The 44-year-old novice politician, a former public defender, described his day on the trail with Hillary Rodham Clinton as "the crowning achievement" of his life.

During the campaign, Townsend was criticized for her choice of running mate, Admiral Charles R. Larson, a novice politician who had switched parties only a few weeks before.

A novice politician running for public advocate - a kind of ombudsman for New Yorkers - he was proselytizing his faith in citywide wireless access to the Internet.

Mr. Walsh, a former social worker and part-time government teacher at a community college, is a novice politician.

Naturally gregarious, Mr. Lamont sometimes exhibits the learned stiltedness of the novice politician.

But watching is not the same as doing, and there is no guarantee, as other novice politicians have learned, that she will be able to perform as well as her husband.

In 1946, Voorhis was defeated for re-election by novice politician, Richard M. Nixon, who accused Voorhis of having been endorsed by Communist front organizations.

Political observer Michael Chugani said there was no "single credible reason why these novice politicians are being paid more than heads of state of some countries."

Yes, it has to be condemned, but any novice politician could have predicted this development.

That could mean another novice politician, as Mr. Bloomberg was in 2001, from outside the city's political class.