We've certainly heard plenty of talk about experience this election. Although it is important, I'm not sure it tops the list of requirements for being President. People talk about experience as if the President sits in a room all by himself and makes decisions. Every President has many advisors and consults them when it comes to  making decisions. I think the media has failed miserably in addressing this issue. I want to know with what type of people will these candidates surround themselves. After watching this current administration fill positions with friends and probably owed favors, it is important that we know the intentions of the current candidates. I'd rather have a candidate with little experience who puts together a top notch team of advisors then a highly experienced one who will assemble a team of cronies.

Hasn't our country been run by experienced people for the last twenty-five to thirty years? I hate to burst anybody's bubble, but there is little to nothing that we can point to and say thank goodness for experience. As a matter of fact, we should be wondering how things have become so bad with all this experience. Our country's founders had no experience at running a democracy, yet they managed to win a war against a super power, create a constitution, and get America off to a pretty good start.

Lost in this whole experience debate is one very important issue, the role of the President. It is not the job of our President to run the country, but to lead it. The country is supposed to be run by we the people through our elected representatives. It is the President's job to inspire the people to do this. It is lack of leadership, not lack of experience that has left our country in such an awful mess.

We always hear talk of the importance of experience in dealing with the terrorism problem. Terrorism has been taken to new heights and no one really has that much experience in dealing with it at the levels we see today. Experience is great if your goal is to just kill terrorists, but to end terrorism is going to take so much more.

If we are to consider political experience then we should also consider life experience. Someone who was born into wealth is not likely to be in touch with the needs of average Americans and those who are struggling. Even someone who wasn't born into wealth but achieved it on their own may be so far removed that they have forgotten. Experience certainly should be considered, but we must not lose sight of things such as vision, imagination, and judgment.