campaign
2 0 0 8
Does Experience Matter
in a President?
Hillary Clinton and John McCain are arguing that Barack Obama is too green for the job.
But history shows that among Presidents, experience doesn’t guarantee success
two candidates. The fact that this hasn’t stopped Obama’s
momentum doesn’t mean he’s heard the last of it—not
with John McCain, who has spent 26 years on Capitol
Hill and is the likely Republican nominee. “I’m not the
youngest candidate. But I am the most experienced,”
says McCain. “I know how the world works.”
Obama’s credentials would be an issue in any election year. He would be sworn in at age 47, making him
one of the youngest Presidents in history, and would
arrive in the Oval Office with less executive experience
than most of his predecessors. Depending on what your
leanings are, you could compare his work history—
lawyer, state legislator, Washington short-timer, orator—
to Abraham Lincoln’s, or to a thousand forgotten figures
in politicalgraveyard.com. The question of experience
takes on added bite this year, though, because the next
By DAVID VON DREHLE
A
THE EXPERIENCE PARADOX
Abraham Lincoln, among the least
experienced Presidents ever, served
between two of the most veteran
politicians in U.S. history. Lincoln achieved
greatness; the old pros failed miserably
eld es
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**Includes colonial-era state assemblies and
statewide elected offices below governor
h
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*Includes the Continental Congresses
Ge
story is often told at times like this—times
when American voters are choosing among candidates richly seasoned with political experience
and those who are less experienced but perhaps
more exciting alternatives. Once upon a time, the torch
was passed to a new generation of Americans, and a
charismatic young President, gifted as a speechmaker
but little tested as an executive, was finding his way
through his first 100 days. On Day 85, he stumbled, and
the result for John F. Kennedy was the disastrous Bay of
Pigs. For scholars of the presidency, Kennedy’s failure
to scuttle or fix the ill-conceived invasion of Cuba is a
classic case of the insufficiency of charisma alone.
Barack Obama basks in comparisons to J.F.K., but
this is one he’d rather
avoid. Obama’s relaA NEW EXPERIENCE
Presidential
The founders set a high bar for
tively light political
experience when filling the diverse
Résumés.
jobs needed to create a new
résumé—eight years
nation. George Washington was
How 43 men
a national hero but the least politically
as an Illinois legislaexperienced among them
got the job—
tor and three years in ready or not
the U.S. Senate—con- Throughout U.S. history, there
been little correlation
tinues to be the focus has
between political experience
and success as President. This
of his rivals’ attacks. chart shows the political
of every American
Hillary Clinton adver- résumés
President. Each square
a year in an elective
tises her seven years represents
or high federal office before the
Years
in the Senate and two person became President:
in office
15
Vice President
terms as First Lady,
U.S. diplomat or Cabinet post
U.S. Senate
saying “I am ready
U.S. House of Representatives* 10
to lead on Day One.”
Governor
State legislature**
And the message has
5
Local office
Army
general
gotten through: by
clear margins, voters
rate her as the more
experienced of the
time, march 10, 2008
campaign
2 0 0 8
President will inherit a troubled and menacing satchel
of problems. From the Iraq tightrope to the stumbling
economy, from the China challenge to the health-care
mess, from loose nukes to oil dependence to (some
things never change) Cuba policy—the next President
will be tossed a couple dozen flaming torches at the end
of the inaugural parade, and it would be helpful to know
that this person has juggled before.
But if one moral of the Bay of Pigs is “Beware of charisma” or “Timeworn trumps inexperience,” what do
we make of the mistakes and miscalculations of deeply
experienced leaders? Franklin D. Roosevelt’s failed
court-packing scheme, for example, or Woodrow Wilson’s
postwar foreign policy? For that matter, Kennedy would
not have faced such a harsh early tutorial if the venerable warrior and statesman Dwight D. Eisenhower had
not allowed the Cuba-invasion plan to be put in motion
during the last of his eight years as President.
Wouldn’t it be nice if time on the job and tickets
punched translated neatly into superior performance?
Then finding great Presidents would be a simple matter
of weighing résumés. But it has never worked that way,
which is why Lincoln’s statue occupies a marble temple
on the Mall in Washington, while his far more experienced rival William Seward has a little seat on a pedestal
in New York City. “Experience never exists in isolation;
it is always a factor that coexists with temperament,
NO
EXPERIENCE
Chester A.
Arthur, a
patronage hire
and party loyalist, found
himself picked for Vice
President at a splintered
Republican Convention.
Then James Garfield was
assassinated. Surprisingly,
Arthur dedicated himself to
civil-service reform and was
a successful President
training, background, spiritual outlook and a host of
other factors,” says presidential historian Richard Norton
Smith. “Character is your magic word, it seems to
me—not just what they’ve done but how they’ve done
it and what they’ve learned from doing it.”
Was it Franklin Roosevelt’s experience as governor of New York that gave him the power to
inspire in some of the nation’s darkest hours? Or was
that gift a distillate of his dauntless battle with polio?
All of life offers lessons in how to lead, inspire and
endure. Richard Nixon served as a Congressman,
Senator and Vice President; he watched from the front
row as Eisenhower assembled one of the best-organized
administrations in history. When Nixon’s turn came,
though, his core character—insecure, insincere, conspiratorial—led him to create a White House doomed
by its own dysfunction. Experience, in other words, gets
its value from the person who has it.
When Americans pass over the best-credentialed
candidates because their heart or their gut leads them
elsewhere, they are only reflecting a visceral understanding that the presidency involves tests unlike all others.
They are, perhaps, seeking the ineffable quality the writer
Katherine Anne Porter had in mind when she defined
experience as “the truth that finally overtakes you.” An
ideal President is both ruthless and compassionate,
visionary and pragmatic, cunning and honest, patient
and bold, combining the eloquence of
THE CANDIDATES’
OTHER EXPERIENCE
EXPERIENCE
A lack of political experience can
a psalmist with the
All three are bucking a recent
be misleading. Dwight D.
trend of former governors
Eisenhower had never won an
timing of a jungle
becoming President. John
elected office but was the
McCain would be the
ultimate Commander in Chief. Woodrow Wilson was
cat. Not exactly the
longest-serving Senator to
president of Princeton University and a renowned
become President. Hillary
intellectual. Both Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin
sort of data you can
Clinton points to her time in
Roosevelt each served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy
the White House as First Lady.
find on a résumé. π
Barack Obama is in his first
Senate term
Questions
What factors
argue in favor of
electing a President
with extensive
experience?
2. What are some
counter-arguments
against the belief
that a strong President must be
experienced?
1.
Eight years as
First Lady
Four years as
President
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time, march 10, 2008