While Barack Obama contemplates a run for the presidency, the Republican National Committee, Fox News, David Broder, and other insiders lie in wait. If Obama announces his candidacy, they will within minutes begin wringing their hands over his lack of experience. Politically, it’s not a bad tactic: Here in Washington state’s 8th District, Darcy Burner probably lost to Dave Reichart because of his successful exploitation of the experience factor. Candidates with experience make much of it; those without tend to avoid the subject.
Experience is not an inherent virtue. Josef Stalin was experienced. So were Saddam Hussein and Benito Mussolini. Experience is good when combined with intelligence, ability, and a benevolent vision. It is irrelevant and even harmful in the context of certitude, arrogance, incompetence, and obtuseness. Look at the Bush Administration: Bush’s lack of experience (and intellectual curiosity and attention to detail and...Why did people vote for him anyway?) would supposedly be offset by the knowledge and worldliness of his “advisors.” We see where that got us.
Bush isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement for an inexperienced President. The issues with Bush, though, have less to do with experience and everything to do with disdain -- his disdain for anyone not wealthy, for the Constitution, for opinions different than his, and for other nations. It’s the absence of intelligence and ability combined with the presence of certitude, arrogance, incompetence, entitlement, and obtuseness that has wreaked so much havoc.
So, In terms of performance, how important is experience? I checked into the backgrounds of every president going back to John Kennedy. Here’s what I found:
George W. Bush: Governor 6 yrs
Bill Clinton: Governor 12 years, state Attorney General 2 yrs
George H. W. Bush: Vice-president 8 yrs, Director CIA 1 yr, Chairman Republican National Committee 1 yr, UN Ambassador 2 yrs
Ronald Reagan: Governor 8 yrs, President Screen Actors Guild
Jimmy Carter: Governor 4 yrs, State Senator 2 yrs
Gerald Ford: Vice-president less than one year, Congressman 24 years
Richard Nixon: Vice-president 8 yrs, U.S. Senator 4 yrs, Congressman 2 yrs
Lyndon Johnson: Vice-president 3 yrs, U.S. Senator 12 yrs (7 as Majority Leader), Congressman 10 years
John Kennedy: U.S. Senator 8 yrs, Congressman 6 yrs
For the record, by the end of 2008, Obama’s political tenure will look like this:
State Senator 8 yrs, U.S. Senator 4 yrs
Looking at this, Obama would more experience than Bush II and Carter, and less than everyone else. It’s worth noting, though, that he already has more legislative experience than Bush I, who ran for President based in part on his curriculum vita.
What can one conclude from this? Not much. Throwing out unelected President Ford, Lyndon Johnson has the most extensive resume. Johnson still boasts by far the most accomplished domestic policy since Franklin Roosevelt, but he also escalated the war in Vietnam. Despite his 14 years in Congress, Kennedy had an undistinguished record there. Nixon’s experience was overwhelmed by his personal shortcomings, just as Bush II’s inexperience is aggravated by his individual deficiencies. Neither Carter nor Bush I left much of a mark. People will debate Reagan until the sun burns out, but what they’ll argue about won’t have anything to do with his record as California’s governor: It will be about the his charisma and successful introduction of extreme, doctrinaire conservatism into the mainstream of politics. Clinton offers the best argument for experience, but again there are other factors: He has an extraordinary intellect and is arguably the most gifted politician most of us are likely to see in our lifetimes.
As for Obama, I’m not going to argue that eight years as a state senator means as much as eight years as governor. It doesn’t. But so far I'm impressed with his thoughtfulness, intelligence, articulateness, moral center, ability, and belief in the possibility of uniting the country. I’d rather have that than the superiority and insulation of insiders like Nixon and both Bushes.