ticket for 32 years now
While having two Yale alumni vying for the White House this year has made headlines across the globe, it's really old news: There has been a Bulldog on every presidential ticket for the past 32 years, and every president since 1989 has been a Yalie.
The streak began in 1972 when Sargent Shriver, a graduate of both Yale College (1938) and the Law School (1941), was the vice presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket with George McGovern. That team lost to Republican incumbents Richard Nixon and Spiro T. Agnew.
By the time the next presidential election rolled around in 1976, Nixon and Agnew had resigned, and Law School alumnus Gerald R. Ford (1941) had been serving as president since August of 1974. Ford attempted to extend his tenure in the White House as the Republican nominee, but lost to Jimmy Carter.
Carter, in turn, lost in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, whose vice president for two terms was George H.W. Bush, a 1948 Yale College graduate. In 1988, Bush made his own successful bid for the presidency.
In 1992, in a foreshadowing of this year's contest, both presidential contenders were Bulldogs: George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, a 1973 Law School graduate. Clinton won that contest, and occupied the White House for eight years.
The next U.S. president was both a Yale alumnus and the son of an alumnus president: George W. Bush, who like his father, George H.W. Bush, was a Yale College graduate (1968).
Both vice presidential nominees that year also had ties to Yale: Joseph Lieberman, who graduated from both Yale College (1968) and the Law School (1967); and Richard B. Cheney, who attended Yale College from September 1959 until January 1961 and from January to June 1962 before finishing his studies at the University of Wyoming.
This year's presidential election pits Bush against Yale alumnus John Kerry, who graduated from Yale College in 1966 -- thus ensuring that a Bulldog will occupy the White House once again.
Given that Howard Taft (Yale College 1878) served as the 27th president of the United States, the number of Bulldogs who have held the nation's top post will remain at five or rise to six on Nov. 2, depending on who triumphs: the Yale incumbent or the Yale challenger.
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