Does Experience Matter in 2008?

Yeah, experience matters. And yet, I'm still skeptical when the issue is brought up in presidential campaigns. After all, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld came loaded with experience and they have given us one of the biggest foreign policy failures in our nation's history. Of course, at the other end of the spectrum is George W. Bush who never accomplished much in any field before becoming president. Without his father, George W. Bush would never have had a significant career in politics let alone business. He would have been a salesman selling overpriced bonds or real estate or, at best, he would have been a public relations man for some middle level baseball team.

Now the truth is that nearly every Democratic candidate running would be a good president and all of them would be a better president than Bush. The front four (yes, I'm making four instead of three) candidates, John Edwards, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson and Hillary Clinton, would all do well. Barack Obama has the least experience at the national level but he could probably make a case that his experience at the state level qualifies him.

The Concord Monitor (N.H.) carries a story by Johanna Neuman of the Los Angeles Times:

Experience - and how to measure it - has become one of the first big debating points of the 2008 presidential race.

And so Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut (with 33 years in the House and Senate) has been trying to heighten the importance of Washington knowledge, making a constant refrain of his claim that President Bush proves the dangers of on-the-job training in the White House.

"I think people do care about experience," Dodd said.

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico (15 years in the House, two years as U.N. ambassador, three years as energy secretary) touts his "unparalleled experience."

And Sen. Joseph Biden (35 years in the Senate) has said of his campaign rivals, "It's not so much whether I can compete with their money, but whether they can compete with my ideas and my experience."

Even former senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who served a single term before opening a White House bid and becoming the vice presidential nominee in 2004, has brought his twist to the issue. Asked at an event last month how he differed from Obama, Edwards said, "Experience. I've been through a presidential campaign."

Advocates for Obama, as for other candidates who are positioning themselves as outsiders to Washington's political culture, like to say that the range of their life experiences makes them more fit for office than those who have spent their careers in government. In Obama's case, that resume includes stints as a community organizer, law professor, civil rights attorney and eight-year member of the Illinois state Senate.

Of course, the failures of Cheney and Rumsfeld remind us that there are other issues to be considered and they include judgment, vision and who the candidates consider their constituency. A case along these lines can be made for each of the top four Democratic candidates depending on what voters want and what they're looking for. There is one other quality that I personally look for and I'm not sure how much others think about it: who has the ability to close a deal on the serious issues of the day? All four candidates are good closers; they can persuade people, they can get a deal done. In 2008, they'll have to persuade the voters that they can clean up Bush's mess and start moving our country in a new direction. In 2008, more of the same is not going to sell well. In the end, it's why I believe the Republican candidate will probably lose. But that puts the responsibility on those voting in the primaries to find the best candidate we can.