The final Jeopardy question on the older shows rerun at 11:30 here in the Twin Cities was today about the president born farthest west in the continental U.S. who also died farthest from his place of birth. I suppose a reasonable approach would be to try thinking of a Californian and then, assuming you have no idea where he died, name him and hope for the best. And that works: correct response is Nixon, who I see now is the only president to have been born in California. Fits the stereotype, right? Kind of a laid back surfer dude of a guy.
The list of presidents by state of birth is sort of interesting. Trump is number 45, but only 21 states can claim to be the birth place of a president. The lopsided distribution is aided by the so-called Virginia dynasty that dominated presidential politics during our national infancy: Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe were all Virginians. Since then, Ohio has been gaining fastest, and is in second place with 7 to Virginia's 8. Five others have at least 2: New York (5), Massachusetts (4), and, with two each, North Carolina, Texas, and Vermont. If you're curious about the identities of the two Vermonters and don't have access to James Holzhauer, they were, according to this Wikipedia article I'm using, Chester Arthur and Calvin Coolidge.
The list contains an implicit rebuke of the current occupant, inasmuch as it names Honolulu, Hawaii, as the birthplace of Barack Obama. Oh well, The Donald's adventures in the intervening months have clouded memories of those days of yore when he claimed that the investigators he'd sent to Hawaii were uncovering "very interesting" things about Obama's birth. Just yesterday, on the White House lawn, he told a reporter that he couldn't believe "the courts" would allow his impeachment, according to him "a dirty, filthy, disgusting word." It seems he thinks that for some extra-constitutional reason the courts would protect him if shy Nancy were suddenly, as he might say, to move on him like a bitch.
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