WYSIWYG: Experience Matters

This post is a brief comparison of a few select presidents. I compare the pre-presidential governmental experiences of a few past presidents with that of Barack Obama.

George Washington:
- Major, military district of Virginia (1752)
- Lieutenant Colonel in the French and Indian Wars (1754-58)
- Commander in Chief, Virginia Forces (1755-58)
- Virginia House of Burgesses (1758-1774)
- Justice of the Peace (1760-1774)
- Member of the First Continental Congress (1774)
- Member of the Second Continental Congress (1775)
- Commander of the Continental army (1775-1783)
- President of the Constitutional Convention (1787)
- First President of the United States (1789-1796)

Thomas Jefferson:
- Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses (1769-74)
- Member of the Second Continental Congress (1775-76)
- Primary Author of the Declaration of Independence (1776)
- Member of the Virginia House of Delegates (1776-1779)
- Governor of Virginia (1779-1781)
- Member of Confederation Congress (1783-1784)
- Minister to France (1785-1788)
- Secretary of State (1789-1793)
- Vice President of the United States (1797-1801)
- President of the United States (1801-1809)

Abraham Lincoln:
- Short military service: enlisted man in the Black Hawk War, captain of a company of volunteers, private in the mounted Rangers, and member of the Independent Spy Corps
- Postmaster of New Salem (1833-36)
- Served four terms in the Illinois legislature (1834-1841) as a Whig
- Opened his own law firm in Springfield, Illinois with several partners (1837)
- US House of Representative (1847-49)
- Received a patent for a device “to buoy vessels over shoals” (1849)
- Appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court 175 times, 51 times as sole counsel and of which 31 were decided in his favor
- Accepted the Republican nomination for Senate in 1858
- Elected 16th President of the United States (1860)

Theodore Roosevelt:
- Wrote and published The Naval War of 1812 (1882); published a total of 13 books before becoming President of the United States
- New York State Assemblyman for three one-year terms (1881-1884)
- Deputy Sherriff in the Dakota Territory
- U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, Washington (1889-1895)
- President of the board of New York City Police Commissioners (1895-1897)
- Assistant Secretary of the Navy (1897); prepared the Navy for Spanish-American War
- Formed the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, known as the “Rough Riders,” and served as its Lieutenant-Colonel earning himself a posthumous Medal of Honor in 2001
- Governor of New York (1898- 1900)
- Vice President of the United States (1900)
- President of the United States (1901-1909)

Barack Obama:
- Attended Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years; transferred to Columbia University in New York and graduated in 1983 with a degree in political science
- Community organizer with low-income residents in Chicago’s Roseland community and public housing developments on Chicago’s south side (1985-1988)
- Attended Harvard Law School (1988-91); first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review
- Civil Rights Lawyer for Miner, Barnhill & Galland in Chicago (1993-96)
- Lecturer of Constitutional Law at University of Chicago Law School (1992-96), and a Senior Lecturer from 1996-2004 during which he worked part-time teaching 3 courses per year
- Organized “Project Vote” for the voter registration drive for the 1992 presidential campaign (April to October)
- Won a Grammy for the audio version of his 1995 autobiography Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
- Elected Illinois State Senator (1996) after the only other candidate dropped out of the race; served three terms (1997-2004)
- United States Senator (2005-08); missed 82 of his chamber’s 346 (23.7%) votes during the two-year session while campaigning for the office of president
- Published The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream (2006)
- Elected 44th President of the United States (2008)


It is not necessary to highlight the steady diminution in patriotic and governmental service of those seeking the office of the president, even though this list is quite brief. But what I do attempt to explain, though trying to avoid oversimplification, is the significance of knowing exactly who you are voting for. President Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt and all the others did not know what would be encountered during their years in the White House. But in a providential way, their early governmental experiences prepared each for the challenges they encountered. The collective governing record of Barack Obama is an unfortunate harbinger of social, economical and legislative rulings to come, and it is we the voters who will pay the price. And nine months into his reign, it is already a historically lavish price tag for us and future generations.