Experience for presidential candidates is overrated.  

Presidential candidate Senator Hilary Clinton claims experience is her strongest leadership trait over other Democrat presidential candidates like Barrack Obama. On the Republican side, Senator John Mr. McCain boasts experience over candidates like ex-Gov. Mitt Romney. Voters should reject them as viable candidates if experience is the highlight of their résumé.    

Someone gains leadership experience by serving in leadership positions. The presidency of the United States is an executive position. Therefore, the relevant experiences that apply are positions with final decision-making responsibility. 

Senator Clinton’s campaign website lists much information about her life. It does not report any experience in positions of executive responsibility. “Hillary ran a legal aid clinic for the poor when she first got to Arkansas and handled cases of foster care and child abuse,” is the closest direct claim to executive experience. Therefore, by her account, Hilary’s experience claim is not supported with fact.  

McCain touts for his experience the twenty-plus years making national security decisions in the U.S. Senate. Romney strongest experience is his term as governor. Conventional political wisdom is that McCain’s experience wins on issue of national defense during this time of war.  This convention wisdom is wrong and it displays the type faulty thinking that motivates Americans to select poor quality leadership.

Relevant experience is what counts. Romney as governor headed the executive branch of government for the state the way the President heads the executive branch of the federal government. A governor like a president has final responsibility and authority for executive branch decisions. No lone congress member has this authority or responsibility.

I do not claim that Romney is the better-qualified candidate by normal standards, because of his experience as governor. However, he is if voters make experience the standard for qualification as Clinton and McCain wants them to do. This is true even in a time of war. It is more important for the war effort that a President has the background needed to manage national resources during war than for him or her to have knowledge about armed forces legislation.

The old guard mostly promotes government experience as an important qualification for president, because only they have it. Having experience only means they hold or they held a government position.  This does not mean their policy and methods produced the best results for society. It does not mean they can translate old ideas to meet new challenges.

Nothing threatens the nation’s future more than leaders that rely on old ideas past their time.  Notice how many of the candidates claim an experience advantage, because they have connections with or they met world leaders.  This means they are married to old ideas and influences.  

President Bush did not prepare for an occupation of Iraq after the war, because he believed he had an Iraq figurehead he could install to run the country for him.  He did not have a backup plan when his figurehead failed to exert the national influence he claimed.  Many international heads of state changed the past ten years and more will change the next ten years.  A foreign relations plan that mostly relies on old contacts and other people’s policies is not much of a plan. 

An insightful President would promote foreign and domestic policy that keeps America internationally cooperative, but not meddlesome and that keeps it strong, but independent. He or she would serve in the office of President as the people’s servant and not act as their king or the world’s emperor.

This President would promote energy independence by financing solar technology for American homes and convenient mass transit and not by financing Middle-east wars.  This President would ensure a quality education for all American children to end reliance on foreign brainpower that threatens the nation’s future. A better-educated citizenry provides American leaders a larger pool of talent to create solutions for domestic and international problems.

This President would reduce crime by making federal prisons safe from violence. He or she would understand that society gains more by educating and socializing inmates for return into society than by stressing punishment. 

This President would reduce homelessness and poverty with monetary policy that discourages home ownership as a speculative investment. This policy would end income tax and social security deductions for workers earning below poverty levels.  In addition, it would end government support for corporate greed and the abuse of the system that shifts the burden of taxes to other taxpayers.

I do not discount the value of experience as history that can provide background and insight for new solutions.  Still, candidates should tell us about their new solutions if they have them and not about the potential for experience to create them.

Contact Kenneth Brooks  at P.O. B 882, Vallejo, CA 94590.  opinion@ethicalego.com