Attention, all those with ambitions to win the Democratic nomination for president (or vice president, for that matter): Take our advice and go to law school. We mean it.

On the American Thinker Web site, Bruce Walker reports: "Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although [Al] Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school."

The last Republican president with a law degree was Gerald Ford, Walker points out. (Bob Dole, the 1996 GOP presidential nominee, was a lawyer, as was Vice President Dan Quayle.) Walker describes George Bush and Dick Cheney as businessmen (Cheney rose in the corporate ranks only after achieving prominence in politics and government). Other notable national Republicans have included a history professor, a heart surgeon, an economist, and an exterminator (Tom DeLay, OK?).

If Abraham Lincoln, America's greatest Republican president, was a lawyer, then in modern times the Democratic Party has resembled a convention of the Bar. Trial lawyers in particular like Democrats. John Edwards may be the most vivid example. A general dislike of lawyers leads many citizens to misconstrue Shakespeare's "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

Our recommendation to all people, even those not destined for the legal trades: Be nice to the neighborhood law student. You just might be meeting a future Democratic nominee.