We know political campaigns are in trouble when they start making criticism of the opponents’ affiliation with Harvard University an actual tactic.
According to a piece by Alex Seitz-Wald at Think Progress:
Speaking at his Pennsylvania campaign headquarters this morning, Mitt Romney attacked President Obama as out of touch for spending too much time at Harvard, where the president went to law school. “We have a president, who I think is is a nice guy, but he spent too much time at Harvard, perhaps,” Romney said.
Romney, who earned a combined JD/MBA from Harvard, spent four years studying in Cambridge. The president, who earned his law degree from Harvard in 1991, was there for a total of 3 years.
Perhaps the more serious problem with this particular line of argument, however, is that Harvard isn’t something that disqualifies someone from the presidency. Obama, George W. Bush, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy all went to Harvard. In fact, Harvard is the alma mater of more U.S. presidents than any other college in America.
Seitz-Wald also reports that Romney, who was governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and sent three of his sons to Harvard, has collected more than $32,000 in contributions from Harvard faculty and administrators.
