[cynwoody]

No one has EVER won the US presidency without a political or military background.

There was a Republican mining engineer in 1928 whose first elective office was President of the United States. Although, he had served as Secretary of Commerce. And, in 1908, we elected another very weighty Republican lawyer who had served as Secretary of War but had held no elective office.

[fieldmarshaldj]

These were political backgrounds, though. Taft also had served as Governor-General of the Philippines.