5 Great Presidents Who Had Less Experience than Barack Obama

AUTHOR: Billy Skid

We’ve been hearing a lot about experience in the presidential campaign this year, and we’ve been told that experience is the most important qualification to be President. Well here’s a list of five great American Presidents who, before the job, has less experience in government than Barack Obama will have had if he wins in November.

Andrew Jackson

Prior to becoming President, Andrew Jackson had been military governor of Florida for one year, Congressman for one year and a Senator for three years. Of course, he’d also been a general, and Americans do love their general presidents, but before becoming President he had a total of five years in government service. Obama will have twelve.

Abraham Lincoln

It’s almost bizarre, but before becoming our greatest President, Lincoln had served only two years in the House of Representatives, during which he vocally opposed the Mexican-American War as a war of imperial aggression. (Sound familiar?) Just two years of government service. The rest of the time he spent lawyering around the state of Illinois. (Sound familiar?) Oh yeah. To win the nomination, he had to defeat an immensely popular New York senator in the primaries. (Sound familiar?)

Teddy Roosevelt

Two years governor of New York, six months Vice-President of the United States. That’s it. He was also only 42 years old when he took the job, four years younger than Barack.

Woodrow Wilson

Just two years as Governor of New Jersey. Prior to that, he’d been a college professor, much like Barack has been a college professor, and a college president. And, like Barack and Teddy Roosevelt, he’d written some books, though neither Wilson nor Roosevelt wrote a book nearly as good as either of Obama’s.

Franklin Roosevelt

The guy who rivals Lincoln and Washington for the title of the greatest president, FDR, before taking the job, had been Governor of New York for four years, state senator for two years and Assistant Secretary of the Navy for seven years. All right, so that’s one more year of experience in government than Obama, but only a year.

The point is that while McCain and Clinton keep harping on experience as a crucial ingredient to being a great President, our own American history has shown that experience in government doesn’t really matter. What matters is wisdom, judgment, empathy and compassion. And Barack Obama has no shortage of any of those.