Michael Kinsley on how experience is becoming a negative trait in politics.
Back when Ronald Reagan was running for his first-ever public office — Governor of California — he made that his big selling point. The Founding Fathers, he said, wanted the country to be run by citizens as opposed to politicians. I guess that was true in a sense…but once you're in office, you're a politician. And if you do the job well, it's silly to toss you out and say, "We need someone who's never done it before." And of course, once Reagan was running for a second term, his big selling point became that he had experience in the job.