Left Handed Presidents On “Left Handers Day”!

Today, August 13, is “Left Handers Day”!

About 10-15 percent of the population, supposedly, is left handed, and it is certainly much more common now than in the past, due to children being forced to learn to be right handed in the past, because of belief that it was a sin to be left handed.

So as far as we know, left handed Presidents have occurred only in the past century, although there are those who think Thomas Jefferson may have been left handed or ambidextrous; and that James A. Garfield was the same, due to the statements that he could write in Latin and Greek with both hands at the same time!

Other than possibly Jefferson, and the case of Garfield, the list of left handed modern Presidents includes:

Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)
Harry Truman (1945-1953)
Gerald Ford (1974-1977)
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)
George H. W. Bush (1989-1993)
Bill Clinton (1993-2001)
Barack Obama (2009-Present)

This means that for 29 of the past 41 years (since 1974), we have had left handed Presidents, all but Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush!

It also means that 7 of the last 14 Presidents (from Hoover to Obama) have been left handed! This is 41 of the past 86 years!

It is also a fact that in 1992, all three Presidential candidates (Bush Senior, Clinton, Ross Perot) were lefties, and the same with 1996 (Clinton, Bob Dole, Perot)! And in 2008, the two major party Presidential candidates, Obama and John McCain, were also “southpaws”!

3 comments on “Left Handed Presidents On “Left Handers Day”!

  1. D August 14, 2015 12:40 pm

    I was born in 1971. Tomorrow is my birthday. With exception of Richard Nixon, every two-term president during my lifetime (thus far) is/was left-handed.

    I knew that the three most recent, plus the current and 44th, president were each left-handed.

    What’s also funny is this: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama have in common the fact that, as fathers, none of them have sons; all of their offspring are daughters.

    Hey, I wonder if this should have us alert or Election 2016!

  2. Ronald August 14, 2015 4:00 pm

    Happy Birthday, D! And thanks for your great contributions to this blog!

    I like your sense of humor! LOL

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