Hillary, Barack, Experience

[Barack_America]

This is currently the most e-mailed article for the New York Times

Hillary, Barack, Experience

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: January 20, 2008

With all the sniping from the Clinton camp about whether Barack Obama has enough experience to make a strong president, consider another presidential candidate who was far more of a novice. He had the gall to run for president even though he had served a single undistinguished term in the House of Representatives, before being hounded back to his district.

That was Abraham Lincoln.

Another successful president scorned any need for years of apprenticeship in Washington, declaring, “The same old experience is not relevant.” He suggested that the most useful training comes not from hanging around the White House and Congress but rather from experience “rooted in the real lives of real people” so that “it will bring real results if we have the courage to change.”

That was Bill Clinton running in 1992 against George H. W. Bush, who was then trumpeting his own experience over the callow youth of Mr. Clinton. That year Mr. Bush aired a television commercial urging voters to keep America “in the hands of experience.”

It might seem obvious that long service in Washington is the best preparation for the White House, but on the contrary, one lesson of American history is that length of experience in national politics is an extremely poor predictor of presidential success.

Mrs. Clinton’s strength is her mastery of the details of domestic and foreign policy, unrivaled among the candidates; she speaks fluently about what to do in Pakistan, Iraq, Darfur. Mr. Obama’s strength is his vision and charisma and the possibility that his election would heal divisions at home and around the world. John Edwards’s strength is his common touch and his leadership among the candidates in establishing detailed positions on health care, poverty and foreign aid.

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[Maribelle]

1. Abraham Lincoln had the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Obama has nothing of substance.

He is merely long on rhetoric, albeit rhetoric tickling the ears of many.


As the Boston Globe pointed out about Obama yesterday: there are signs that his cry for change may be sounding hollow or, worse, like a typical political slogan.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/01/20/obama_needs_to_add_more_substance_to_his_call_for_change/

[Barack_America]

2. That is your opinion. Not fact...n/t

[Maribelle]

3. My opinion. And I added facts too.

A little of both.

[Barack_America]

4. Well, if you think that the person with the most "experience" should be president...

Then you would have to agree with this:

And the presidential candidate left standing with the greatest experience by far is Mr. McCain; if Mrs. Clinton believes that’s the criterion for selecting the next president, she might consider backing him.

That's also fact.

ETA: The article that you posted is certainly skewed (i.e. leaving out Clinton's obvious organizational advantage in Nevada), but I did find common ground with the author, we he said that Hillary's so-called "White House experience" is "dubious". Kind of hard to be really involved when you don't have security clearance or get inelligence reports, eh?

[Nailzberg]

5. Biden, Dodd, and Richardson are back at their day-jobs.

And people that didn't support one of those three, still are insisting that experience matters most to them.

:shrug:

[Maribelle]

6. "most" is not "only"

Other factors are involved which lead up to experience on the top. Biden, Dodd, and Richardson's did not have those factors which would lead to their expreience.

Try making an apple pie without other ingredients besides apples, which matter most to the concept of an apple pie.

[Nailzberg]

7. I'm not disagreeing that there are other factors involved in supporting a candidate.

I'm just give a shrug when I hear about experience.

I thought Biden had other ingredients as well. Military service, governing, legislative experience, public service, boardroom experience, legal experience. Hundreds of different life experiences. The list of qualities is vast, and no one quality serving as an indicator of a candidate's potential to be successful leading the country. Instead of an apple pie, I see a stew.