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The Lemonade Stand Fallacy

September 3rd, 2008
By ELROD

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Lemonade Stand

I’ve written on the executive experience canard before.

But since GOP operatives insist on pushing this absurd line of reasoning to justify Sarah Palin’s “greater qualification for office than Obama or Biden (or presumably McCain)”, let me offer another frame of reference: Running a Lemonade Stand.

To run a lemonade stand you need to know where to place the stand, how to build a proper stand, how much lemonade mix to buy, where to find accessible ice, how to keep your water pitcher full, how much to charge, how many cups you need, how to advertise, and how to count. You need to be able to train your kid brother or sister in customer service. Yes, running a lemonade stand takes a lot of managerial acumen. Successfully pulling it off gives you the experience to run another lemonade stand, or maybe the beginnings of a kid-run carwash.

But does it prepare you to run a full-on convenience store? Can you run a Country Time Lemonade Distribution Company?

Well, if you have OTHER qualifications like general business skills, access to large amounts of capital, high school education (and likely college education), a business plan to grow and extend your business, and contacts outside your immediate neighborhood then yes, you could be promoted from running a lemonade stand to something much greater.

But absent those other major qualifications, your “executive experience” running a lemonade stand does not prepare you for the larger task.

The Lemonade Stand Fallacy: Just because you can “run something” at a lower level does not mean you are qualified to run something at a higher level.

As I posted in my previous entry on this subject, you need a vision, agenda and deep knowledge of national and international affairs to be President of the United States. Absent those, you are unqualified to move up from a lower level governance (or legislative) role. Absent those other qualifications, you fall athwart the Lemonade Stand Fallacy.



This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 11:05 am and is filed under Newsweek Blogitics, At TMV. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 51 Comments

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    This is a good analogy and a valid point.

    Palin’s experience in a small town and later with the $12 billion Alaska budget doesn’t necessarily show that she can handle the trillions in the federal coffers.

    By way of comparison, Barak was able to piss through $150 million of Annenberg Foundation grants with absolutely nothing to show for it, besides enriching a Weather Underground terrorist.
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    elrod,

    Under your scenerio, the most qualified would be someone who has been a Chief of Staff at the White House. Yet, I do not think any of those individuals has ever been President or even run for President after having the job.
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    If I was going to hire someone to run a full-on convenience store, and I had to choose between someone that had just been a community organizer, taught a class in college, and been in the legislature, or someone that knew where to place the stand, how to build a proper stand, how much lemonade mix to buy, where to find accessible ice, how to keep your water pitcher full, how much to charge, how many cups you need, how to advertise, and how to count, and had trained a kid brother or sister in customer service, I would go with the latter.
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    Jwest,
    What are you referring to re: Annenberg Foundation grants?

    sd,
    A Chief of Staff could indeed be qualified if he or she had the political skills necessary to garner votes on his or her own behalf. Lots of top party bigwigs become politicians in their own right. Haley Barbour is one example (RNC chair though not Chief of Staff).

    The problem a Chief of Staff runs into is pivoting away from defending and managing somebody else's agenda to working on behalf of one's own. It's possible, but it rarely happens.

    don singleton,
    You just mixed two metaphors. The comparison would be the second scenario (running a lemonade stand) and somebody who worked with neighborhood kids on how they could make lemonade stands and taught classes and made laws relating to making lemonade stands. Then the comparison is apt.
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    Elrod,

    The documents are just coming out now that the University of Illinois has determined it would be impossible to hide them.

    Here’s a link to a JustOneMinute article that in turn, has all the related links to give you the background on this subject.

    http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/09/a...


    In a nutshell, the Annenberg Foundation provided money to a Chicago organization founded by the terrorist Bill Ayers. He hired Barak to serve as chairman and within 3 years they had dispensed all of the cash (some to another former Weatherman) without achieving anything.

    Most of the documentation shows the close working relationship between Ayers and Obama, totally debunking his “guy in the neighborhood” explanation of his ties with Ayers.

    Didn’t you guys vet Obama?
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    jwest, I look forward to seeing this story unfold, since it's not one I was previously aware of. We all benefit from the open free flow of information when making decisions this important - needless to say, that goes for D's and R's alike.
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    JS - this story does need to be looked at, but Obama's links to Ayers have been an unspoken 'secret' in the MSM for some time. I doubt it will ever get the attention it deserves, and if it does, it will come from the Right, and the calls of 'Swiftboating' will drown any chance for a true investigation to occur.
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    I think we can all agree on a couple things:

    1) Obama and Palin are both new to executing the large federal bureaucracy. Each has some qualifications that will help them do so, though of a very different variety, and they will now need to prove to the American public that those limited experiences will be sufficient. Neither Biden nor McCain has done so either, but their decades in the Senate give them more benefit of the doubt than Obama and Palin.

    2) There's no one dimensional explanation of experience that will make one team great and one team lousy, which is what most partisans wish. If only executive experience is important, then Palin should be the top of the ticket and McCain should be VP. If only federal experience is important, then Palin shouldn't be on the ticket (and neither should have Clinton, Bush Jr., or Reagan.)

    3) Most people are going to twist the facts as they need to make their team sound better. Republicans would be livid over an 18 month Democratic governor being put on the ticket, but are now going to be insulted and enraged (really) that Dems question a new Republican governor. Similarly, Dems would at least be questioning the hell out of a two year Republican senator being on the ticket (think Quayle). In the end, both candidates MIGHT be successful as Prez or VP but they have to prove it through-out the campaign now. Palin does have a disadvantage in that Obama's had almost two years to demonstrate competence, while Palin's only got a couple months.
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    JSpencer,

    Like Austin said, this story has been out there for some time.

    I’m sure Joe, Elrod or Shaun will write an article about it, but it’s hard with all this Palin news breaking to find the time.
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    One reason Ayers stories aren't taking off, I would guess, is that almost every time you hear about their connection, the two of them are sitting on an educational board, some charity board, another non-profit.... It's harder to get outraged about Obama's activities when basically he's trying to do good things with perhaps the wrong people. I'm also guessing it's not taking off, because it sounds as if Ayers is firmly entrenched in the bigwigs of Chicago. The boards they are on together are not two-people boards. You'd end up saying 2/3rds of the politicians in Chicago are terrorist-supporters including many Republicans because they've all engaged with Ayers at some point.

    Scratch all that. I meant to say that it's because the liberal media is withholding sensational information about a Presidential candidate, despite the vast money it would bring, because they are actively attempting to elect one candidate over another.