For about 20 minutes following the Iowa caucuses, the buzzword across America was “change.”

In the few days it took us to get from Iowa to New Hampshire, however, we changed right back, and went to the utterance that screws us over every four years: “experience.”

Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, presidential hopefuls with comic-book-character names, swept into decisive victories in Iowa on messages of change.

The specifics of what they want to change vary wildly of course (Obama wants to end the war in Iraq, Huckabee wants to seize control of women’s uteri) but change was the guiding constant in their victories.

Soon, though, the polls touting “bumps” for the candidates, the collapse of Hillary’s campaign and a violent shift in the way America votes all crumbled.

We can take this as proof that the “best political team on television” Wolf Blitzer keeps talking about is probably making their predictions with a Magic 8 Ball.

If there’s a worse qualification to brag about in Washington than “experience,” I don’t want to hear about it.

What, exactly, does experience bring you?

Will John McCain get more accomplished in Washington because he won’t waste time sightseeing? Will Hillary get down to business faster because she already knows her way around the White House?

It’s about time that we, as a nation, start to realize that people applying for jobs tend to lie on their resumes.

A dense, multi-decade career in politics is just a front, a history of votes and initiatives and broken promises and bad decisions that’s too boring and complicated for your average Joe on the street to wade through.

If experience was truly the peak of electability, then Senator Robert Byrd, who’s been in office since 1959, would be the best applicant for the job. Nevermind the fact that he’s 90 years old and once a member of the Ku Klux Klan; he’s clearly an experienced politician.

However, we should remember that politics in America isn’t a sport for professionals, but one for amateurs.

A government of the people, by the people and for the people isn’t supposed to dip continually into a pool of well-heeled elites, or submit repeatedly to the rule of a few well-off families. Our country is in the hands of and under the rule of us.

We may seem like armchair quarterbacks, but we’re the ones calling the plays.

So if we, as Americans, have no requirements but to be 35 years old and born in America to run our democracy, why should we demand so many more years of experience from our subordinates?

An inexperienced president wouldn’t be left flapping in the breeze by themselves – even the most veteran politician has blind spots, and that’s what cabinet positions are for.

George W. Bush has surrounded himself with some of the most renowned evil geniuses in the country to advise him.

An inexperienced leader can summon the experience of others to aid in the operation.

When it comes down to it, politics is just like anything else - quality over quantity.

I’d rather have a leader who has done things right for a little while than one that’s been doing things terribly for decades.

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