Columbia University presidential scholar Alan Brinkley says the all-Ivy race of 1912 suggests "the power of elite connections in helping people advance in public life."

The need for Ivy League networking, however, seems to have taken a back seat to parental pull.

"On the other hand, Bush and Gore, at least, have profited much more from their lineage than from their colleges," he wrote in an e-mail message.

According to Brinkley, would-be presidents climb the political ladder through one of two models. The first: an elite background. Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson are all examples of this, as are Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Class of 1904, John F. Kennedy '40 and Bush.

Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman, on the other hand, are examples of the second model--"ambition to rise above modest origins," Brinkley says.

Others who fit this mold include Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and, of course, President Clinton.

Not all candidates fall into these two categories, Brinkley adds, and some politicians of the second type also manage to get connected early on (like Clinton at Georgetown, Oxford and Yale).

"But it's important to remember that at least as many presidents--including postwar presidents--come from very modest circumstances (and non-elite educations) as come from the kinds of backgrounds represented in this year's race," Brinkley says.