How Important is Experience in a Presidential Candidate?

[patricia]

I've been following the battle for the nomination for the Presidency fairly closely and the question keeps coming up whether Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John McCain's experience in government and John McCain's waging war, should be as much a factor as is it is being made to be?

Nobody running has as much experience as does John McCain at waging war, or in government.
Does that mean that he would be a more likely choice than either Clinton or Obama?

The reason I ask is that much is being made of Hillary Clinton's experience compared to that of Barack Obama.
Is there really any experience, other than being an encumbant President, that qualifies someone almost automatically to be President?

My own feeling is that having extensive experience working around or with a sitting President may give a candidate and their supporters false expectations of their competence.
It would seem to me that having a totally fresh outlook, assuming that the person knows what challenges will be facing them may very well be more valuable than thinking that on the basis of what has been done up to now, with tiny tweaks, the same thing, carrying on perhaps forever, should be the path to choose for a successful outcome.


Knowing how to wage war, for example, is gained through waging recent wars, using techniques that clearly aren't working now.
Continuing to make the same decisions, perhaps amplifying them, does not necessarily mean that suddenly it will all come together at some point and victory is just over the next rise.
It's been said that generals are always fighting the last war.

Maybe what is happening now is the very definition of insanity. Keeping doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different, positive result seems to me an indication of, if not insanity, but at least a deep-seated stubbornness to admit that the original decision was wrong and will not be righted by continuing along the same path.

In this case, experience has not resulted in a successful resolution of a giant blunder.
There has to be a fresh solution, since the old, tried and true techniques that have failed for the last six years.

Is John McCain's approach, using his vast experience, the one that will right the canoe??

[Uli]

Originally Posted by patricia

Is John McCain's approach, using his vast experience, the one that will right the canoe??

Not in my humble opinion. It it just leads it down the same old rapids as in the last 8 years.

[patricia]

That's what I'm thinking. There seem to be an inordinate number of people who think that if they just keep doing what they're doing long enough, success in some form is inevitable.

The other factors that seem to be getting a lot of attention is whether John McCain is too old [71 years old], Barack Obama is either too black, not black enough, or too young [46 years old], and Hillary Clinton is too female, or that they just don't like her.

At this stage, the candidates seem to be being evaluated according to their personalities and speaking styles, which is understandable given the public's reluctance to judge them on their intelligence and their character, as demonstrated by how they've lived their lives up until they decided to run for President.
Character, intelligence and a willingness to listen to ideas different than their own is, IMO, much more important and more indicative of a prospective President's chances of success than are age, gender or racial background.

What characteristics do you think are essential in a leader?

Which candidates running now have them, or most of them, or none of them?

Setting aside their age, sex or race, can the right candidate be chosen and one of them ultimately given the responsibility of being President because they have a new approach which makes more sense than what is being more and more seen as a failed one?

[Gary Sisco]

For a minute I was going to say Eisenhower, as supremo of Allied forces in Europe, might be an example, but he was also a general. When he made a decision and order, it would be followed. Period. Presidents can't do that. What that experience did show about him was that, because of that nature of the war and of the alliance, he could lead and cooperate with very disparate forces, people, and personalities.

[Monte Smith]

The talk of experience on the Dem side has amused me, because the three main candidates--Obama, Clinton, Edwards--all had pretty much identical formal experience. Obama is a Senator of less than one term, Edwards a one-term Senator, and Hillary a Senator for a term and a bit. They have informal experience from their backgrounds, also rather similar: lawyer, lawyer, lawyer. (One wants to add, "pants on fire"). Obama was a state senator, but that signifies little. Hillary, of course, claims the mantel of most experienced by her 35 years of marriage to Bill Clinton. That's darn similar to John McCain's captivity in North Vietnam. If being related to a person in the White House is experience, no one in the modern era has more experience than George Bush.

