Sep 8, 2015 3 min read

When he became president in 2009, Republicans loved to portray Barack Obama as a hapless naif – he was handed the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. just four years after arriving in the U.S. Senate, they argued, and with eight years as a state senator in Illinois before that.

So it’s kind of amusing, as New Yorker magazine satirist Andy Borowitz recently pointed out, that two of the top Republican presidential candidates right now are retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and a certain Donald J. Trump, neither of whom has ever been elected to any post – not alderman, not township supervisor, not recorder of deeds. Nipping at their heels is Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO whose only previous political experience is a losing U.S. Senate campaign in California.

Meanwhile, seasoned politicians like George Pataki, who served 12 years as governor of New York, and Jim Gilmore, a former Virginia governor with a varied résumé, would be breaking out the champagne if they reached 1 percent in polls of Republican voters. Their campaigns might well be extinguished before all but the most tuned-in political junkies even knew they were alight.

Let’s face it – Americans are wildly ambivalent and contradictory on whether they want their political leaders to be experienced or not. It brings to mind the fairy tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears – the porridge is either too hot or too cold, rarely just right.

On the one hand, we say we want experience. But we don’t want someone who is tainted by the corrupting ways of Washington, D.C. (or Harrisburg, as the case may be in Pennsylvania). In that narrative, Mr. Smith will go to Washington, clean up the mess there by bringing others around to the simple clarity of his arguments, and return home, his righteousness and integrity still intact.

The reality is that experience can count, but only up to a certain point. Vision and temperament play roles in whether a politician is successful, along with sheer, dumb luck.

It’s frequently noted Abraham Lincoln only served a single, two-year term in Congress before becoming president, and became one of the greatest chief executives we’ve ever had, if not the greatest of them all. Then there’s Richard Nixon, whose career followed a steady progression from the House to the Senate, vice presidency and presidency. Yet Nixon ended up being the only president to resign in office and is a hardy perennial in the worst-president rankings.

Franklin Roosevelt was a state senator, a low-level cabinet officer – assistant secretary of the Navy – and served a single term as New York’s governor before becoming president. Yet he was able to guide America through the Great Depression and World War II. Meanwhile, James Buchanan amassed a rich résumé in Congress, as a diplomat and as secretary of state before becoming president. All that experience, and yet the ground for the Civil War was prepared on his watch.

But experience can’t be wholly discounted. Look at Lyndon Johnson – his expansive knowledge of the legislative process, gathered through years as a congressman and senator, were crucial in shepherding the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid and other Great Society programs through Congress when he was president.

Experience matters? Sure. But so do intellect, outlook and all the other intangibles that make someone a good, or exceptional, leader. Let’s keep this in mind as we move into the 2016 presidential campaign.