Ivy League Elitists

“This is an impressive crowd — the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base.” —Presidential candidate George W. Bush, at the annual Al Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, Oct. 19, 2000. Audio.

“I don’t regret my votes for George W. Bush as I would not have ever supported Al Gore or John Kerry. They were elitist, Ivy League liberals masquerading as an every man — much like Barack Obama—but that’s another story for another day.” – Conservative columnist Martha Zoller. Link.

“Aspects of Ivy stereotyping were illustrated during the 1988 presidential election, when George H. W. Bush (Yale ’48) derided Michael Dukakis (graduate of Harvard Law School) for having “foreign-policy views born in Harvard Yard’s boutique.” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked “Wasn’t this a case of the pot calling the kettle elite?” Bush explained however that, unlike Harvard, Yale’s reputation was “so diffuse, there isn’t a symbol, I don’t think, in the Yale situation, any symbolism in it…. Harvard boutique to me has the connotation of liberalism and elitism” and said Harvard in his remark was intended to represent “a philosophical enclave” and not a statement about class. Columnist Russell Baker opined that “Voters inclined to loathe and fear elite Ivy League schools rarely make fine distinctions between Yale and Harvard. All they know is that both are full of rich, fancy, stuck-up and possibly dangerous intellectuals who never sit down to supper in their undershirt no matter how hot the weather gets.” – Excerpt of article on “Ivy League” in WikiPedia.

“One week after she appeared on the July 7 edition of MSNBC Live and referred to Sens. Barack Obama and John Kerry (D-MA) as “two Ivy League fancy lads,“ Fox News hosted Republican strategist Andrea Tantaros on the July 14 edition of America’s Newsroom, during which she called Obama “a fancy lad.” “ – Media Matters. Link.

FUN FACT!: 13 Presidents attended Ivy League colleges. Harvard graduates are John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes (Law School), Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and George W. Bush (Business School). Yale graduates are William Howard Taft, Gerald R. Ford, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush. James Madison and Woodrow Wilson attended Princeton. Link.

• Dick Cheney, VP: Yale (dropped out)
• Michael Mukasey, Attorney General: Columbia and Yale Law (editor of Yale Law Journal)
• Elaine Chao, Labor Secretary: Harvard Business School, Mt Holyoke, Dartmouth, MIT, and Columbia
• Samuel Bodman, Energy Secretary: Cornell, MIT
• Mary Peters, Transportation Secretary: Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
• Henry Paulsen, Treasury Secretary: Harvard MBA, Dartmouth
• Robert Gates, Defense Secretary: William and Mary, Georgetown
• Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security: Harvard and Harvard Law
• James Peake, Veterans Affairs: West Point and Cornell
• Josh Bolton, Chief of Staff: Princeton, Stanford, taught at Yale Law

• Condolleeza Rice, Secretary of State: Notre Dame
• Steve Preston, HUD: University of Chicago and Northwestern
• Susan Schwab, US Ambassador and Trade Rep: Williams, Stanford, George Washington
• Steve Johnson, EPA Head: George Washington

• John Huntsman, Campaign Co-Chair: University of Pennsyvania
• Tom Ridge, Campaign Co-Chair, Harvard
• Frederick Smith, Campaign Co-Chair, Yale
• Fred Malek, Finance Director, National Leadership Team: Harvard
• Gerald Parsky, Bush Team: Princeton
• Kevin Hassett, policy adviser: University of Pennsylvanie
• Douglas Holtz-Eakin, policy adviser: Princeton, teaches at Princeton and Columbia
  John Thain, policy adviser: MIT, Harvard Business School
• Max Boot, foreign policy adviser: Yale
• Niall Ferguson, foreign policy adviser: Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, teaches at Harvard
• Alexander Haig, foreign policy adviser: Columbia, Georgetown
• Robert Kagan, foreign policy adviser: Yale, Kennedy school at Harvard
• Bill Kristol, foreign policy adviser: Harvard
• James R. Schlesinger, foreign policy adviser: Harvard
• George Schultz, foreign policy adviser: Princeton, MIT
• R. James Woolsey, foreign policy adviser: Stanford, Yale
• Jeff R. Brown, economic policy adviser: Harvard, MIT
• Steve Davis, economic policy adviser: Brown, has taught at MIT and Stanford
• Melissa Kearney, economic policy adviser: Princeton, MIT
• Adam Lerrick, economic policy adviser: Princeton, MIT
• Ken Rogoff, economic policy adviser: Yale, MIT, has taught at Princeton and Harvard

• Charlie Condon, Campaign Co-Chair: Duke, Notre Dame
• Robert Mosbacher, Chairman, National Leadership Team: Washington & Lee
• Phil Levy, economic policy adviser: Stanford, Michigan
• Luke Froeb, economic policy adviser: Stanford
• Carly Fiorina, “Inner Circle”: Stanford, MIT
• Ron Weiser, Bush team: University of Michigan
• Nicole Devenish Wallace, Bush team: Northwestern
• Lisa Graham Keegan, policy adviser: Stanford
• Bernard Aronson, foreign policy adviser: University of Chicago
• Stephen Biegun, foreign policy adviser: University of Michigan
• Lorne Craner, foreign policy adviser: Georgetown
• Gary Schmit, foreign policy adviser: University of Chicago
• Michael Green, foreign policy adviser: Johns Hopkins, MIT
• Carlos Bonilla, economic policy adviser; American, Georgetown