Hoover Wins!

Since we have a new ex-president, I was curious to know how long ex-presidencies have lasted — that is, the amount of time between leaving office and dying. I consulted the World Almanac (a paper resource!) and compiled the following rankings of ex-presidencies by length, from longest to shortest. Ex-presidents in bold are still alive. Looks like Ford can move up to the #2 spot, and Carter to the #4 spot, if they hang on until at least the spring of 2002. (Do I have nothing better to do with my time?)

Herbert Hoover — 31 years 7 months
John Adams — 25 years 4 months
Gerald Ford — 24 years
Martin Van Buren — 21 years 3 months
Millard Fillmore — 21 years
Jimmy Carter — 20 years
Harry Truman — 19 years 11 months
Richard Nixon — 19 years 8 months
James Madison — 19 years 3 months
John Quincy Adams — 18 years 11 months
Thomas Jefferson — 17 years 4 months
William Howard Taft — 17 years
John Tyler — 16 years 10 months
Franklin Pierce — 12 years 7 months
Ronald Reagan — 12 years
Rutherford B. Hayes — 11 years 10 months
Grover Cleveland — 11 years 3 months (after his 2nd term)
Theodore Roosevelt — 9 years 10 months
Ulysses S. Grant — 8 years 4 months
Andrew Jackson — 8 years 3 months
Dwight Eisenhower — 8 years 2 months
Benjamin Harrison — 8 years
George Bush — 8 years
James Buchanan — 7 years 3 months
James Monroe — 6 years 4 months
Andrew Johnson — 6 years 4 months
Lyndon Johnson — 4 years
Calvin Coolidge — 3 years 10 months
Woodrow Wilson — 2 years 11 months
George Washington — 2 years 9 months
Chester A. Arthur — 1 year 8 months
James K. Polk — 3 months
Bill Clinton — 6 days
William Henry Harrison — 0 days
Zachary Taylor — 0 days
Abraham Lincoln — 0 days
James A. Garfield — 0 days
William McKinley — 0 days
Franklin D. Roosevelt — 0 days
John F. Kennedy — 0 days