Lately you’ve been hearing such things as “John McBush“, or perhaps the statement that Obama is “running for Jimmy Carter’s second term“.

What you probably didn’t know is that America has a great history of its President’s emulating former administrations. Jeffrey Bernstein, Professor of History and European Studies at Yale University, states, “It is a well known fact in the historical community that every leader in the past has always imitated a former leader. The idea that the head of a nation would think independently is laughable at best.” He later continues saying, “We are all pawns. Why do you think history always repeats itself? It’s because we can’t help but follow others like lemmings!”

When asked about today’s connections between John McCain and George W. Bush or Barack Obama and Jimmy Carter, Bernstein displayed no surprise. “Most people don’t remember that this happens to every President and presidential nominee! Kerry was ‘John Clerry’. Reagan was called a ‘dirty Nixonite’. Coolidge was called ‘Calvin Carding’. Franklin Pierce was ‘running for the third term of Zachary Taylor’. This is nothing new. They even said ‘Taft loved Teddy Roosevelt so much that he wanted to eat him’, but I think thats just because he was fat. Either way, what few realize is that even in the beginning of our nation people have been comparing their opponents to others. Even George Washington was ‘trying to create a dictatorship unlike anything except Napoleon Bonaparte French Empire’. This is as old as time! I’ve seen evidence that Moses tried to paint Pharaoh Ramses II as wanting to follow Ramses I.”

As a result, I have created a graph to show which President’s emulated, or will emulate, which Administrations…

I also thought it would be interesting to show who the Republican candidates from the 2008 Presidential Primary chose to emulate…