BY PETE DU PONT
Thursday, August 12, 2004 12:01 a.m.

My senior senator, Joe Biden of Delaware, gave a hometown speech earlier this year about U.S. foreign policy in Iraq. It was a thoughtful presentation, but it included a criticism of the election of former governors to the presidency because they had no foreign-policy experience and thus were insensitive and less capable regarding foreign policy and international concerns. Senators who've served on the Foreign Relations Committee, he implied, would do much better.

But Mr. Biden has it backwards. Of the 17 presidents of the 20th century, from Teddy Roosevelt through Bill Clinton, eight had been executives before coming to the White House (seven governors and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower), and seven had served in Congress but lacked executive experience. (William Taft and Herbert Hoover held only appointive offices before becoming president.) The current book "Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House," compiled by The Wall Street Journal and the Federalist Society (and available from the OpinionJournal bookstore), asked 78 scholars to rate all our presidents. Among the 20th-century presidents, five of those with executive experience--Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ike, Ronald Reagan and Woodrow Wilson--ranked as great or near great. Among the seven with legislative experience, only Harry S. Truman made the cut. On average, 20th-century presidents who had been governors (plus Eisenhower) scored 3.51 on a five-point scale; the others who had served in the House or Senate, 2.81.

Which leads to the conclusion that America is usually better off with a president who has had executive experience before reaching the White House. Presidents have to lead, set a course, and come to conclusions. Senators can, with furrowed brow, be very concerned, vote this way and that to show their concern, and hope to gain the votes of the citizens expressing the concerns. But once in the White House, men of concern, consensus and compromise are much less likely to provide the leadership the country needs than men of principle, resolve, and the executive experience to make decisions.

And that is the problem with Sen. John Kerry as a potential president. He looks concerned, no doubt is concerned, with everyone's point of view. As senator he votes one day for trade agreements like Nafta, and later on opposes them. He can vote for funding the war in Iraq before he votes against it. He can be worried about France and Germany, and base America's foreign policy upon their agreement so as not to raise their concerns.

There is no question that Mr. Kerry is a liberal's liberal. National Journal rated his 2003 Senate voting record as the most liberal of all 100 senators--more liberal than even Ted Kennedy. He is against the death penalty (except for terrorists), and he says he personally opposes abortion, as a political matter he supports it fully and opposes the confirmation of judicial nominees who are not pro-abortion. He says he opposes same-sex marriage, but voted against the Defense of Marriage Act. He is opposed to any form of school choice.

None of this should be a surprise; Democratic presidential nominees are always very liberal or they would not have won the liberal party's nomination.

But what is surprising is Mr. Kerry's regression to failed policies of the past. He strongly believes in the redistribution of income--higher income taxes, returning to the double taxation of dividends by raising the dividend tax from 15% back to 40%--and a broad and deep increase in the size and authority of the federal government. He has proposed a $653 billion federal health-care program and another trillion dollars in other new spending, which would about a 10% increase in federal spending in his first year in office. Like FDR in the 1930s, he wants to control business activity with heavy regulation; like Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, he wants to accelerate the growth of government substantially.

John Kerry has become a virulent protectionist, promising to eviscerate existing trade agreements--including Nafta, for which he voted in 1993--by adding environmental and other requirements that would reduce trade and limit the lower consumer prices and greater American job opportunities it creates. His running mate, John Edwards--another very liberal senator (fourth in the National Journal rating) without executive experience--more strongly states the Kerry-Edwards trade position: "I campaigned against Nafta. I voted against the Chilean trade agreement, against the Caribbean trade agreement, and against the Singapore trade agreement." Sounds as if they would have supported Herbert Hoover's Smoot-Hawley tariffs that devastated America's economy 70 years ago.

On the use of military force to protect America's interests, Mr. Kerry is a creature of the 1960s, an antiwar, minimal-defense believer. He worked in the Senate to reduce missile defense funding and cut funding for military aircraft and tanks. He opposed American actions to topple a communist dictatorship in Nicaragua, and he protested against the war in Vietnam (where he had honorably served), because "communism was not a threat to our country." He opposed liberation of Kuwait, believing that economic sanctions would have persuaded Saddam Hussein to go home. And Mr. Kerry's effort in the 1990s to cut $7 billion out of intelligence funding and thus limit the scope and ability of intelligence services to protect our nation is unnerving.

Mr. Kerry's vision becomes no clearer when he looks ahead to future challenges. In 2004, for the first time in recent history, the federal government will have to use general revenue--about $45 billion, or 3.6% of federal income tax revenues--to pay Social Security and Medicare benefits. With the growing baby boomer retirement, Social Security's demand on outside tax revenues will quickly grow. Mr. Kerry is very concerned about Social Security, so what would he do to solve the problem? Reduce benefits? No. Raise the retirement age? No. Raise taxes? No. Impose means testing? No. Move the system to privately owned accounts so that retirement benefits can grow and federal revenue contributions are reduced? No again. On the most significant economic challenge of the coming decades, John Kerry has no vision, no goal, no response at all--not a good sign for a prospective leader of the United States.

His nomination speech in Boston restated his tax-increase proposal and his protectionism--and avoided almost everything he voted for as a senator. He stressed the need for "a strong military," even though his Senate voting record reflects the exact opposite. He would like us to think he is a new man with a different viewpoint, but people rarely abandon one long-held set of political viewpoints and adopt another. He is likely "reporting for duty"--a very good line--in the future with the same liberal beliefs and policy uncertainties he has expressed in the past.

John Kerry would certainly be a concerned president, but concern is not enough. A principled president with a clear vision and executive leadership experience is far more important for our nation.

Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is policy chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears once a month.

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