Presidential Candidacies, Even Failed Ones, Offer Increased Influence To Candidates

This is hardly scientific, but it’s worth noting that presidential campaigns, even failed ones, have a tendency of increasing a candidate’s influence/power (as one would expect).

Below is a table indicating the candidate’s power ranking in their respective chamber for the years 2005 through 2008.  It’s worth noting that the sudden changes in some of the rankings between 2006 and 2007 is mostly the result in changeover from Republican to Democratic control.

[Table=7]

[Table=8]

[* = former candidate]
[Source: Congress.org]

In retrospect, some campaigns, which at the time made no sense at all, make at least a bit more sense now, while some continue to haunt my brain to this day.