The Flawed Experience Argument

[Zynx]

I often hear people complain about candidates' experience. Whether it is "Clark has no political experience", "Dean has no foreign policy experience", or "Edwards is too young and inexperienced". This is a constantly floated, but highly flawed argument.

If experience was truly a sound measure of how well a president would do in office, so people who have been horrible presidents would have been great presidents. Take James Buchanan for example. No single person coming into the Oval Office ever had as much "experience" as James Buchanan had. He was Seceretary of State, served many years in Congress, and had an impressive education along with other things I can't remember off hand at the moment. If experience was a true measure of how great of a president a candidate would be, James Buchanan would be our greatest president. However, there is a problem with that: He was our worst president in history.

The same goes for George H.W. Bush. A solid education, several years in Congress, CIA Director, and Vice President for eight years. Yet he hardly ever made a right call as president.

While not a horrible president, James Madison is certainly a sub-par one. Few have had as an impressive record as James Madison, but his presidency was distinctly unimpressive. The War of 1812 was blundered into by his poor political judgement and his economic record was nothing to write home about either.

Yet, at the same time, many inexperienced men have been great presidents. Lincoln had little experience other than being a congressman for a few terms. FDR had some experience in the Wilson administration, but not much. Truman had virtually no experience and was a great president. The same goes for JFK and Bill Clinton.

Next time you hear the "experience" argument, keep all of this in mind.

[DebJ]

1. nice post I agree EXCEPT I would change the statement that he has

a 'solid' education to he has the 'appearance of' a solid education.
You don't learn much when you sleep through classes and get a C average.
I like to see candidates with a truelly solid education, and in things OTHER than political science....like the Founding Fathers, who had no experience in politics and had higher education in things other than politics....they learned how to think in their educations, and continued to pursue education throughout their lives. They studied philosophy...and science and art and history.