Maine Democrats caucus Sunday in town and city halls, and at schools and community centers. The party believes it is poised to retake the White House after eight years of Republican control. Part of the process by which party members evaluate the two top candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, is in how well each will be able to govern.

Sen. Clinton has touted her experience in government. That experience is impressive, though it is mostly peripheral to the actual business of governing. Sen. Clinton is smart and well-educated, graduating from Wellesley and Yale. She is a lawyer and has represented the Children’s Defense Fund and worked on the Nixon impeachment effort, advising the House Judiciary Committee. She was Arkansas’ first lady for 12 years. When Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992, she continued her activism, heading the administration’s failed – but bold and prescient – attempt to reform the health care system. She was elected senator in 2000, re-elected in 2006, and has been mostly a moderate voice, working with her Republican colleagues as well as Democrats.

Sen. Obama was elected in 2004. Also a lawyer, he graduated from Columbia and Harvard. His resume includes stints in business, public advocacy and community organizing, before entering politics in 1996 when he was elected to the Illinois Senate. As the son of a black Kenyan goat herder and a white woman from Kansas and reared in Indonesia and Hawaii, Mr. Obama’s pursuit of the American Dream stands in sharp contrast to all other candidates. When he delivered the keynote address to the Democratic convention in 2004, America heard for the first time Mr. Obama the charismatic speaker, capable of inspiring and uplifting in a manner reminiscent of Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.

Sen. Obama does not equivocate about his lack of governmental experience, and instead argues that because of it he is idealistic and not jaded about what can be achieved by government. Experience in government is important, but so is the ability to govern across party lines.

Though Sen. Clinton has worked with Republicans, she would be a polarizing president. Whether deserved or not, the Clintons – the senator and former president – incite many Republicans to savage opposition, a response that could impede her ability to govern. Sen. Obama, a fresh face who must present more details of his proposals for addressing health care, the economy, climate change and other issues, stands a much better chance of working for a new agenda to tackle new problems, and finding common ground with Republicans.

These are important considerations for Democrats this weekend.