[patricia]

It occurred to me that John McCain, with his mostly military experience, would see war as the most effective way of dealing with terrorism. He has NO experience with any other method of resolving conflict, particularly one of the government's own making.
You and I have both said at various times that fighting a traditional war and fighting a guerilla insurgency are two different things.

Despite being told that your country is "at war" with terrorism, few people seem to understand that terrorism is a tactic, not a fightable enemy impossible to prevail against with a traditional military approach.
Aside from that, refusing to use any other approach, other than attempting to eliminate the problem by killing everyone that is described, after they are dead, as "terrorists", or "the #2 man in Al Queda", or somesuch, is not only impossible, but illogical.
Of course, there are those who seem to think that the solution would be to kill everyone in Iraq and pave over the country, with the exception of the oilfields.

So, it occurred to me that having military experience, even as extensive as does John McCain, won't help in the long run, given the nature of the situation in Iraq.
The U.S. invaded a country that was no threat to them. The citizens of that country, unwilling to be occupied by foreign invaders, intent on seizing the only asset they have, OIL, are not exactly welcoming. What a surprise!!

How will that change, with more of the same, or even an alternate military approach?
If access to the OIL is what the Americans want, why is the present Administration denying that that is their goal, and not the spreading of Democracy??

[Gary Sisco]

Those are some of the reasons I mock the notion itself. There is no job anywhere that would provide relevant "experience" for the most powerful office on the planet. Pretending otherwise is disingenous at best.

I don't disagree with Monte, above. None of those three has what anyone would call a remarkable senate record. All three have records that are pedestrian at best.

One's husband's or wife's experience is irrelevant. What the hell. Do I have to give co-credit for the writing of my songs, because someone was married to me at the time? Are the songs hers, too? Duh?

The whole purpose of a campaign is to introduce oneself to the citizenry, so they can decide about who they think you are and what broad-stroke agreement you might or might not have with them, in general terms, about the direction of the society's politics. One could offer the most detailed in history healthcare program during a campaign and have almost nothing about it provide any real substance, because presidents don't get to decide these things in great detail.

[Gary Sisco]

McCain's experience as a pilot and prisoner were not command positions. It tells us that as a young man he had some balls but the same can be said for many other guys. His refusal of an early release by the Vietnamese doesn't tell us much, either, as his CO had issued a standing order that no one got an early release. If McCain had taken one, regardless of other factors, he'd have been disobeying an order in wartime, an extremely serious crime under military law. POWs don't cease being in the military just because they've been captured. The senior prisoner becomes the CO and so on; the chain of command exists for prisoners, too.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by patricia

You and I have both said at various times that fighting a traditional war and fighting a guerilla insurgency are two different things.

Yep and Obama agrees with us. McCain follows the Bushies

CNN) -- Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama engaged in a pointed exchange over al Qaeda in Iraq on Wednesday.


Sen. John McCain questioned Sen. Barack Obama's way of handling the war in Iraq.

1 of 2 McCain questioned whether Obama was aware of the al Qaeda base. Obama's response was: "There was no such thing as al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq."

McCain was in Tyler, Texas, and Obama was in Columbus, Ohio.

"I understand that Sen. Obama said that if al Qaeda established a base in Iraq that he would send troops back in militarily. Al Qaeda already has a base in Iraq. It's called al Qaeda in Iraq," McCain said.

"It's a remarkable statement to say that you would send troops back to a place where al Qaeda has established a base -- where they have already established a base."

McCain's comments come in response to remarks Obama made Tuesday night in a debate with Sen. Hillary Clinton. He was asked if the president would have the right to go back into Iraq in order to suppress an insurrection after downsizing the U.S. troop presence. Watch what Clinton and Obama said about the war »

"I always reserve the right for the president ... to make sure that we are looking out for American interests," Obama said. "And if al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad."

A statement by McCain's press office Wednesday said, "Is Sen. Obama unaware that al Qaeda is still present in Iraq, that our forces are successfully fighting them every day, and that his Iraq policy of withdrawal would embolden al Qaeda and weaken our security?"

Obama responded to the latest attacks from McCain, saying his comments were taken out of context.

