Re: Which Presidential primary race do you think will be the most interesting in 2016
Please name one person elected as POTUS that had past "experience" at being POTUS. I can think of none.
So if you wre hiring a Senior Programer for your software company, the only people with "experience" would be other "senior programers". Someone who was just a "Programer" would have as much "experience" as a fry cook at McDonalds to you, because both didn't have past "experience"
specfically being a "Senior Programer"?
If you were looking for an Executive Chef, a person who was previously a Sous-Chef would have as much "experience" in your eyes as a bus driver?
If you were looknig for a CEO of Fortune 500 company, the COO of another fortune 500 company would have as much "experience" as the manager at the local Staples?
From a political science stand point, it's long been established that the President of the United States serves as two primary job roles...
Chief Executive of the Federal Government and Commander-in-Chief of the United States Military. As such, when speaking of experience, it are those two aspects of the job that it most commonly relates.
When speaking about
DIRECT experience for those two jobs, you're looking at two primary things:
In terms of being Chief Executive of a Governmental Body, the next "tier down" same type experience is that of a Governorship. A step down from there would be a Mayoral role, with differing weight given to the complexity of the location being governed (For example, a governor of New York is likely to be looked at in experience typically closer to a Governor, where as the Mayor of Roanoke Virginia would likely be laughed off stage). Alongside this would be experience as the Vice President, which would slide in right above "governor" in terms of levels of experience.
In terms of being Commander-in-Chief, the next "tier down" same type experience is that of a Generalship. From there you take additional steps down through the various ranks of the military. We've seen in our countries history times where the experience lending itself to CIC has been more important to the voting population than that of the Chief Executive. However, of the two, CIC experience is generally more rare when it comes to the primary experience for the job.
Following DIRECT experience, you have indirect. This would be experience that reasonable and understandably relates to the job, but is not DIRECTLY in line with what it does. And even then, there's different levels.
This would be things like acting as an executive or chief executive over a sizable business or entity, with it's impact on experience varying by size and scope. This would be things like functioning as a Senator (given more weight) or Representative (given less weight) at the federal level. Being a member of a Presidents cabinet, or a little less valued being the head of an executive agency. Having been enlisted, but not in any sort of command position, within the military. Etc.
These are things that have some tie to the position of POTUS but aren't direct analogs simply at a lower level (executive, but not government. Government, but not executive. Cabinet but not Executive, Military, but not commander).
Finally, you have supporting experience. Things that don't DIRECTLY or even Indirectly give specific experience for the two avenues of the job, but which can concievably provide some bonus or insight that could potentially relate. Running a private business, being a doctor or lawyer, being a scholar on certain issues, etc.
When it comes to experience as it's traditionally weighted and viewed from a political science mentality, it's simply not a realistic argument to suggest that Barack Obama was, at the very least, one of the five most inexperienced men ever to win the Presidency. Admitting that doesn't inherently suggest that he is or would be a bad president (Case in Point, Abraham Lincoln was arguably the LEAST experienced of all time). However, denying it in a hopes of propping him up is laughable.
When it comes to DIRECT experience, he had none. When it comes to significant secondary experience of any kind of he essentially had 2 years of being a Senator and that's it. The closest one to him in the past century would probably be Hoover, who had seven years as an executive cabinet memer as secretary of commerce. Obama, Kennedy, and Hoover are the only people without DIRECT experience in the past century, and both Hoover and Kennedy had more indirect amount of experience than Obama.
