Daily Speculations The Web Site of Victor Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner

1/17/2006
President Corzine? A Letter on Political Posturing, from Stefan Jovanovich

The move to governor is the smart one for Jon Corzine if your ambition is to be President. The record of Senators running for President is abysmal. The record of Governors is quite the opposite. There were only two Senators elected President in the 20th century who moved from the Senate directly to the White House without first becoming part of the Executive as Vice-President - Wilson and Kennedy. Given the Kennedy and Fitzgerald family's combined hold on Massachusetts state politics, you could argue that John F. Kennedy had more direct control of local precincts in his state than Taft, Coolidge or either Roosevelt ever had as governor. Wilson - like Governor Clinton - is the outlier; both men won their initial races only because the opposition party split and the election became a 3-person race.

Corzine is certainly shrewd enough to understand this fundamental rule of American electoral politics. I also think he is clever enough to anticipate that Mrs. Clinton will lose and that sometime in the next decade there will be a "slump" severe enough to make a "moderate" Democrat an attractive candidate as an economic savior, especially one who can point to his record of financial and political executive experience. I am not predicting that this will happen, but it is, if you have Mr. Corzine's ambitions, the only play.