Unfortunately, red-phone-answering is called on-the-job-training.
That is unless the candidate went to the AT&T store or Target and bought a 'red phone', but that doesn't count as experience in answering the dreaded "red phone" at three o'clock in the morning, or at any o'clock.
A governor might be able to get away with saying he has experience in dire situations, but those don't include one country going to war with another country, nor does it cover a national security threat.
Governors deal with natural disasters, but if a state's security is threatened by out-of-country or home-grown terrorists, the first thing he does is pick up his "red phone" and call the president.
It's like parenting. No amount of baby sitting or tending younger siblings qualifies anyone to be a parent for the first time.
The only possible exception to the "previous president" rule might some like Gen. Wesley Clark who commanded NATO forces, or Bill Richardson who was an ambassador who faced many sticky situation. But generals and ambassadors act under orders from the president, they don't act on their own authority.
Enough of the canard coming from each candidate that he or she has the experience to deal with a phoned in dire threat to the nation.
None of you do.
Not you, John "W." McCain who spent five years in a Vietnamese prison camp. All that taught you was how to survive being a prisoner of war. Not one second that you spent in that house of horrors, isolated from the world taught you a thing about red phone-answering, or keeping us out of war, or protecting us from the 'red menace.' You are nothing more than a clone of Bush, and we all know how well that went. You don't have the judgement to disassociate yourself from him, and all we'll get from you is more of the same-old, same-old.
Not you, Hillary Clinton. Sleeping next to the president for eight years, and eavesdropping on his phone calls doesn't qualify you to pick up the red phone, either. You never did it yourself. You didn't make the decisions of what to do or what not to do; the final decision was Bill's.
If sleeping next to someone for eight years qualifies someone to fill a husband or wife's shoes, then Mrs. Doctor Jones can yank an appendix, or Mr. Attorney Smith can stand before the Supreme Court and argue cases.
You, Hillary, don't seem to have any more judgement than Johnny "W" McC. You didn't have the judgement to vote "no" on giving Bush permission to go to war against Iraq. You didn't have the judgement to plan ahead and consider that you might have a rival in the form of Barack Obama or anyone else. You didn't have the judgement or foresight to not keep complimenting Johnny "W" McC, which his campaign will use against you if you're the Democratic nominee. Your lack of judgement and decision to go negative against Obama is appalling. Your decision to adopt the Rove playbook of dirty tricks is truly despicable. You're beginning to sound more and more like Joe Lieberman.
Not you, Barack Obama, but of all three, you seem to be the only one with any judgement at all.
You are the only one who stood alone in 2002 and said "no" to invading Iraq when it was a very unpopular thing to do. To your credit, you've stuck with you decision to not go negative all over Hillary. You answer all of her charges immediately, and always come back with a sound response. Nothing in your life that I know of, except for seeming good judgement and good decision making, qualifies you to pick up the red phone, although of the other two candidates, I think I trust you the most to think on your feet, call in the right advisors and do the right thing. Hillary next, but less and less with each dumb move she makes. Johnny "W. More W." McC, not one bit.
