Most Experience or Enough Experience?

IN 1960, Richard Nixon ran for president against John F. Kennedy on a slogan that had powerful resonance for cold war America: “Experience Counts.” Nixon had been vice president for eight years, a senator for two, and a House member for four. Kennedy had been a senator for eight years and a House member for six, and was also a war hero and the scion of a politically powerful family.

Nixon’s claim to experience, though, were those eight years in the White House — he was dispatched by Eisenhower on missions to dozens of countries, he often noted, and he won acclaim for quick thinking during his “kitchen debate” with Khrushchev in Moscow in 1959. Even if Ike memorably struggled to come up with a real contribution that Nixon had made, the vice president made the experience argument just the same.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was arguably far more involved in White House affairs during her husband’s administration than Nixon was in the 1950s, and she, too, is running on that experience. (“Change is just a word without the strength and experience to make it happen” is one of her taglines.) While she has won respect as a senator of seven years, and has become a student of the military as a member of the Armed Services Committee, her seasoning in the White House is at the core of her campaign argument.

But is the experience argument enough to beat Barack Obama and her other rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination this winter?

Mrs. Clinton spent Monday and Tuesday criticizing Mr. Obama on this front in Iowa, where she is in a statistical dead heat with him and former Senator John Edwards. First she said that Americans could not afford a president who needed “on the job training” once in office; the next day, she jabbed Mr. Obama for saying that his childhood years living in Asia were perhaps the strongest experience he had in foreign relations.

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Which brings us back to Nixon. In November 1960, Mr. Experience lost to his younger rival. As one political analyst argued, the experience issue for voters then was not a matter of comparative shopping: They did not look at the two men and say, Nixon has more experience then Kennedy, therefore we’ll vote for Nixon to be strong against the Soviets, Castro, East Berlin, etc. Rather, Kennedy had to pass a threshold test — did he have enough foreign policy experience, and convey enough sound judgment on national security issues, for voters to feel comfortable putting their safety in his hands?

If Mr. Obama simply needs to clear an experience threshold —rather than exceed Mrs. Clinton on that benchmark — the issue may prove less consequential than the Clinton team is hoping. That’s partly why Mr. Obama is always recalling his early opposition to the war in Iraq — probably the biggest foreign policy decision of the last seven years, and one on which many in the party wish Mrs. Clinton had adopted Mr. Obama’s position in 2002.

Consider it another way. As Mrs. Clinton was assailing Mr. Obama on experience this week, a reader sent in a line from a blog called “Under the Radar,” arguing that it undercut the Clinton camp’s optimism that her experience on foreign policy would win the day.

“If foreign policy issues were the deciding factor in U.S elections, Nixon in 1960, Carter in 1980, George H. W. Bush in 1992 and Al Gore in 2000 would have soundly defeated their opponents, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush respectively,” the blog posting said.


more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/weekinreview/25healy.html?_r=1&ref=weekinreview&oref=slogin

time of world unrest, war and terrorism.

We DO need experience right now. There has never been a time when it was needed more.

There were airplane hijackings by terrorists, the terrorist attacks at the Munich Olympic games in 1972, the hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro by terrorists, assorted bombings by terrorists.

We had ecological problems such as Love Canal, Three Mile Island, and the ever flammable Cuyahoga River.

We had a few Middle East wars occur. There was the civil rights movement, the Korean and Vietnam wars, the Vietnam anti-war movement, an assortment of bouts with recessions and large-scale unemployment. There were a few coup d'etats such as in Chile and Iran. Let's not forget the Cuban missile crisis.

However, we had it pretty dull back then in comparison to today. Of course, back then the evidence of global climate change was known only to a few so there was no reason to worry about it or any urgency to take corrective measures.

My belief is that we need someone who has an accurate understanding of the problems, some solutions that will improve the situation, rather than make things worse (or merely stir the pot), and someone whom the country can support, rather than create divisiveness. That someone surely is NOT Hillary Clinton.

I'll take a leader with intelligence, good judgment and someone who'd be willing to take a fresh new approach dealing with world matters over HRC's definition of "experience".

We need new blood in the White House more than ever.

n/t

Most Congressional Democrats voted against going to war in Iraq. Clinton voted for war. She voted on the wrong side on a pretty simple vote that was the single most important vote of the past few decades.

So what does her alleged "experience" buy? An orgy of blood and money?

Obama was on the correct side here.

This "experience" argument is one of the single most ridiculous arguments I've ever heard. Those who voted for war are not fit to be in Congress - let alone fit to be President.

What is far more significant is that with that mistake in her past, Hillary Clinton then voted for Kyl-Lieberman. She demonstrated to me that she had learned nothing from her mistake. Refusing to own up to a mistake and learning from it is far more serious than the first vote on Iraq.

That's just wonderful, isn't it?

Or the first MBNA bill.

I guess you'd have preferred Nixon?

Many Senators try and do the job they were elected to do.

:shrug:

Ok.