How much experience does a president need?

The Associated Press

Not much experience?

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How much experience does a president need?

John McCain has served in Congress longer than Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama combined. "Experience" has been an issue in the primary race between Clinton and Obama -- since the latter has just three years in the Senate -- but it hasn't seemed to hurt Obama much among Democrats. Listen to Ben and Joel's discussion.

Will experience be a key issue in the general election campaign? How important is it?

Ben likes: Experience won't beat Obama

Morton Kondracke/Roll Call

McCain needs to advance a reformist-conservative alternative to Obama's "Yes, We Can" appeal -- perhaps updating his 2000 Theodore Roosevelt image -- and focus on the economy and health care as well as national security. McCain said this week that if the Iraq War goes badly between now and November, "I lose," but it's not necessarily true that if Iraq goes well, he wins.

He ought to. On what used to be the most important issue in America, McCain was one of a bare handful of politicians, including Republicans, who believed America had to win the war and could.

Joel likes: Doing stuff

Matthew Yglesias/The Atlantic

In McCain's past 25 years in congress he's managed to author not a single piece of legislation that's been signed into law that helps any real people with any real problems. He's spent a lot of time posturing on the Sunday shows, and affiliated himself with a few pieces of modestly progressive legislation that didn't get passed, and then disavowed all those bills.

More broadly, though McCain is a formidable candidate in some respects, "experience" is the time-honored election argument of losers. If voters really valued experience, then veteran senators would be getting elected president all the time. Instead, it almost never happens because normal people don't think that long duration in congress -- an institution that's invariably incredibly unpopular -- is an appealing character trait.