Sarah can't win, her name starts with an S

Okay, so I'm tired of all the presidential candidates political arguments about who has experience, who doesn't, does it matter if you're a woman, or black, or short… let's get real here and talk about the important things.

We've had 42 Presidents so far.  Now if we look at our candidates:

John McCain
Barack Obama

Take a look at their first names.  You'll see that 'John' has four letters in it, and 'Barack' has six. In all of our history here's how the presidents stack up comparing number of letters in their first names:

So presidents with 6 letters in their first names are much more common than presidents with four.  So, using this metric Barack will win.

How about this – we've had no Presidents with a first name that started with an 'S' (sorry Sarah).   One that started with a 'B', and 10 that started with a 'J'.  

Now, let's look at the history of Vice Presidents who have become president.  No wait, let's first look at Presidential nicknames – this is more fun.  I found a very cool list from wikipedia –some I knew, most I had no idea about:

GW Bush: Dubya or "W", Shrub (shorter than his father), George II, The Decider
Clinton: Bill, The First Black President, Teflon Bill (as opposed to Velcro Bush)
HW Bush: Poppy (family nickname), Old Read My Lips, The Wimp President (Newsweek in 1988 – Bush has never forgiven them for this)
Richard Nixon: Tricky Dick, The Mad Monk, Iron Butt (law school nickname)
Herbert Hoover: Hoo-Yah (picked it up in China)
Rutherford Hayes: His Fraudulency (he was supposed to have stolen the election)
Andrew Johnson: Andy the Sot – given to him after he gave his inauguration speech drunk (gotta love him for that)

Enough of that, back to vice Presidents – how about those that became President because the sitting President died in office.  

How many do you think got this kind of a promotion?  Answer: 9.  

8 from death, one from resignation (Ford).  

So, about 1 in 5 of all Vice Presidents has become President (22%) because of the death of the President.  

Average age of death for all U.S. Presidents? 73.6.  
Average age of death for Presidents who died in office (not including assassinations, that's not fair)? Ans: 63

So, where does that put us? Hmmm let's see – If Barack is elected, Biden would have to serve under Barack for 27 years before he got to become the big cheese.  And, let's see, McCain is now 72.  So, if McCain is elected, Palin will become President sometime in 2010.  Hope she learns quickly.