McClatchy: Experience called poor predictor of presidential success

[babylonsister]

Experience called poor predictor of presidential success
By David Lightman | McClatchy Newspapers



WASHINGTON — Many undecided voters have a common concern when they size up Barack Obama: his inexperience.

"I have nothing against Obama. I just think John McCain has more experience," said Steve Viernacki, an Ashley, Pa., restaurant owner.

Experts say that such worries are overblown.

"Experience matters, but its importance is terribly overstated," said historian Robert Dallek, the author of recent books about Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon.

Presidents with sterling resumes often have turned out to be busts, usually because they lacked the key quality a good president needs: sound judgment.

"John Quincy Adams understood the world, but he didn't have a political gene in his makeup," Richard Norton Smith, a presidential scholar at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va., said of the nation's sixth president, who isn't remembered as successful.

Yet presidents with far lesser credentials have triumphed. John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he took office in 1961, four years younger than Obama. Kennedy's early years were rocky, Dallek said, but "he was a quick learner" and his third and final year as president was masterful.

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[CatWoman]

1. add to that the fact that Adams was also a son of a president

just because your daddy was a president, it doesn't qualify you for the job.

[babylonsister]

2. We've witnessed that firsthand, and look at the results.

'Not qualified' isn't even skimming the surface with this scenario.

[Frustratedlady]

3. Obviously!

[Chloroplast]

4. The problem is that McCain thinks he's entitled to be POTUS.

Why someone hasn't explained to him that the Presidency isn't a reward given for years of service? This 'experience' label is highly overrated, especially when the Maverick shows us time and time again that he's learned little in the past 2+ decades.

[babylonsister]

6. He would need to prove his 'experience' makes a difference. He

hasn't, not by a long shot.

[Alcibiades]

5. John Quincy Adams was not a bad president

J.Q. Adams helped to build the infrastructure that developed America as an industrial power. His record of opposition to slavery ranks him as one of the most progressive of early American presidents. He also supported the nonpartisan civil service, repudiating it at great political cost to himself. He also advocated on behalf of Native Americans, who were at that time subject to the persecution of the various states. There were no wars during his presidency, thanks in part to his successful diplomacy while Secretary of State in the eight years preceding his term in office.

Perhaps John Quincy Adams was not our greatest president, but he certainly belongs in the top 50%. Compared to Bush..., well, there is no comparison.