According to the most excellent Senate historian’s website, every 40 years or so a sitting senator is elected to the presidency. John. F. Kennedy in 1960. Warren Harding in 1920. And before that — well, the restrictions on my pundit research license prevent me from getting into the 1800s. A serious disappointment for all, I am sure, but we will simply have to soldier on together.

Let me go out on the proverbial limb here and boldly predict that unless Mike Huckabee or Ralph Nader quickly conjures up a vat of mass-hysteria potion, or Oprah Winfrey launches her own last-minute “Free-Car-Write-Me-In” campaign, the 40-year “senator-to-president” comet will make a return appearance this November.

In the world of professional columnizing one must occasionally throw caution to the wind, put all the chips on one space, and just go for it, regardless of the consequences.

Forty-eight years since Kennedy made that 1.5-mile direct flight down Pennsylvania Avenue, the world’s most exclusive club is going once again to have bragging rights when one of its members takes the oath of office on the Capitol Steps at noon on Jan. 20, 2009.

The time gap between senatorial ascendancies could have been trimmed if another JFK (Sen. John F. Kerry, D-Mass.) had tapped into his inner-Bourne and neutralized the photographer who snapped that picture of him as he crawled on his belly like a reptile while wearing a blue moon suit and looking like an extra in that schlocky Dustin Hoffman movie, “Outbreak.”

Another contributing factor was probably that Kerry didn’t have an apparent personality or the insight to know America wasn’t keen on a Spandexed, windsurfing, Grey Poupon-borrowing commander in chief.

There is precious little on the Senate historian’s website about this topic.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) might have hit that 40-year mark in 2000 had it not been for some serious “win-at-all-costs” dirty pool played by the family-valued Bush team in that year’s South Carolina primary.

While I’m at it, I should also add that due to what they call “gigabyte issues,” the historian’s website apparently doesn’t have the space or power to address the issue of just how many other sitting senators think that they should be the ones taking that presidential oath on Jan. 20, 2009.

In any case, here we are, a full month beyond that date on which political geniuses, conventional wisdom and cable television guaranteed that all things presidential “would be totally settled,” and we have Hillary “Mad Dog” Clinton and Barack “The Cool One“ Obama going at it like a Vince McMahon Pay-Per-View Wrestlemania Cage Match.

But, cages and cable-TV promises notwithstanding, come November we are guaranteed some absolute breathtaking first-time-in-history news no matter how the presidential ball bounces between now and then.

If first female President Hillary Clinton doesn’t float your boat, then how about first black President Barack Obama?

Still not impressed? How about the first Vietnam veteran, or first former prisoner of war President John McCain?

Perhaps not packing the same historical, barrier-breaking, demographic punch that a First Woman or First African-American delivers, McCain’s first should get a little more attention in light of the recent drought in this area of presidents and military service.

Despite the McCain possibilities, and since this column is a stickler about historical accuracy, I want to be painstakingly clear to avoid suggesting that we will be breaking any presidential barriers with the old-white-guys-in-suits demographic.

All that is to say, this is American freestyle politics and Feb. 5 certitude is a fading speck in the rearview mirror. I hope you agree that it is still exciting to be a spectator of this election cycle.

We will have certitude soon enough and then we will, no doubt, be screaming at the top of our lungs because the candidates have gone underground before the final autumn push.

At that point, research-challenged columnizers, pundits, and other purveyors of conventional wisdom will have nothing to offer except brilliant speculation on the respective candidates’ 2008 picks for vice president.

Yet another topic that the most excellent Senate historian’s website will, no doubt, not crash its hard drive over.

You can reach Jim Mills at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .