Few presidential candidates emerge from U.

Attached to the names of three of the 2008 presidential candidates — Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and former Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) — are three other familiar names: Yale, Harvard and Columbia.

Looking at this list of alma maters, it is tempting to wonder where Princeton's presidential candidate is hiding. With former Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist '74 (R-Tenn.) out of the running for the 2008 presidency since November, the prospects for a Princetonian presidential candidate in 2008 seem dismal.

There are, however, at least two remote possibilities to which Tiger loyalists can cling, former visiting professor and spokesman for the 9/11 Commission Alvin Felzenberg GS '78 said in an email.

"One way to get one of our own [into the presidency] in a hurry is to ask Mitch Daniels ['71] or Josh Bolten ['76] to announce immediately," said Felzenberg, who taught a class on presidential leadership in fall 2006.

Daniels, a Republican, is the current governor of Indiana, while Bolten is the current White House chief of staff. Both men were Wilson School majors.

"Daniels is proving a very effective governor," Felzenberg said.

Beyond these two remote possibilities, though, there doesn't seem to be much hope for a Princetonian presidential contender next year. "It doesn't look as if the chances are very great now," said emeritus Wilson School professor Fred Greenstein, who specializes in the presidency.

Nevertheless, both professors stressed that Princetonians are far from absent from the world of politics. "Princeton has been a breeding ground for important figures in American political life," Greenstein said in an email. "Just today, for example, one of the big stories is about how the advice of James Baker III ['52 ] on speaking to the leaders of Iran and Syria is now being taken by [President] Bush."

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Just as Princeton this year has a shortage of presidential candidates, few Princetonians have historically been chosen to serve as the country's commander-in-chief. Princeton has produced two alumni-turned-presidents: Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, and James Madison, Class of 1771. John F. Kennedy also matriculated at Princeton, but he fell ill during his first semester, returned home to Massachusetts and later joined Harvard's class of 1940.

Of the three, Wilson is most closely associated with Princeton, having been at the University as a student, then as a professor and finally as Princeton's president at the start of the 20th century.

During Wilson's time as a student, he served as speaker of the Whig Society and managing editor of The Daily Princetonian. As president of Princeton, Wilson established the precept system, implemented the system of distribution requirements and encouraged the formation of residential colleges. An opponent of the eating clubs, Wilson failed to secure their elimination but hoped they would ultimately be absorbed into the colleges.

Felzenberg described Wilson as a "first class administrator, a man of great purpose, and perhaps the best writer and orator to have served as president."

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Madison, also considered an unusually intellectual president, was the University's first graduate student, according to campus legend. He attended Princeton when it was still known as the College of New Jersey, remaining at the college the year after he graduated to "read some law and learn Hebrew under President [John] Witherspoon's tutelage," according to information from the Orange Key tour service.

Of the three presidents-to-be who attended the University, Kennedy figures the least prominently in Princeton lore, having spent only six weeks on campus before being hospitalized and placed under observation for what was thought to possibly be leukemia. He would have been a member of the Class of 1939.

Felzenberg stressed that Princetonians should take pride in all three White House occupants who attended the University, even if current prospects for another Princetonian president remain bleak.

"Our three Princeton presidents (I count JFK as long as the alumni council will) all served with distinction," he said.