The Success of Senators

Someone recently assured me that sitting Senators were more than qualified to be president. I replied that the voting populace has generally disagreed with that assertion. In the following list I highlight where the POTUS had senatorial experience. While numerous presidents were in the Senate at one time or another (some just before taking the presidency), only 2 were sitting sentators when elected to the White House. I'll leave you, dear reader, to figure out which two:

George Washington
surveyor, planter, general of the Army of the United Colonies

John Adams
schoolteacher, lawyer, diplomat, vice president under Washington

Thomas Jefferson
writer, inventor, lawyer, architect, governor of Virginia, secretary of state under Washington, vice president under Adams

James Madison
lawyer, political theorist, U.S. congressman, secretary of state under Jefferson

James Monroe
soldier, lawyer, U.S. senator, governor of Virginia

John Quincy Adams
lawyer, diplomat, professor, U.S. senator, secretary of state under Monroe

Andrew Jackson
soldier, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator, governor of Florida

Martin Van Buren
lawyer, U.S. senator, governor of New York, vice president under Jackson

William Henry Harrison
soldier, diplomat, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator from Ohio

John Tyler
lawyer, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator, vice president under Harrison

James Knox Polk
lawyer, U.S. congressman, governor of Tennessee

Zachary Taylor
soldier

Millard Fillmore
lawyer, U.S. congressman, vice president under Taylor

Franklin Pierce
lawyer, soldier, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator from New Hampshire

James Buchanan
lawyer, U.S. congressman, U.S.senator, U.S. secretary of state

Abraham Lincoln
postmaster, lawyer, U.S. congressman from Illinois

Andrew Johnson
tailor, U.S. congressman, governor of Tennessee, U.S. senator from Tennessee, vice president under Lincoln

Ulysses Simpson Grant
U.S. Army general

Rutherford Birchard Hayes
lawyer, soldier, U.S. congressman, governor of Ohio

James Abram Garfield
schoolteacher, soldier, U.S. representative from Ohio

Chester Alan Arthur
schoolteacher, lawyer, tariff collector, vice president under Garfield

Grover Cleveland
sheriff, lawyer, mayor, governor of New York

Benjamin Harrison
lawyer, soldier, journalist, U.S. senator from Indiana

William McKinley
soldier, lawyer, U.S. congressman, governor of Ohio

Theodore Roosevelt
rancher, soldier, governor of New York, vice president under McKinley

William Howard Taft
lawyer, judge, dean of the University of Cincinnati Law School, U.S. secretary of war

Woodrow Wilson
lawyer, professor, president of Princeton University, governor of New Jersey

Warren Gamaliel Harding
newspaper editor, U.S. senator from Ohio

Calvin Coolidge
lawyer, governor of Massachusetts, vice president under Harding

Herbert Clark Hoover
engineer, U.S. secretary of commerce

Franklin Delano Roosevelt
lawyer, governor of New York

Harry S. Truman
farmer, soldier, haberdasher, judge, U.S. senator, vice president under Roosevelt

Dwight David Eisenhower
supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe, U.S. Army chief of staff
writer

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
journalist, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator from Massachusetts

Lyndon Baines Johnson
schoolteacher, soldier, congressman, U.S. senator from Texas, vice president under Kennedy

Richard Milhous Nixon
lawyer, U.S. congressman, U.S. senator, vice president under Eisenhower

Gerald Rudolph Ford
lawyer, U.S. congressman, vice president under Nixon

James Earl Carter, Jr.
peanut farmer, governor of Georgia

Ronald Wilson Reagan
movie actor, corporate spokesman, governor of California

George Herbert Walker Bush
oil executive, U.S. congressman, U.S. ambassador to the UN, Director of CIA, vice president under Reagan

William Jefferson Clinton
lawyer, governor of Arkansas

George Walker Bush
oil executive, sport team owner, governor of Texas