McKinley: Presidential candidates as college students: from frat stars to bookworms

Freshman Arrival Survival is chaos defined. The overly emotional parents, confused freshmen in…Freshman Arrival Survival is chaos defined. The overly emotional parents, confused freshmen in those dorky blue dorm shirts and broken elevators create a stressful environment of heightened irritability. Adding to the confusion and, therefore, compounding the frustration of this year’s move-in day was a handful of political activists registering — or attempting to register — students to vote. Highest respects to the democratic process aside, their presence might fairly raise the question of what constitutes an appropriate division between daily life and political campaigns. More abstractly, it presents the question, who were our presidential candidates as college students?

The Frat Star

Like his legislative record, Paul Ryan’s college resumé is pretty thin. His impressive summer internship in Washington was sandwiched by loose campus involvement during the academic year. While at Miami University of Ohio, Ryan was mostly involved in his social fraternity, Delta Tau Delta, and the College Republicans. Fittingly, Ryan has collected nearly $25,000 from the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee (FSPAC) — yes, that is actually a lobbying group — which led to several failed legislative attempts to create tax loopholes for the creation of Greek housing on college campuses. His ideological mentor was a libertarian economics professor, and Ryan summarily fell in love with the ultra-capitalist philosophies of author Ayn Rand. He was indeed a budding fiscal conservative while, ironically, attending school on the Social Security benefits he collected after the death of his father. As for his social life, Ryan dated an African-American student, a fact which can conveniently serve as a new play on the “I’m not racist; I have a girlfriend who is black,” claim for a Romney campaign struggling to get even 1 percent of black voters.

The Average Joe

Current Vice President Joe Biden has been in Washington so long it’s hard to imagine he was ever a college student at all. But glimpses of Joe the Collegian showed when he visited Pitt; do some Facebooking of last February, and you’re sure to find more than a few profile pics with the VP doing the sorority squat. Although he eventually made it to law school, Biden graduated 506th out of a class of 688 at the University of Delaware. Once, he was caught plagiarizing a paper, and he crammed before tests often. He met his wife while partying in the Bahamas on spring break. After decades in Washington, perhaps he has become more serious about education. He supports a national campaign promoting community colleges, a movement led by Second Lady Biden, who has a Ph.D. in education.

Mr. Straight Edge

The national media have told the story of Romney’s prankster high school years. In contrast, his college life seems to indicate a much more mellow Mitt. After one year at Stanford, he left school to do missionary work in France where he found little success converting people to Mormonism. After returning stateside two years later, he quickly married and went back to school at Brigham Young University. There he was a non-traditional student, older than his peers and already a father. And for the first time in his life, he met financial struggle. According to wife Ann, the Romneys had to sell their stocks just to get by because, “we were living on the edge … neither one of us had a job.” That’s right. Romney, the candidate who preaches the importance of good financial practice the most, didn’t even have a college job.

The Introvert

With NBA fundraisers and movie-star endorsements, Obama’s campaign tries to be cool. But perform a quick Google image search of “Barry,” and a dorky-looking transfer student emerges. Unlike Romney, who doesn’t drink because of his Mormon faith, Obama experimented with cigarettes and marijuana. At least that’s better than the cocaine he tried in high school, according to his memoir, “Dreams From My Father.” But Obama kept a low profile after transferring to Columbia University. So low, in fact, that some conservative bloggers have questioned whether he even went to college, because no one seems to remember him. As his college roommate, Phil Boerner, explained in an essay in Columbia College Today, “Barack wasn’t thinking about becoming president when he was at college. He wanted to be a writer.”

As for us?

So what do the collegiate lives of our vice presidential and presidential candidates tell us about our own chances of becoming politically relevant? Nothing. Their distinctly dissimilar college experiences show us that it doesn’t matter if you slept through that psych test, are president of the tour guides or captain of the club lacrosse team. This batch of candidates gives credence to a once laughed-at line from President George W. Bush’s Yale graduation speech, “To the C students, I say, you too can be president of the United States.”

Contact Rosie at romckinley@gmail.com