The 2016 Republicans are repeating Dukakis’ argument among themselves. Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, and Christie all staked their presidential bids on their executive experience — Trump in business, the rest in state governorships. Their managerial ability, they have claimed, is what would make them a better president than Obama and a better president than the senators they are running against.

Rubio has been particularly tied to Obama in terms of management experience, because they were both eloquent freshman senators who appealed to their respective parties’ voters through their oratorical skills and personal magnetism. But in both cases, it could be argued that they climbed the ladder to progressively more important political positions without spending very long in any of them.

Both Cruz and Rubio are running on ideology more than management skills, but the Obama comparison has made it especially important for Rubio to rebut this criticism. Consequently, he argues that Obama is a bad president because he believes in a bad ideology, not because he was elected as a freshman senator. Rubio would be a good president despite being a freshman senator precisely because he believes in a good ideology.