Experience as a guide

It is said that any successful CEO can move to a new line of endeavor completely foreign to his experience and, after learning the details of the new line of activity, do well at it. This seems to be true in some cases but not in others.

Fourteen US Vice-Presidents have become president. Of these, several are considered outstanding--Harry Truman, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson--and the rest are considered to have been more or less average. Thus being vice-president, as the office has been operated up to modern times, has not led automatically to a better presidency. Forty-two different men served as president and twenty-eight of these had no direct experience of the office (were not vice-presidents) until they were inaugurated. The twenty-eight men who had no direct presidential experience did just as well or better on average than the fourteen who served as VPs.

These observations apply directly to the present situation in the Democratic primary race. Hillary claims that her governmental experience will allow her to be a more effective president than Barack Obama. But the historical record as shown by the success of presidents with vice-presidential experience does not bear out this argument. Both are likely to be as successful or unsuccessful as their talents, politics, and chance dictate. The success of either will not be based primarily on their prior governmental experience but on themselves and on factors largely beyond their control.

Believing that Hillary will be a better president than Obama based on her governmental experience is wishful thinking.