Me-too Dems throw a whine and jeez party

I should probably have more sympathy for these guys than I do. But the run to the White House is a hard row to hoe.

At a recent house party in the early voting state of New Hampshire, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Chris Dodd became exasperated as he talked about being overshadowed by front-running Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

"At one point, if I'd stood here with 25 years experience in the U.S. Senate, that would have been the end of it," Dodd said. The presidency, he added, was no place for "on-the-job training."

Another Democratic hopeful, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, was similarly frustrated campaigning in Iowa last week. Iowans, he said, "resent that the media has created a myth that two candidates are the only serious ones."

The experience argument isn't one to be dismissed, and one can understand the frustration over seeing the limelight focus on the relative neophytes: Clinton, Obama, and (to a lesser extent) John Edwards. But if running on one's resume was all it took to win the White House, we'd be well into the second term of the Al Gore administration, or the first term of John Kerry's.

Advice to the underdogs: hammer the issues, not the c.v.

Prepare to say goodbye to one or two of the second-tier guys come the middle of April, when it becomes clear who's got the cash necessary to attract...well, still more cash.

(Cross-posted.)