I’m not a big fan of politics at all — my general opinion on primary elections and the resulting general contest is that it’s a matter of selecting the lesser of the lesser of two evils. I have absolutely no opinion on the coming election at all — I’m an independent, so I didn’t have a primary to vote in — and I haven’t (and am not sure I will) make up my mind about the general election. (One bit that does interest me, though, is that unless something changes dramatically, the Democratic nominee is going to have less than four years of national political experience. I’m thinking that’s probably somewhat unusual.)

For whatever reason, I was pondering on the two “presumptive” candidates today, and a disturbing realization hit me: there is a frightening possibility that whomever wins in November will die in office.

Here’s my thinking:

1. Every president in the last forty years has been the target of at least one known assassination attempt. Only two in the last seventy-five years have gone without a known attempt on their life.

2. The last president to die in office was John F. Kennedy in November 1963, 45 years ago. The longest period with no death in office is 52 years, between first president George Washington, who took office in 1789, and the first to die in office, William Henry Harrison, who died in 1841. Between 1841 and 1963, there was no period of more than twenty four years between deaths, while the average period was 20 years.

3. Two previous presidents have been from Illinois: Abraham Lincoln, who served as an Illinois congressman, and Ronald Regan, who was born in Illinois. Both were shot by assassins; Lincoln was killed, Regan survived, but was seriously injured, literally within an inch of his life. (Hinckley’s bullet missed his heart by less than one inch.) No previous president has been from Arizona.

4. The oldest president to be elected was Ronald Regan, aged 69, who was critically wounded by an assassination attempt. The second-oldest was William Henry Harrison, 68, the first president to die in office. John McCain is 71.

There is also a pattern in presidential deaths — often called the Curse of Tippecanoe after William Henry Harrision, the first to die in office, who was known as “Old Tippecanoe” — that has been eerily regular over the past 170 years or so. Beginning with Harrison in 1841, a president has died in office roughly every 20 years, until Regan, who was shot but survived. I don’t believe in curses, but it’s an awfully strong coincidence that a president, of which there are only 42, gets shot or sick every twenty years for 140 years. Assuming that Regan got off with a close call, and that Bush’s pretzel episode in 2002 wasn’t another one, we’re 10 years overdue for a death — and we’ve got two candidates that are particularly susceptible.

Why particularly susceptible? In McCain’s case, it’s his age. Excluding everything else, 71 is creeping up on the end of the normal human lifespan — the average lifespan for an American male is currently 73.6 years. Adding to the likelihood is his health, which has been problematic for years. Bypassing the possibility of illness — or for that matter, just natural causes — he’s not in a particularly good position for being shielded from an assassination attempt, given that ones response time increases with age, that his ability to quickly flee a dangerous situation is likely reduced, and should he be injured, his ability to recover is affected by age. All that adds up to a president who may not make it to his successor’s inauguration.

Obama, on the other hand, seems to be in good shape, and shouldn’t have any problem dashing for a bulleproof limo or sneezing off a nasty cold. However, if elected the senator would be the first person of color to hold the position. Race relations have gotten a lot better over the last fifty years, but there are still plenty of nuts running about — enough that the Obama campaign was provided with Secret Service protection beginning in May 2007. Protection is usually ordered beginning in February of the election year — February 2008 for this campaign — making this earliest a presidential candidate has ever been granted Secret Service protection. (Sen. Clinton, as the spouse of a former president, has Secret Service protection for life.) Unfortunately, if elected, Obama would become a particularly large target for a host of extremist groups — not that the president isn’t already a particularly large target in general — increasing the liklihood of at least an assasination attempt.

My hope is that whichever candidate wins in November will have a full and uninterrupted term in office, but given the uncanny regularity with which presidents have passed in the past, the long period since the last death in office, and the particular circumstances of the two candidates, one has to begin wondering whether the choice of Vice President ought to be a particularly careful one this year.

1. Carlie Says:
   June 6th, 2008 at 11:53 am

   This was a really interesting read!