Obama said the question he was asked during the debate was a "big hypothetical."

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"I said, 'Well, I would always reserve the right to go in and strike against al Qaeda if they were in Iraq,' so you know, this is how politics works," Obama said at a rally in Columbus.

"McCain thought that he could make a clever point by saying ,'Well let me give you some news Barack, al Qaeda is in Iraq,' like I wasn't reading the papers, like I didn't know what was going on."

"I said, 'Well first of all, I do know that al Qaeda is in Iraq. That's why I've said we should continue to strike al Qaeda targets. But I have some news for John McCain, and that is that there was no such thing as al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq."

Obama continued to blast Bush and McCain, saying, "John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, but so far all he's done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq."

[Darryl G. Thomas]

The difference between Obama and the other two candidates is that he doesn't claim experience as an asset. As a matter of fact, the question can be what has all the political experience of Clinton and McCain bought us.

And remember this, Bush was lauded for surrounding himself with one of the more experienced cabinets in recent history. Again, what did that buy us?

[Gary Sisco]

Like Monte says, if experience is the measure, Alfred E. Bush is as experienced as anyone (since FDR, I'd add -- FDR had so much experience, they amended the Constitution to make sure that much experience didn't occupy the office again).

[Gary Sisco]

Under the Constitution, these are the requirements to be elected president:

1. A natural born citizen;
2. At least 35 years old;
3. Resident in the US for at least 14 years.

End of criteria.*

Apparently no one writing or adopting the Constitution thought any kind of specific experience, never mind political experience, was relevant.

*There is one more archaic criterium: being a citizen at the time of the Constitution's adaption. No one with the possible exception of Bob Dole could meet that one today.

[Darryl G. Thomas]

Plus Clinton and McCain have been part of a political elite that has been accused of being out of touch with the rest of America. And is there any institution more cloistered from reality that the Senate? There's a reason why we haven't had a Senator elected as prez since Kennedy. Obama's strength may be that he hasn't been a Senator too long.

[Gary Sisco]

Given that the people give even lower percentage of approval to Congress today than they do to George Bush, I don't think I'd even put it in my resume.

[Gary Sisco]

Here's the voice of experience, from today's Washington Post:

"President says country is not headed into a recession...."

Well, that wraps that up. Onward and forward!

He goes on to say that no further "stimulus" is needed. Which is a good thing because the "stimulus" they've already made was wrongheaded to begin with. Once again, I find myself accidentally in agreement with Bushboy. The law of averages requires it.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Here's the voice of experience, from today's Washington Post:

"President says country is not headed into a recession...."

Well, that wraps that up. Onward and forward!

He goes on to say that no further "stimulus" is needed. Which is a good thing because the "stimulus" they've already made was wrongheaded to begin with. Once again, I find myself accidentally in agreement with Bushboy. The law of averages requires it.

Whenever President Bush makes management, or economic pronouncements, I wonder whether he believes that his MBA from Harvard Business School actually qualifies him particularly as an expert in business, given his multiple failures at business, much less a Master in Business Administration.
Wasn't the trickle-down theory pretty much discredited during the Reagan Administration?
It seems to me that giving huge tax breaks to the very wealthiest, claiming that those increases of money being poured in would stimulate more productivity, by creating more jobs is not proving to be the case.
The idea that a government can spend billions of tax dollars to wage a war and at the same time reduce taxes on the very wealthy, to fund it seems illogical.
Where is the money going to come from, if not from taxes?
Is the money actually coming from China and other countries, making the U.S. indebted to them?
Those receiving the tax breaks are just keeping the extra money. They are also downsizing, or exporting jobs overseas, saving money on payrolls, thus registering higher profits.
Those profits and the attendant higher stock values seem to mean to Bush that the economy is not just healthy, but booming.

[Gary Sisco]

He's a moron. He apparently really does believe that reality is whatever he says it is.

[Gary Sisco]

Ho!

