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On The Obama Palin Experience Debate: Does Experience Really Matter?

September 4th, 2008
By JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

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The debate is now on about who has more — or less — experience. But does experience really matter or not? One of TMV’s favorite writers, James Hertsch, who used to write under a pen name on weblogs, has yet another MUST READ on this issue.



This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 8:20 pm and is filed under Joe Biden, Democratic Party, Republican Party, Sarah Palin, John McCain, Barack Obama, 2008 Elections, Democrats, Republicans, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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    Nice post, Joe. I totally agree. Arguing over whether or not Palin or Obama has more experience is pointless. The more important question is what they think about national and international affairs. We know what Obama thinks. He's been pushed on it for 18 months, including today by O'Reilly. But we know nothing about Palin's views. And that's why some of us think she's unqualified for VP. It isn't inexperience. It's disengagement from big issues.
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    I agree with elrod, thanks!

    But it's also how successful one has been with whatever experience.... to repeat part of an earlier comment of mine....

    For Obama he has been very successful in his pursuits, whether it is being well-respected among peers in law school, being president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review or graduating with honors. Obama was a well-respected law professor at the University of Chicago and then went into politics. His put together a successful, well-organized campaign from the ground up.

    Palin as mayor left her town in debt, even though she raised taxes... Palin has been and is involved in numerous scandals, as mayor and as governor, calling into question her judgement. Also she was 20% owner of a company in Alaska which the state dissolved because Palin's company failed to file its biennial report and pay licensing fees. Also showing lack of good business skills. She's only been governor for 18 months so the jury is still out on her ability as governor. To those people who claim that she has an 80% job approval rating as governor, I say that if I were to do what she did, raise taxes on oil companies and give some of that money directly to the pockets of the voters, then I'd have an 80% approval rating, too. In fact I'm surprised that her rating is not higher....

    To be sure both candidates have some failures (neither of them won every political race they wanted) and both have successes. But it seems that Palin has some pretty big failures when it actually comes to running things.... and Obama has some pretty big successes.

    And why is everyone (including myself) comparing Palin and Obama and not Palin to Biden or Obama to McCain?
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    By my count, there have only been 10 presidents who didn't have some kind of military service. Nine, if you count FDR's Asst Navy Sec service.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Sta...

    I'd say there's really two issues here (at least). Does experience count

    1. During the campaign. My answer: Yes, because what a candidate is really after is trust, and people tend to trust people who are more experienced (hence, older, too). That's also why, if your going to run for office, it's a good idea to have been (especially an officer) in the military. People who have been in the military themselves will trust you, because they've already spent years trusting other military folks; above, below, and along side them. Note in the link, above (hope it works!), the clustering of non-military guys. Of course, there really wasn't much of a military, at the beginning. Nor was there before and after WW I (lots of people blamed Wilson for getting involved in that war and there was some real demobilization after it).

    http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWusa.htm
    http://worldwar2database.com/html/army.htm

    Of course, it also helps if you've been a Governor, esp. of a big state, but I can't find a run like we've had since Carter (broken only by GHWB, and now), none of whom had any foreign policy chops, before being elected, but only Clinton had no military experience. So, I'd have to say that Obama really is asking us to lower the bar. I'm not sure how he can, or even if, he should try to, get around this. You really do have to go all the way back to Lincoln, to get to something comparable (and Lincoln had been an officer).

    2. While governing. My answer: There's considerable evidence that it makes no difference, at all.

    Sure, Lincoln floundered, and even flirted with disaster, before realizing that Generals couldn't be counted on to think rationally and that the best way to manage them was to fire them as soon as possible after they screwed up.

    But, jumping over the pond, we can consider Churchill, who absolutely dripped military experience, almost all of it bad. Luckily, for freedom and democracy, what was needed was the ability to inspire loyalty, perseverance, and dedication, which he pulled off mostly through stirring speeches!

    FDR, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem becoming a rock solid CiC, from the very start... but, who knew?

    Then, there's Wilson, a sober, solid, intellectual sort of guy; Governor, University President, who was bamboozled first, into getting into the war, then into letting various greedy, bigoted b*stards in Europe have their way with him, and with the rest of the world.

    One thing that I've never seen mentioned about Lincoln is how nobody seemed to give a damn about his lack of experience, even though there was a good chance that there would be some kind of civil conflict and that it would, by and large, be due to the very fact of his election. This, to me, is an indication of how deep passions were running at the time and how a lot of people were eager to just have it out, once and for all. For all I've heard and read and seen, I don't think Obama can count on that kind of passion.
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    Experience is a must, you don't hand over the key to the car to a 14 year old. in rush hour traffic.

    Lack of Experience doesn't guarentee failure and Experience does not guarentee it, but if you play the percentages experience will come out on top every time given a decent sized test sample to choose from. In troubled times like these I'd rather go with the odds.

    Now if anyone wants to bet against the odds, thats fine, just do me the courtesy of letting me know when your giving that 14 year old the keys, I'll try to be sure and not be on the road at that time.

    BTW: I also agree that the Obama vs Palin experience comparison is pretty pointless, its the Obama vs McCain experience gap we should be concerned with.
 
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