Is "experience" all that counts?

By George Karnezis of Portland, Oregon. George describes himself as a "semi-retired teacher, parent, reader, rhetorician trying to cope with infected discourse." Previously, he contributed Running for the Money.

A cliché resounds currently in many political endorsements: we are assured that an incumbent’s “experience” outweighs the relative inexperience of the challenger. If we adhered strictly to this logic, there would never be a reason to elect a challenger, so this claim doesn’t help very much to explain the reasons for an endorsement. It is usually followed by vague descriptions of the candidate’s accomplishments and how, for instance, if we elected Rob Brading over Karen Minnis, we’d be sacrificing, according to the recent shallow endorsement by the Gresham Outlook, knowledge that would take 20 years to obtain.

On the surface, that seems a pretty compelling argument. But thoughtful voters understand how mindless such endorsements are.

First, the assumption that political or legislative experience can be obtained only within the walls of the legislature is questionable. While some experience can be gained only that way, it is equally true that experience in other arenas can serve a new legislator well. People need to see beyond this cliché and examine the full range of a candidate’s experience relevant to his or her legislative role. Similarly, candidates need to make a case for the relevance of this experience and its value for the office they seek. Newspaper endorsements discourage this sort of discussion by urging us to think of experience in terms of duration instead of quality.

In the case of Rob Brading, an excellent case can be made that his record of civic engagement reveals an experience that brings people together despite their differences. It is unfair of the press endorsements to ignore such a record of “experience” as if it didn’t count.

Second, a case might be made that experience in a position, while theoretically beneficial, may actually corrode the performance and character of the legislator. Karen Minnis’s “experience” in the legislature needs to be carefully scrutinized. Once that is done, we must note her experience in unilaterally obstructing discussion of bipartisan sponsored legislation, her winning of enormous contributions from large corporations, her indifference to sleazy campaign tactics, her honoring of the wishes of pharmaceutical and tobacco companies, and her contempt for fostering increased access to state government. Thus in Minnis’s case, experience can be narrowing , not broadening, shrinking her vision of what matters and focusing the attention on exclusive special interests instead of what’s best for all Oregonians.

Third, since “experience” can be corrosive, relative inexperience can have its advantages. Something may be said for innocent “outsiders” seeking political office. Their lack of immersion in the political process may be a virtue. They can raise questions others may not have thought of as yet, or have a fresh take on matters that invite new thinking. (The film version of this insight, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, is a good reference here.)

Conservatives have traditionally run against government and its supposedly infectious influence. But when they become the government, they suddenly claim immunity from its evils. Regrettably, they show us how truly inept government can be in the hands of “leaders” like Karen Minnis or George Bush. An alternative and less cynical view is a hope Rob Brading holds out, namely, that the current distrust of State government can be remedied by changed leadership and a realistic faith that, far from being the enemy, government can represent, as Lincoln put it, “the better angels of our nature.” That sort of faith-based government is something we all need to believe in if we are to experience something beyond the self-serving Minnis “experience” that these simple-minded endorsements wrongly credit.