Smartest Current State Governors

[Skill and Chance]

Please try to be as objective as possible and base things on their personal accomplishments/educational attainment/presentation and not on their policies.

I'll start:

1. Jindal (R-LA): Brown, Rhodes Scholar, accepted to Harvard Med and Yale Law
2. Lynch (D-NH): Harvard Business School, Georgetown Law, turned a company around as CEO, founded business consulting firm, HBS Director of Admissions, Chairman of UNH Board of Trustees
3. Daniels (R-IN): Presidential Scholar, Princeton Undergrad, Georgetown Law, CEO of Hudson Institute
4. Snyder (R-MI): J.D. and MBA from University of Michigan, assistant professor at U of Michigan, very impressive venture capital work
5. Patrick (D-MA): Harvard Undergrad and Harvard Law, challenging family background (single mom)
6. Quinn (D-IL): Phi Beta Kappa at Georgetown, Northwestern Law School
7. Bentley (R-AL): Undergrad at U of Alabama in 3 years, dermatologist
8. Kitzhaber (D-OR): Dartmouth, ER physician
9. Malloy (D-CT): Boston College and BC Law, overcame dyslexia, memorizes everything and rarely writes
10. Brown (D-CA): Berkeley and Yale Law, but his father was also a governor which probably helped a lot...


It was hardest to decide where to put the two physicians relative to the top law school grads. 

[Skill and Chance]

Get Mallory off that list. Thefirst who came to mind was Mitch Daniels but Kitzhaber and Lynch are serious contenders. Bev Perdue and Nathan Deal are near the bottom IMO.

Someone who functionally cannot write and yet graduated a top college magna cum laude is by definition very smart.  Whether he is a good politician remains to be seen.

[Skill and Chance]

If we are basing this on education and prior experiences, I would say Jack Markell (D-DL) seems to be very intelligent. He got an economics degree in economics from Brown University and his MBA from the University of Chicago.

In addition to his education he has also done the following during his career according to Wikipedia:

"Markell served as Vice President for Corporate Development at Nextel, and helped to lead the movement to wireless technology. His other work experience included a senior management position at Comcast Corporation as well as posts as a consultant at McKinsey and Company, Inc. and as a banker at First Chicago Corporation."

I don't know how I missed him.  Judging by that background, he is probably in Patrick/Quinn territory. 

I also wonder if I am weighing Jindal's Rhodes Scholarship too heavily vs. Lynch and Daniels...

[Skill and Chance]

Echoing that Deal and Perdue are among the least intelligent. Probably Brewer too. Walker's a partisan hack but he's not stupid. I agree with Jindal being one of the smartest.

Walker and Quinn are similar in that regard then.