a senator is from a large state they might have 50 people on his payroll so when it comes to leadership a senator just isn't in the same league and rightly so as they just don't have the necessary background to run a nation, plain and simple. Unfortunately, some people don't use a LOGICAL mind when picking a presidental hopeful.

[robbedvoter]

9. Are you assuming we lost? You're wrong.

But I agree - it was a mistake to go with a 2 senators ticket - one co-sponsored IWR, both voted for all W's crap.

[jtb33]

12. I think the best combination...

Is to have a Governor as the presidential candidate and a Senator as a VP candidate.

[aquart]

16. Nonetheless, we elected them.

[Hippo_Tron]

13. In addition to the above, they spend 10 months of the year in DC...

Not much time to actually connect with people, granted a governor doesn't really have that much time to do that because he or she is running a state.

[FlamingLiberal]

18. Oh Contrar

Actually the governor is usually the guy out running around the state smoozing and pressing the flesh with anyone with a hand to shake or a back to slap. Likewise, everyone in the state is begging his attention for benifits, mixers, speeches to every strain and vain, political favors, kissing babys and taking memorial photo ops. Leadership is about having good people working for you and having the ability to deligate responsibility while maintaining authority. Governors have it, senators kiss ass and lie to anyone that will listen for a living.

[carolinalady]

14. Because they have a voting record that is easy to distort.

Often times bills that are passed have so much non-related "pork" to them, that even though the bill itself may be something the public truly wants or needs, the senator may vote against because of the unrelated pork. However, this never gets explained in an election race. The opposing candidate throws the record out there with no accounting for the pork attached to it and "Voila". He voted against the 87 billion for the troops. It infuriates me when it happens and I scream at the TV. I think that was one of Kerry's greatest faults--not explaining himself to the people.

[RPM]

20. They have legislative records...

Ambassadors and governors don't... thats why we have had no legislatures since Ford - and he wasnt elected.