Experience and electability are not related.

I grow tired of people suggesting that experience, or a lack thereof, has anything to do with a Presidential candidates ability to be elected. Please note that if your argument is that experience determines their ability to be a good President once winning, that is not what this diary is about.  (Even though I would argue that that too, is false).  Therefore, to say that we can't nominate Obama, Edwards, or Joe Barber because the electorate won't accept their lack of experience is just a silly argument that needs to be put to bed.

I would argue that a candidates experience only has to be 'credible' to be electable.  Once the 'credible' threshold has been met nothing else really matters.  The question of who has more experience doesn't really matter in terms of electability as long as both candidates have met the 'credible' threshold.  While the 'credible' threshold is constantly changing and defined by the American public, it is a rather low threshold to meet.  I would say that it's only about 4 years of real public service.  Your definition may be different, but hopefully we can agree that it's fairly low.

If you think I'm just trying to talk up Obama or Edwards as nominees, we only have to look at the past 50 years of Presidential politics to prove my point.

2004:  The most recent repudiation of this would be the last presidential election.  A long time Senator with all the experience in the world couldn't win.  2004 however was a person trying to defeat a sitting president which is often difficult to do.  A more accurate picture would be a Presidential election between 2 candidate which neither are sitting presidents and the candidate with the least amount of experience won.  For that we would have to stretch all the way back to the ancient history of

2000:  Al Gore a Senator turned VP candidate translating to years of experience lost to a one-term Governor.  (Okay Okay... so he didn't lose, but Gore won by only the slimmest of slim margins).  So looking at this so far you could argue that it's just because Democrats suck at getting elected is the problem.  Experienced Republicans don't have trouble getting elected, right?  Wrong!

1996:  Bob Dole, who had more than 25 years of Senate experience lost in an electoral land slide that would put Kerry's loss to shame.  But once again, this was experience trying to defeat a sitting president.  So it must be impossible to unseat a sitting president, right?  Again Wrong.

1992:  Bill Clinton as Governor of Arkansas for a decade and Attorney General Before that, Beat George H.W. Bush, the sitting President.  All this despite George H.W. Bush being a former Veteran, Congressman, Ambassador, Vice President, and Sitting President.  The most experienced candidate did not win that election.  

1988:  This was the last time that the candidate with the most public experience won the Presidential election.  Nearly 20 years ago.  Even then Michael Dukakis was no lightweight.  By the time he ran for office he had served 7 years in a state legislature and almost 9 years as Governor.

1984:  Once again a case of taking on a sitting President.  Ronald Reagen beat Walter Mondale.  However, it should be noted that by this point, Reagen had been governor of California for only 8 years and President for 4.  That's only a total of 12 years of public service experience.  Compare that to Mondale who had 4 years as attorney general, 9 years in U.S. Senate, and 4 years as V.P. for a total of 17 years of public service.  Just like in 1996, the sitting President won despite having less total years of experience as a public servant than his challenger.

1980: Just like in 1992, the Challenger, Ronald Reagen, defeated the sitting President despite having less experience than him.  Reagan at this point only had 8 years of service as Governor, where Carter had 4 years in a state legislature, 4 as Governor, and been president for 4.  That's a total of 12 years losing to 8 years of experience.  My Goodness, does this parade of less experienced candidates beating more experienced candidates ever stop?  No!

1976:  Gerald Ford, the sitting(even if not elected) President who had 24 years of experience in the U.S. House lost to Jimmy Carter who, at this point, had only 8 years of public service experience.

1972: Richard Nixon serves as the second to latest example of the more 'experienced' candidate actually winning.  6 years in congress, 8 as V.P., and 4 already as a sitting President, added up to his 18 years of experience beating George McGovern's 14 years in congress(4 in the house and 10 in the Senate).  He also beat the even less experienced George Wallace'sIndependent candidacy.

1968:  Nixon may have been the most experienced in 1972, but not in 1968.  At this time Nixon only had 14 yrs of experience, but his Opponent, Hubert Humphrey, had 20 years of experience.  16 years in the Senate, and 4 as V.P.  Once again, the candidate with the least amount of experience won the presidency.

1964:  This election is the third most recent example of the all too rare case that the most experienced candidate won.  Barry Goldwater had 12 years of experience in the Senate by this time.  Sitting President Johnson also had 12 years in the Senate, but he also had served time in the U.S. House and had been V.P./President(After Kennedy's assassination) for the last 4 years.

1960:  This year could be called a Tie.  As mentioned above, Nixon has 14 years of experience(6 in congress, and 8 as V.P.) while Kennedy also had 14 years of experience.(6 in the House, and 8 in the Senate).  So although this could be called a tie when it comes to experience, one should note that JFK during his time in the Senate had gone under several surgeries and was often absent for about 2 years straight.  So you could say he only had 6 years in the Senate and therefore had less than Nixon.  So if there was a less experienced candidate in that campaign, it was JFK.

1956, 1952: I group these 2 elections together since the candidates were the same for both.  Eisenhower, a formed General,
with no political experience defeated a sitting Governor and later ex-governor.  In 1956 They both had 4 years of public service while in the 1952 Adlai had Eisenhower beat because he had already been a governor for the last 4 years.  However, none of that seemed to have mattered because Eisenhower won both of those elections.

1948 and before  I don't think going any earlier would be useful since I only want to analyze modern presidential politics for my point to get across, But I suspect that you would find similar results throughout America's history.

So there you have it, Only 3 times in the last 54 years has the presidential candidate with the most experience actually been elected by the General public.  So, can everyone PLEASE stop suggesting that Candidate A, B, or C shouldn't be nominated because their lack of experience makes them unelectable because apparently, the public demands only zero(Eisenhower),5(Dubya), or 8(Reagen and Carter) years of public service to elect them to be President.  In fact, according to this data, we should be nominating the candidate with the least amount of experience if electability is the only concern.

I know that other factors were in play for all of those elections, but you cannot ignore the mounds of empirical data that shows experience is not a deciding factor.  Does experience matter?  Yes.  Is it a Deciding factor?  No.  In fact after looking at the last 50 years, it may even be a detriment to the candidate.