ELECT ME BECAUSE I'M A NOVICE

Every day, or so it seems, we’re reminded unfortunately that a rhetorically effective argument isn’t always a sound argument.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the world of politics, where strange reasoning is often accepted, if not celebrated. Take the popular refrain that a candidate deserves your vote because they are not really a politician (God forbid!) and therefore more competent and trustworthy.

The argument is usually championed by fresh faces trying to oust those who obviously have become too qualified for their own good. Whatever political experience and cache one lacks is turned into a positive: “I’m not a professional, career politician. I’m not an establishment insider. I’m just someone who knows how to get things done.”

Only in politics is the status of eager novice seen as a job qualification. Where else would one have the chutzpah to argue, let alone effectively, that they should be hired because they have s no experience at the job?

Imagine the would-be CEO offering the same argument: “Having never worked in business, I can assure you that I’m not a business insider. In fact, I’m not even from the world of business. I think we’ve had enough professional CEOs who surround themselves with business types. This company needs a different perspective, someone like myself who has a wealth of people skills and supervisory experience culled from 20 years of being a successful elementary school teacher.”

Yes, holding political office doesn’t require any specific credentials or licensing. But that doesn’t mean that the length of your political experience should exponentially disqualify you from further duty, or that non-political experience is always superior to that of actually holding the office sought.

The businessman candidate who boasts of his own political inexperience would surely never hire anyone for a high-level corporate position who lacked sufficient business background. After all, it’s what you know (your knowledge and experience) that bears on your workplace success.

The I’m-a-neophyte-and-proud-of-it argument nevertheless resonates with voters so fed up with politicians that they’re ready to throw out the rascals at any cost. They’re even willing to support term limitations and the belief that job experience ultimately leads to inertia and corruption, as if both stemmed primarily from tenure rather than from character.

In every field other than politics, we assume that increased experience correlates with increased effectiveness and efficiency. If you hire a carpenter who does a poor job, you complain that they didn’t know what they were doing, and you should have hired someone with more know-how.

Then again, if you’re a fan of contemporary political rhetoric, you might just look at it differently: I should never have hired a professional carpenter. What I needed was a citizen carpenter who’s never tried to make a career out of carpentry. I should have hired an outsider—someone who still appreciates wood and why it makes this nation great, someone confident enough to change careers even if they don’t know exactly what the new career entails, and, of course, someone who knows how to get things done.