While campaigning in South Carolina this April, Hillary Clinton commented, “I think America is ready for a multilingual president.” We would applaud this statement, except for one key fact.  It comes just a couple of centuries too late. After all, multilingualism among U.S. commanders-in-chief is a time-honored American tradition.

• The first vice president and second person to take the oath of office — John Adams — spoke many languages very well.
• Third president Thomas Jefferson spoke between 5 and 7 languages — all in the interest of staying well-read and connected to other parts of the world.
• At the insistence of dear old dad, John Quincy Adams studied at least 4 languages — he even worked as a French<>English interpreter on diplomatic travels to Europe.
• Born in Iowa in 1874, President Hoover and the First Lady often spoke Mandarin — yes, Mandarin — in the White House when they wanted to speak without staff understanding. Herbert Hoover also translated a book about mining history and techniques — called De re metallica — from Latin into English.

Multilingualism has also been an important part of presidential campaign strategy throughout American history. To support her husband’s campaign, polyglot Jackie Kennedy appealed to multilingual voters in several languages, including Italian and French. One such speech in Spanish has been memorialized on YouTube.

Candidates for the 2008 presidential bid do not have much to brag about in the way of foreign language skills, but multilingualism is still at the forefront of discussions in the run-up to elections.

We also saw the issue of language raised during the Clinton-Obama debate in February — see the video here — in which bilingual moderator Jorge Ramos asked the candidates to share their views on the growth of the Latino population and bilingualism. Clinton flexed her knowledge of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by stressing the importance of not discriminating against individuals who do not speak English. Obama chose to talk instead about bilingual education and deficiencies in the U.S. education system.

Regardless of their thoughts on language policy and multilingualism, candidates know one important thing — every vote counts. With the growing trend for presidential campaigns to focus on brand management and marketing strategies, no U.S. presidential candidate would be wise to limit potential market share by stepping on the toes of the 20% of U.S. residents — current and future voters — who speak a language other than English at home. They — and their campaign managers — appear to know the importance of this demographic.