<p>I don’t think there is much doubt that the family connections got each of George W., Gore and Kerry into their Ivy colleges. We all have our opinions about whether they deserved it or not (count me as a NO for all three) and I wonder if they would have been admitted today. </p>
<p>But not all politicians are intellectual lightweights. I doubt anyone would say this about Senator Clinton and, while Obama’s campaign might be flying on a lot of fluff right now, I don’t know many folks who would consider him intellectually challenged. McCain’s academic achievement was much less as he was constantly in trouble at Annapolis and graduated near the bottom of his class (that maverick streak was obvious, even back then and not sure if we want that in our commander-in-chief). But probably the smartest and most academically accomplished of all was Mitt Romney who was valedictorian of his class at BYU before going on to be a Baker Scholar (top 5%) coming out of Harvard b-school.</p>