Remember when John Kerry ran against George Bush for president?  Sure you do…it was in all the papers.  Kerry tried to capitalize on his military experience over Bush as a clear reason why voting for him would immediately — to hear him tell it, almost magically — end all the world’s problems.

Kerry failed consistently to make his strategies clear enough that the average voter would have any idea at all what he’d do exactly; his favorite thing to talk about (besides those Purple Hearts) was how he wouldn’t do things the way Bush had.  Well, duh!

Funny how things change.

Now the Republicans, who laughed off Kerry’s whole experience campaign, now says experience is what it’s all about.  Barack Obama, they say, doesn’t have the political experience necessary to run the country, so you should vote for John McCain, whose experience includes being a POW.  (How, exactly, does being a prisoner of war serve as a qualification for president?)

There was nothing particularly surprising about the switch, when you think about it.  The Republicans had wheeled out the experience issue against Bill Clinton before that, and, ironically, it was John Kerry who made a speech in Congress denouncing the tactic.

So I guess it just keeps flip-flopping from one side to the other.  Whichever side doesn’t claim “experience” as a marketing campaign has to come up with Plan B.

The other day, one of McCain’s economic advisors, Carly Fiorina, a former president of Hewlett-Packard, admitted in a KTRS (St. Louis radio) that McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin, wasn’t qualified to be president of Hewlett-Packard.  She was then quick to add:

“But you know what?  That’s not what she’s running for.”

No.  She’s running for the number two position in an organization far more complicated than Hewlett-Packard.

Later in the day, when the gravity of what she’d said had sunk in, she appeared on MSNBC and argued that John McCain, Barack Obama and Joseph Biden couldn’t run Hewlett-Packard, either.

So, then, no one can run Hewlett-Packard?  Is it that disorganized a company that no one can clean up the mess?  Or is it such a well-oiled machine that no one needs to run it?

And the big question is this:  what does that have to do with the presidential campaign?

No one has the experience to lead from “day one” unless they have actually been president before.  Not even a former vice president — unless he temporarily served as acting president in a crisis — has the true experience to be president.  The only two living former presidents who are eligible to run again (because they served only one term) are Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.  And their names aren’t on the ballot.

I wish we could go one month without these stupid, pointless arguments that mean absolutely nothing.

Here’s an idea:  let’s focus on issues.  Let’s talk about what’s wrong with the country, and the specific plans to fix it.  Sure, resumés are interesting, but if the most experienced candidate is on the opposite side of the things you care about, are you better off voting for experience?

I’d like to ask if the electorate is generally dumb enough to fall for such a ridiculous tactic…but unfortunately, I know the answer.

And it’s more than a little frightening.