Experience is overrated
August 5th, 2008 at 11:25am Pat Cunningham
Any presidential candidate who has considerably more political experience than his rival invariably argues that it makes him better qualified to be the nation’s chief executive.
History, however, belies that notion.
Consider, for example, the case of Abraham Lincoln, who served for a while in the Illinois Legislature and then one term in the U.S. House (a term notable mainly for his outspoken, but futile, opposition to the U.S. war against Mexico). Still, despite his limited experience, Lincoln is regarded by the overwhelming majority of historians as the nation’s greatest president.
And then there’s the Wall Street Journal poll of conservative and liberal historians, which SHOWS that six of the 12 most successful presidents had less than 10 years of political experience each. Of the top 14 presidents, only two had 20 years or more of experience.
Let’s not forget, either, that the most popular Republican president in our lifetimes, Ronald Reagan, served only eight years in public office, none of them at the federal level, before becoming president.
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1 Comment Add your own
1. Mr. Baseball | August 5th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Good post Pat. The whole experience issue is simply an excuse for those who don’t like a candidate to begin with, and your examples of Lincoln and Reagan show that. On the flip side, the two Presidents in my lifetime with more experience than any others were Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Both proved to be disasters in the oval office.
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