How Long Could Obama Stay At the White House — If He Were Renting?

President Obama is doing a question-and-answer session Monday hosted by Zillow.com, a website that focuses on one of the president's "cornerstones" of a strong middle class: home ownership. To bolster enthusiasm for the session, Zillow put a dollar value on Obama's current residence, estimating that it would sell for $319 million, and rent for $1.8 million a month. Which made us wonder: How long could various presidents and presidential wanna-bes afford to rent the White House?

That monthly rental is a hefty sum. Even in deep-pocketed D.C. those bills would add up. (Not that this should be considered a scientific valuation, of course.)

Past contenders

Al Gore
Net worth: $200 million
Number of months of rent: Nine years, three months

Had Gore won in 2000, he would have started paying rent in January 2001. Meaning that, democracy aside, he would only have had to move out in April of 2010.

Of course, Gore's net worth is largely a function of what he did instead of being president: selling Current TV, for example. When he left office in 2001, he was worth only $1.7 million — not enough for even that first full month.

Read more on The Atlantic Wire.