NYT informs today that McCain was born in Panama, in the Canal Zone.

By law and treaty -- until bushcheney, anyway -- American embassies and military bases and reservations are American territory (as are other countries' theirs). But since they've all insisted that Gitmo is not because it's in Cuba -- and courts have ruled, wrongly, the same way -- there's going to have to be some tortuous arguments about the constitutional issues involved, either way.

The Constitution requires birth in the U.S.

This'll be fun to watch.

[Root Doctor]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Like Monte says, if experience is the measure, Alfred E. Bush is as experienced as anyone (since FDR, I'd add -- FDR had so much experience, they amended the Constitution to make sure that much experience didn't occupy the office again).

Monte must have been referring to Bush the Elder, who did have lots of broad experience before taking over the presidency. His son, on the other hand, spent five years as Governor in a state where the Lieutenant Governor wields the power.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Ho!

NYT informs today that McCain was born in Panama, in the Canal Zone.

By law and treaty -- until bushcheney, anyway -- American embassies and military bases and reservations are American territory (as are other countries' theirs). But since they've all insisted that Gitmo is not because it's in Cuba -- and courts have ruled, wrongly, the same way -- there's going to have to be some tortuous arguments about the constitutional issues involved, either way.

The Constitution requires birth in the U.S.

This'll be fun to watch.

No problem for the Bush Administration.
The Constitution is written in pencil, so if it turns out that there is a question that John McCain doesn't fit the criteria, it would just be amended by, oh I don't know, a signing statement, or by simply saying that in this case it doesn't apply because President Bush says it doesn't.
McCain being the candidate isn't the big log on the road for the Democrats that some seem to think it is. He's a known quantity, closely tied to arguably the worst Administration in the country's history. Why not just let him run, since he was born in American territory? It's be fun to watch him run against Obama, if that turns out to be the match.
Of course, Guantanamo is an American territory too, but apparently not subject to American rule of law. So, flexibility seems to be the order of the day, at least now.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Root Doctor

Monte must have been referring to Bush the Elder, who did have lots of broad experience before taking over the presidency. His son, on the other hand, spent five years as Governor in a state where the Lieutenant Governor wields the power.

You misread what he said, Rootz.

If being related to a person in the White House is experience, no one in the modern era has more experience than George Bush.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

The Constitution requires birth in the U.S.

No. You have to be born a citizen but it don't matter where you're born.

People should actually read the constitution.

[hornplayer]

Imho, the job of President of the United States is first and foremost an Administrator. Who is the best equipped to run a business. The USA is a gigundo business!

Hillary seems to think the fact that her husband was President for 8 years gives her some unique preparation and/or qualification for the job. I respectfully disagree. Unless she was the one in the drivers seat, she's not prepared. Being the navigator does not prepare one to be the driver.

Most previous occupants of the office were not "prepared" for the day to day running of the mammoth business that the US is. and it IS administrative, because until the Bushies, it was Congress who made the laws. Now the Bushies tell them what to do, and pretty much, they lockstep and do it.

[hornplayer]

Originally Posted by Uli

People should actually read the constitution.

What's left of it......

[Root Doctor]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

You misread what he said, Rootz.

D'oh!

[shrugs]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

For a minute I was going to say Eisenhower, as supremo of Allied forces in Europe, might be an example, but he was also a general. When he made a decision and order, it would be followed. Period. Presidents can't do that. What that experience did show about him was that, because of that nature of the war and of the alliance, he could lead and cooperate with very disparate forces, people, and personalities.

Citizen Soldiers, baby

Many of the guys didn't know shit from shinola.

[Gary Sisco]

It's often been that way.

Read about Korea, where all kinds of guys got thrown into combat without warning or training, some even without basic training. They'd never fired their weapons (which weren't sighted in, even), never mind learned how to strip and clean them, reload in firefights in subzero weather. Amazing, what they did to those guys. One landing craft coxswain at Inchon -- very likely the trickiest landing, ever -- had been a bus driver in San Francisco only ten days before.