Sen. Barack Obama is one of the least experienced politicians ever to run for the White House. But the Illinois senator’s strong candidacy, when compared to his thin credentials, poses an interesting question:

Is there a relationship between the strength of American presidents and the length of their resumes?

Obama was a community organizer and civil rights attorney before entering politics. He served eight years in the Illinois Senate, then was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2004. He has never held an executive, administrative or military position at any government level.

Compared to the blue-chip credentials of, say, former presidents George H.W. Bush (congressman, U.N. ambassador, Republican National Committee chairman, diplomatic liaison to Red China, CIA director and vice president) or Herbert Hoover (distinguished engineer, administrator, humanitarian, American Relief Administration chief and Secretary of Commerce), Obama is a newbie.

However, so was Abraham Lincoln, one of our most revered presidents. Born and raised in the backwoods frontier of Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois, Lincoln was a virtual political neophyte when elected to the White House in 1860.

A self-taught lawyer, he only served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives and one in Congress. In 1858, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate against Stephen Douglas, gaining prominence by engaging in seven, well-publicized debates against Douglas over permitting slavery in the western territories, which Lincoln opposed.

The loss might have sent Lincoln back into political obscurity, except for the growing turmoil over slavery. Traditional political parties splintered and the electorate was dissatisfied with the status quo. Lincoln, who helped found the new Republican Party, was elected president on a “free soil” platform to stop further geographic expansion of slavery.

As president, Lincoln achieved iconic status through his inspiring, courageous leadership during the Civil War, his emancipation of slaves and his generous plan to re-integrate the rebellious Confederacy into the Union at war’s end.

Bush and Hoover, on the other hand, became relatively undistinguished one-term presidents from their shared misfortune of holding office during severe economic crises they were unable to improve – a recession and the Great Depression, respectively.

They were defeated by outsiders – Franklin D. Roosevelt and William Clinton – both state governors and reformers proclaiming what is now Obama’s message: change and hope.

Obama is arriving on the national stage at an ideal time for newcomers. That’s because there’s widespread feeling among Americans that the country’s badly broken and needs fixing. Everywhere voters look, domestic prospects appear bleak.

Manufacturing jobs have fallen by over three million since 2000. The price of oil is at record levels – close to $100 a barrel, a four-fold increase from September 2003, and gasoline is over $3 a gallon at the pump, up about 33 percent from a year ago.

Some 45 million Americans are without health insurance. In one year, sales of new single-family homes have dipped by 8 percent and mortgage foreclosures increased by more than 100 percent. Credit is tight, the stock market is slumping, consumer confidence is low and a recession is possibly in the offing.

The economic news is so grim, it’s even driving other distressing issues – the costly, protracted war in Iraq, illegal immigration and the continued potency and defiance of Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden – from the forefront of voters’ minds.

In this climate, voters may shun the Washington insider, whom they see as having helped create the mess. Veteran political candidates can talk all they want about experience, but if things went wrong on their watch, they’re likely to be seen as part of the problem, not the solution.

Obama has ridden the “change” theme from the start of his campaign. His website captures the candidate’s message in a pithy quote: “I’m asking you not just to believe in my ability to bring about real change in Washington. I’m asking you to believe in yours.”

It would be poetic if Obama followed in Lincoln’s footsteps, not just by coming from Illinois, but by obliterating a residual stigma of slavery (the notion that an African-American cannot attain the nation’s highest office), and by becoming a great president who emerged out of nowhere.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Obama’s lack of experience provides little indication of how he’ll do as president. Scholars have debated for years, without conclusion, about what makes a president great.

In fact, it seems the quality of a president can’t really be predicted from his background.

Greatness seems to flow, instead, from a non-quantifiable mix of intelligence, determination, courage, eloquence, vision, and charisma, with a dash of luck. Great presidents rise to momentous challenges by calling upon inner qualities that are not always apparent when they are campaigning for the job.

This is Lincoln’s legacy, and the epitaph of the first Bush and Hoover administrations.

The ballot will determine whether Obama becomes president, but, if elected, only history will be able to decide whether he was a great one.

Elliott L. Epstein, a Lewiston attorney, is founder and board president of Museum L-A and an adjunct history instructor at Central Maine Community College. He can be reached at [email protected].