Sunday, November 22, 2009 East Central Illinois

Pseudo-Intellectual

Obama and Palin - the inexperienced ticket ...

Posted by: Jim Dey

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 1:48 PM

Experience counts. Or does it?
Voters have been hearing a lot about that subject during the current presidential campaign. Or, to put it another way, they’ve been exposed to a lot of talk about it. There’s no sign they’re listening now or that they ever have
But the pols, the talking heads and really hard-core political junkies have been consumed by the subject.

Fans of John McCain are beside themselves over Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s lack of political experience (member of Illinois State Senate, a political cesspool, and four years in U.S. Senate).

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Fans of Obama are besides themselves over Sarah Palin’s lack of political experience (mayor of Wasilla, governor of Alaska).
At the same time, neither group is troubled in the slightest by their own favorite candidate’s lack of political experience. It’s a psychological disconnect that stems from the fact that Obama fans like Obama and don’t like Palin and McCain fans like Palin and don’t like Obama. Besides being an acceptable hypocrisy, it’s proof that experience may not count as much in terms of attracting votes as some people would like to think.
Obama fans like Obama because he’s an attractive, intelligent, articulate guy who shares their positions on the issues. They expect him to fill his government, if he’s elected, with people who share his and their values. They’re for him and his team. So what difference does his lack of experience really make to them? None.
McCain fans feel the same way about McCain/Paln.
In a perfect world, perhaps experience would be the key ingredient. But just remember this: all those CEOs whose financial companies are crashing and burning right now were hired on the basis of their experience, and it didn’t help them very much. In fact, their prior experience only increased their certitude as they made what have been demonstrated to be disastrous decisions.
Let’s go back roughly 50 years and examine “experience elections” and see who won.

1960 - Richard Nixon vs. John Kennedy. Nixon ran, at least partly, on his experience of eight years as vice president. Sure, Kennedy was a U.S. Senator, but he was notoriously uninterested and uninvolved in the Senate during his eight years there. Kennedy won.
1964 - Johnson vs. Goldwater. Two experienced candidates.
1968 - Nixon vs. Humphrey. Two experienced candidates. George Wallace was a third-party candidate.
1972 - Nixon vs. McGovern. Two experienced candidates.
1976 - Gerald Ford vs. Jimmy Carter. Ford had been president for two years, vice president and a longtime GOP congressional leader. Carter was a one-term governor of Georgia, clearly the lesser experienced of the two. Carter won.
1980 - Ronald Reagan vs. Jimmy Carter. By then, Carter was the experienced candidate. Reagan had been a two-term governor of California and had not held public office since 1974. He had no foreign policy experience. Reagan won in landslide.
1984 - Reagan vs. Mondale. Two experienced candidates.
1988 - Bush I vs. Dukakis. Two experienced candidates.
1992 - George Bush vs. Bill Clinton. Bush was clearly far more experienced (president, vice president, CIA chief, envoy to China and member of Congress) against Clinton, longtime governor of a small state with no foreign policy experience. Clinton won handily.
1996 - Clinton vs. Dole. Two experienced candidates.
2000 - Al Gore vs. George Bush II. A classic experience election. Gore (sitting vice president, former senator and member of U.S. House of Representatives) against Bush II, governor for six years of Texas with no foreign policy experience. Bush won.
2004 - Bush II vs. Kerry. Two experienced candidates.
The record would indicate that candidates labeled inexperienced have no trouble winning presidential elections.
Voters don’t seem to care.
Remember, in elections people vote based on their gut feelings. Who do they like better? What external factors influence the election (economy, war, abortion, black presidential candidate, female vice presidential candidate, etc.)
So now the Dems are running against Palin based on her lack of experience. McCain tried running against Obama on the same issue and saw it was getting him nowhere. So he shook up the race with Palin to his advantage. Meanwhile, Obama went with Biden (experienced squared in the U.S. Senate) and Biden is committing a gaffe a day on the campaign trail. The New York Times even wrote a feature story about it.
Oh, and remember Hillary. She ran those “it’s 3 a.m. and the phone rings in the White House” ads against Obama. He won. She lost. That about sums up the importance of the experience issue in presidential campaigns.

Still, even if it doesn’t, experience should count. The New York Times columnist David Brooks writes about it in his column today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/opinion/16brooks.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Comments

I think Palin has moved the marker in regards to lack of experience. She only got a passport last year and had never been outside of the US or Canada. Being mayor of a town of fewer than 7,000 residents and Governor of the 48th state, Alaska, in population is not a a resume for being the leader of the most powerful country and military in the world. I realize Bush had even less experience, but at least Texas is the 4th largest state in population and he had been outside of the country. Still, I certainly did not vote for him as it is clear now that he did not have the ability or the experience to run the country anywhere except into the ground.

Posted by consider on September 16, 2008 at 4:02 PM

my comment to the comment regarding size and qualifications. First, Palin is not running for President, McCain is. Obama has no executive experience regardless of the size of the state. If you want to compare apples to apples then Palin has been Govener of the 47th state by size with executive experience while Biden with no executive experiene is from the 45th state by size. Do the math and just the facts!. I have a passport but does that make me eligble for office? By the way Corporate America and its greedy ceos have run our economy to the ground not Bush. A do nothing democratic congress who raised minimum wage which has caused the rise in unemployment is the cause not Bush. With the price of oil at 92 bucks, lowest in 2 years with pump prices at 4 bucks is not Bush's fault but the corporate money grabbers

Posted by honor9chief on September 16, 2008 at 8:55 PM

In response to the above comments. First a person is protected under the HIPPA federal right to privacy law and sharing medical information is illegal. Second, the do nothing Dems have had control of the house and senate since 06. They said they had a solution to the 60 dollar oil and it hit 140 dollars under their control and no solution until Bush lifted the ban on off shore drilling. We are at war which is attributed to the 8 years of Clinton do nothings gutting the CIA, FBI and military. Yes I agree the economy is not hood but Obama wants to tax everything including wages to make things worse. Do the math, add 7 more percent being taken away from the already 28 percent. The democrats are the one who grows government. The republicans gave back money, don't raise taxes, and allows the citizens the choice to succeed or not to succeed.

Posted by honor9chief on September 17, 2008 at 8:31 AM

"Do the math, add 7 more percent being taken away from the already 28 percent."

A single person has to make more than $78,850 to be in the 28 percent tax bracket.

Also, the payroll tax increase Obama proposes would shore up the gap in funding for Social Security. Our current pathologically insane, pinhead president has chosen to ignore that problem during the last eight years.

Typical Baby Boomer attitude -- do nothing and push the problem onto the next generation. Of course, he can always use his insanity as a defense.

Posted by Wenalway on September 28, 2008 at 12:23 AM

There is a significant difference between having experience, and having the RIGHT experience for the job -- dubya had lots of experience making bold decisions, sticking with them to the end and running corporations into economic ruin...

I like to look at presidents/vice-presidents AFTER their term in office:

Carter - Habitat for Humanity, world renowned for

his Civil Rights work

Reagan - I forgot (instant Karma)

George the Ist - hmmm... no clue

Clinton - dunno who he did after he was out

of office, now that we don't care

anymore ;-)

Gore - Leading Global Warming fight

George the 2nd - ...hmm...

Posted by dw on October 15, 2008 at 3:57 PM

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