Does experience really matter in a President?

In the last few months, anyone who even casually peruses newspapers, magazines, radio, TV or internet blogs has heard quite a lot of noise about the “greenness” or lack of experience of Senator Barak Obama. What I find most interesting about these queries is how rapidly the alleged guidelines about not just the concept of experience itself but whom and what define these parameters.

Few seem to appreciate just how much the conservative media define the terms of each debate and then causally toss them away during the next election cycle. Although this has been going on for many years, it became glaringly apparent during the 1992 Presidential election. That year when George H. W. Bush ran against Bill Clinton, the media hammered away at Clinton and Gore for their relative lack of foreign policy experience (Bush went as far in a rally to say that “My dog Millie knows more about foreign policy than those two bozos!”), and the fact that Clinton objected to and did not fight in Viet Nam, whereas Bush was a WWII vet. The media and much of the public groused that only those with military experience should be qualified to lead the country. This repeated itself in 1996 when Clinton ran against Bob Dole, another WWII vet.

All of this was discarded in 2000.

That year, George W. Bush ran against former Senator and Vice President Al Gore, who hands down, had FAR more “experience” than Bush and was a Viet Nam vet. But thanks to spinmeisters like Karl Rove and the greatest propaganda machine of all time (FOX news). Gore was smeared as a traitor and a coward, even though Bush skipped out on his Texas Air Guard duties thanks to his father’s connections and had a horrendously bad record in his 6 years as governor of Texas, his sole political experience prior to running for President. We’ve also had 3 Presidents who were former Generals (Washington, Grant and Eisenhower) with no prior political experience, and history has judged Grant rather harshly.

This all becomes relevant again since we are in the midst of another Presidential campaign, and the conservative media has once again flipped the script since the Democrat (Barack Obama) has no military experience and relatively little political experience, whereas his Republican opponent (John McCain) was in the Navy and has been a senator for more than 20 years.

For all intents and purposes, the job of President of the United States is the ultimate case of on the job training. Therefore, the elusive quality of true leadership becomes far more important than “experience”. Nixon was one of the most “experienced” Presidents in history (Congressman, Senator and Vice President), but he is always ranked near the bottom due to his paranoia and loathsome character. On the other hand, Bush with his 6 years experience as governor of Texas is rated by many as the worst president of all time.

One of the measures of a President’s effectiveness is the staff he chooses. Jimmy Carter, for example, is a brilliant man by any measure, but did not assemble a cabinet that complemented his strengths and overcame his weaknesses. Overall, no candidate in history has had sufficient “experience” given the nature of the Presidency itself.
In contrast, Obama's foreign policy experience includes graduating from Columbia University with a degree in political science with an emphasis on international relations. In the U.S. Senate Obama is unique among Senators in that he serves on three of the four Senate Committees dealing with foreign policy issues including the Foreign Relations; Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs; and Veterans' Affairs committees and is the Chair of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Relations which is responsible fore U.S. relations with European countries, the European Union, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). His service on the Foreign Relations committee has placed him in an unique position in that he is the Chair of the Subcommittee on European Relations and serves on the Subcommittees on African Affairs; East Asia and Pacific Affairs; and International Development and Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs, and International Environmental Protection. 1

Most of the media have either ignored or given tacit approval to FOX’s racist smears and innuendos. They cannot scream the “N” word on the airwaves, so they resort to equally repugnant tactics by questioning his religion, his patriotism, his loyalty to his country and anything else they can find to scare middle (white) America into fearing him and his agenda, since Obama represents real change on a multitude of levels, which is where his real threat lies. The irony is that since Bush has screwed things up so badly, he opened the door for people to actually want the type of change Obama represents rather than more of the same from the Republicans. McCain himself cannot keep passing himself off as an agent of change since he voted with Bush more than 90% of the time.

Qualities such as intelligence, hard work and an understanding of what the average person in this country has endured under the Bush economy are going to register with voters this November far more than prior political experience. McCain ignores this at his peril and the average person is seeing and feeling this and is supporting Obama for these reasons, plus he will bring far more to the table on “day one” than Bush did.



1. http://www.obamapedia.org/page/Does+Barack+Obama+have+enough+experience+to+be+president%3F?t=anon