In quasi-seriousness, if you were to do this in 1974, when Gerald Ford was president, the next three presidents from that point were Carter, Reagan, and Bush. Carter would have been considered a longshot possibility to be the next prez, as he was a longshot to win the nomination. Reagan would not have been a crazy option to be a future president at some point though. And honestly neither would Bush. He was young (relatively speaking….OK, he was 50), and had already served as UN ambassador and RNC chair. If you want to guess 2 or 3 presidents down the line, you probably won't be able to, but if you have to guess, pick someone young who already has some experience.
So if I'm doing the same thing today, then I'll predict the next three as…..
Hillary Clinton
Chris Christie
Cathy McMorris Rodgers (one of a number of women who Christie could pick as his running mate….might want to pick a woman when running against an incumbent female president)
After that, if you were doing this in 1974, the next three presidents after GHW Bush were Clinton (unsuccessful House candidate in 1974, elected AR attorney general in 1976), GW Bush (son of someone who you're predicting to be president), and Obama (just a kid who no one's ever heard of in 1974).
OK, predicting that is impossible, but if we're going to do the closest equivalent in 2014, let's pick Dustin McDaniel (current Arkansas attorney general, who I think is the youngest Democratic AG at the moment), Chelsea Clinton, and, uh….Nate Levine. Yeah, just thinking about people today who might plausibly be elected president in 35 years, how about one of the younger people listed in Forbes's "30 under 30", among those in the political realm. Nate Levine, currently 22 years old:
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/fdld45hkh/nate-levine-22/So, complete list for the next 6 presidents:
Hillary Clinton
Chris Christie
Cathy McMorris Rodgers
Dustin McDaniel
Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky
Nate Levine
