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I'm not a political expert by any means, but what I see and hear is this:
Going into Iowa, Obama seemed to be controlling the conversation. "Change" and "hope" were the buzz words and ALL the other candidates in both parties jumped on the bandwagon.
Since then, it seems to me that Clinton has somehow grabbed control of the discussion and dragged it into all this nonsense about experience. And then we got bogged down by talk about race and law suits and what-not. When he is defending himself or responding to things, he's not controlling the discussion. And it seems like whoever is in charge of the discussion has the most energy and excitement. And media coverage.
I know there's a lot of people who think he didn't have enough substance with all the hope and change talk, but I believe he can talk details and still control the subject.
I would like to see him be more firm about controlling the discussion. I would LOVE to see him point out more often that we need to do the math--Hillary is claiming "35 years" of "experience." She's 60. That means that according to her, her "experience" started as a newly-graduated, 25-year-old lawyer working as a state congressional legal counsel. I don't know much about how all that works, but I would imagine that it was an entry-level position. It was not an elected position. It was not a position of high influence or a leadership position of any sort.
Also, I would like to see him pointing out that being a first lady is not the same as being in an elected executive position. She has vicarious experience--and that doesn't count. I've been married to a computer programmer for 11 years. I know a lot ABOUT programming, but it doesn't mean I, myself, have experience DOING it or am qualified to write software. Would you like my friend, the husband of a surgeon, to operate on you? I'm sure he is very involved in his wife's career and supports her and knows a lot from listening to her about what being a surgeon is like. But nobody in their right mind would give him a knife and say "cut me open."
So why is the Obama campaign letting her get away with claiming first-ladyhood as experience? They're letting her control the discussion about this and define what "experience" means. By her definition, "experience" actually means "life experience" because she's counting anything and everything since law school. Why aren't we having a discussion on what sort of experience qualifies one to be president?
He's going to keep getting smears and attacks. I would like to see him spend a very BRIEF amount of time at the beginning of speeches quickly rebutting whatever the smear du jour is, and then saying something to the effect of "Look, these sort of ridiculous attacks--what else can you expect? This is what we need to change about our national politics. This is why I would be a better president. So, now I have answered these latest attacks. I've responded. Now it's time to talk about what's really important, which is..." and then get the conversation back to where HE wants it to be. He does this sometimes that I've heard, but I think he could do it more often and more firmly (but nicely.)
I want to hear more about what "we're" going to do in this new presidency. I would like him to talk more about what he envisions the role of the American people to be in effecting change--in detail. Most of us don't know how to be activists and most of us don't have the resources to do so. So when he talks about how change happens by us putting pressure on the government, what does that actually look like and what is his role in helping that happen? We need to have this explained to us in very concrete, practical terms--beginner level.
I'd like to see him demonstrating in a public setting his abilities to bring people together and to listen to them and to help solve a problem. Other candidates do Q&A sessions. I'd like him to do some sort of forum where we get to see him in action demonstrating his problem solving and listening skills. I don't know how this could be done, but this stuff is what makes him unique, and I think people would be interested to see it.
I also don't think a lot of people really understand what a president's job is. We've seen such a dysfunctional parody of the executive branch for so many years that I don't think a lot of us non-wonky people really grasp what a president can and cannot do. Even things like setting policy--a president doesn't actually do that! And Obama is running based on qualities that would really make for an excellent president, but other candidates are taking advantage of the confusion to say that he's too idealistic or too inexperienced. Actually NONE of the Democratic candidates have true executive experience. They only have legislative experience, which is a totally different branch of government. And in legislative experience, I believe Obama actually has the MOST. (Right?)
He made a lot of these points in an hour-long interview with the San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Board last week. I watched the interview but forgot to bookmark it. Sorry. It was too long an interview for most people to sit through, but if he would take some of those points that he made and work them into all his speeches, I think it would be good.
And finally, I don't care what anyone else "out there" says. He should NOT start being nasty. I think the sort of humor approach he did in Nevada last week is a good way to handle it. I would like to see his campaign be quicker to respond to negative stuff against other candidates and insist on fairness from his supporters and surrogates. I think he could have done this with the LBJ comment. It was a dumb remark for her to make and I can see why people got offended. But it truly wasn't a racial slam in context. It was simply stupid and insensitive. And the "fairy tale" flap was silly--the context of the statements were clear. It was just petty and pouty. There wasn't any reason to let it veer off into a racial argument. If he had spoken up quicker and helped calm people down, he would have come off to most people as very classy and fair. This would have only made the Clintons look even more petty and mean. Plus, it would have let him keep control of the conversation. And even if it didn't help him, it's still the right thing to do. I would like to see a quicker run to doing the right thing, the fair thing, and the honorable thing.
I'm not trying to criticize. Over all, I think he handled it pretty well. I just think that these are some ways he can take back control of the national dialog instead of letting Clinton set the agenda for discussion.
But then again, I'm not an expert and could be completely so far off that I'm not even in the same solar system anymore. I'm certainly open to becoming better informed about it all.
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