We have three Senators and one governor running for President and Vice President of the US. Legislative and foreign policy "experience" has jumped onto the front pages of the print media. In the electronic media too, the subjects are constants.

Not a one will tell you what constitutes "experience." You have to infer it instead. Listen closely and what you really hear is their journalistic evaluation of how much or little each candidate has in the media’s "experienced" viewpoint.

Most of us assume the media has researched and evaluated candidate "experience," for us ... but it’s a dangerous assumption. Like the rest of us, the media is looking for someone else to do the analysis and then give them the answer to "report."

What constitutes "experience" and then how does one measure it? When you look at it more closely, it becomes clear it is a fuzzily defined thing in the media's hands. Despite the fact, the concept lacks metrics as well as a clear definition; the press has no problem bantering about it incessantly. It's a great deal for them. Since no one knows what it really is, no one can prove or disprove who has it and who does not. That being the case, it probably also makes the issue meaningless.

I have yet to hear anyone do a credible job of explaining what it really takes to possess that magic and often intangible quality of "experience." Is it simply time on the ground (in office) in the Senate? Or, is time immaterial if a Senator proves to be a Jefferson or a Madison whose ideas and personality shape every aspect of the Senate and the nation. You know, like Senator ______ does? Yep, you're right, no name fills that blank well, either.

Perhaps, that is how the Democrats rationalized nominating a two term Senator who has accomplished little and the Republicans rationalized nominating a candidate who entered Congress in 1983 who now promises to "clean up" the problem of which he is so clearly a part of. Both candidates are evidence that it isn't "time in the Senate," nor sheer intellectual and legislative prowess that qualifies these two as potential Presidents!

Is "legislative experience" the quantity of bills introduced, co-sponsored, or passed? Does quality count - how about "resolutions"? Does getting your local post office named after a local character count as much as a bill with national impact? Is it the number of committees or the amount of pork one gets for the folks back home? The truth is, no one will tell you that ... they don't know either. They only know that "their" candidate has a plethora of the "right" experience.

So let's look close at the legislative "experience" of the three Senators. I'm going to ignore the Governor from Alaska here. We already know from the press that her "experience" at a state level doesn't really count as "real experience." Much of the media has already concluded state level experience doesn't qualify one to be President - ignoring that it was OK in recent times for Roosevelt, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Wilson, and GW Bush to be state governors and next President. In fact, 16 Presidents were state governors first. Two more were territorial governors before being elected President. Nevertheless, in today's calculus ... being a Governor of Alaska doesn't seem to count despite the fact over a third of the US Presidents were governors first. All of which makes the media's evaluation of Sarah Palin's "experience" look slightly jaundiced at best.

What do you find when you "peel back the onion" of the three Senator's legislative experience? Starting with Senator Obama, it's obvious has little legislative experience. The bills he has been active on, are something of an embarrassment, unless you are a hyphenated American. Let me be clear here, for those of you who might jump the gun and decide that is a racist comment. I am referring to Collectivist-Americans. [It continues to gall me that "racism" is bantered about whenever one points to the many warts of Barack Obama - but I suppose it is a sign of insecurity by those who have long been riding the "racism train" and making a fine-fine living doing so.] Nevertheless, since Obama entered the US Senate in 2005, he has sponsored 136 bills. Of those, 122 never made it out of committee. Two were successfully enacted. Obama has co-sponsored 653 bills during the same time period. As with all the Senators, those numbers includes resolutions congratulating basketball, celebrating a civil rights event, naming a post office or providing a "sense" of the Senate.

McCain comes off little better. At least he has a legislative record. John McCain has sponsored 537 bills since Jan 21, 1993. Of those, 340 did not survive committee. The Senator has seen 31 pieces of his legislation enacted. McCain has co-sponsored 1230 bills during the same time period. He also gets my award for sponsoring some of the most barely, if at all, constitutional legislation ever in earlier congresses. He proved to be a full-blown statist with such "winners" as the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act , McCain-Edwards-Kennedy Patients' Bill of Rights, and of course the infamous McCain Feingold Bill. McCain, as a progressive Republican candidate for President represents the philosophical nadir for the party. Since embracing conservative ideas in the 1980s the Republican Party has ended up at a place little different than populist versions of Democrats.

What legislation has Sen Biden sponsored in the current Congress? Surely, with his "vast foreign policy and legislative experience after three decades in the Senate you would find countless examples of both! Use the link and prepare to be unimpressed after you move beyond the recently enacted S. 3370: Libyan Claims Resolution Act. By the time you get down to his sponsorship of S. 3024: Eurasia Foundation Act, and S. 2257: Burma Democracy Promotion Act of 2007, you get a clear picture how Biden wants to interfere in other countries using your tax dollars. Be confident in that you are one of the few who have any idea what Biden's legislation sponsorship record looks like. The media doesn't. Then ask yourself whether we can afford any more of his "legislative policy experience" like Biden's?

Looking at the "legislative experience" of the three Senators reveals an obvious conclusion. It "just don't matter" when it comes to being President - despite what the parties and the media want you to believe.

What really matters is a basic understanding of US national interest, the US Constitution, and a cores set of values that provides integrity and ethics for your life and interactions. Of course, you won't hear much about the candidates in those terms. The media has already discounted those aspects as important.