The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 323

Even Jthe useful is made, beautiful. i Tfi 1 'i -t" Boston College. Seven men with Harvard ties have become president, four vice president. It wasn't until 1812 that the first Yale man even made a national ticket. History records that Ja-red Ingersoll, the Federalist nominee for vice president, didn't win.

But he did start something. Since then, Yale has been represented on the national ticket 16 different election years, or 29.6 percent of the time. Although it was not until 1908, when William Howard Taft was elected president, that a son of Yale finally ended up in the Oval Office, Yale now boasts five presidents and four vice presidents. But it's in the last three decades that Yale has clearly become ascendant. Nelson sees 1972 as the metaphorical passing of the baton from Cambridge to New Haven.

That year, Sargent Shriver, a graduate of Yale and Yale Law School, replaced Thomas Eagleton, a Harvard Law School graduate, as the Democratic vice presidential nominee. "It is a very symbolic handoff," says Nelson. "Yale really took off in 1972." Yale has been represented on national tickets in each of the eight elections since then, and has seen five men with Yale affiliations take national office; Gerald Ford (Yale Law), George H. W. Bush (Yale College), Bill Clinton (Yale Law), George W.

Bush (Yale College), and Richard Cheney (Yale dropout). Talk about dominance: In 2000, three of the four men on the two major tickets had a Yale connection. In the same period, Harvard had a foothold in four elections, with two politicians with Harvard pedigrees winning election: Al Gore and George W. What's more, in 2000, Yale tied Harvard's record of eight consecutive elections with one of its own running nationally (from 1789 to 1816 for Harvard). And in 2004, Yale is all but certain to shatter that record.

But what's remarkable is the variety of ways it could be broken. On the Republican side, there are both Bush and Cheney. But Yalies are also in strong supply on the Democratic side: US Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts hails from Yale, as do Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Governor Howard Dean of Vermont. "I think there is a public-service ethos at Yale," says Dean. "They attract people who are interested in public service, and they educate people for public service." Richard Brodhead, dean of Yale College, says part of the explanation may be in the type of student Yale selects.

"We do give very significant attention to orientation to the community in our admissions," he says. "And there is a very strong tradition of student volunteerism at Yale. More than half of our students are active in a volunteer basis in the community." Whatever the cause, the Harvard-Yale record has helped keep a New England connection prominent in the national mind, says Nelson. "Basically, New England is a region of the country that could have been bypassed a long time ago," he says. "But though national leaders may be born elsewhere and may make their careers elsewhere, they tend to receive their education in New England." a jff 4 mm- AW, 7 0 II "I If It r-1 tmim I THE BOSTON (il.OBK MAliAZINK, NOVKMBFR 17, 21)02.