Bill Clinton has a long history of stretching the truth about his career, like the many times he said that he was the only president who knew anything about farming before getting to the White House, ignoring George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
At the Democratic National Convention Tuesday, he added his latest when discussing his first defeat at age 34: “I became overnight, I think, the youngest former governor in the history of the country.”
Well no. Not even close according to a new report from Eric J. Ostermeier, the Smart Politics blogger for the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs Center for the Study of Politics and Governance.
“There is just one slight problem with Clinton’s tale,” said Ostermeier. “A Smart Politics review of gubernatorial exits finds that Bill Clinton was not the youngest former governor in U.S. history when he was defeated in 1980 – in fact, he didn’t even crack the Top 10.”
He added, “Clinton’s last day in office after his 3.9-point loss to White was January 19, 1981. At that time, Clinton was 34 years and five months old (12,572 days) which did not even make him the youngest former governor in the 20th Century. Overall, more than a dozen statehood governors from the 19th and 20th Centuries were younger than Clinton when they left office.”
The youngest ex-governor was Michigan Democrat Stevens Mason who was 28 when he left office, after several terms. He was elected at age 23 in 1835.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
