Before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge that I might be missing something completely. I should also disclose that I strongly support Obama.
Hillary Clinton, and now John McCain, have touted their experience as a reason to vote for them as President of the United States.
What is experience? It seems to me that experience is knowing how things used to be done.
The Clintons have experience campaigning, Bill is well-known for how good his campaigns were he ran back in the 90s. And the Clintons are getting their rears handed to them right and left by the Obama campaign.
Military history is filled with examples of armies losing because they are trying to fight the last war. The Maginot line in France was built with the assumption that the next great war would be fought like the WWI-style trench warfare. They were wrong and France was crushed by the German Blitzkrieg in short order. Lack of experience wasn't the problem, the experience itself was the problem because it taught the French that this strategy would work. And it failed terribly.
Experience would have told Nicolaus Copernicus that the Sun revolved around the Earth. Experience would have Sir Isaac Newton that his new ideas of physics didn't work, but he decided to invent the Calculus to support his ideas. Experience would have told Cantor that the all infinities are equal, but he proved they are not with the Diagonalization Proof. Experience would have told Turing that the Enigma Code was unbreakable, and he broke it anyway. Experience doesn't do much for me.
As I am writing this, Barack Obama has now won 9 straight races by 17 or more points. LA, NE, WA, the US Virgin Islands, ME, MD, VA, DC and WI. With two more wins, Hawaii and Dems Abroad, anticipated by the end of the night. I think the Clintons' experience is getting in their way.
Experience rarely is useful, because experience dampens innovation. When someone thinks they know what works, they are much less likely to try to find what works better. Experience, in many ways, is the anathema of progressive thinking. It says things are this way and this is how we do it. Experience is inherent conservative, and the conservatives have always lost in the end because the idea that things are as good as they can be is utterly rejected by the human spirit.
Perhaps I am naive, but it seems to me that if your main qualification for anything is experience, all you are promising is more of the same, which is fine in many cases. But not when running for President of the United States. If you are offering more of the same, I'll take what's new every time.