SubscribeExperience is not really a factor
Just about every time any of the candidates are discussed, someone brings up experience. I’ve joined in the game myself. “Palin has more executive experience than Obama.” It’s fun. I’m not alone, take this excellent comparison of Obama’s campaign experience compared to Palin’s at the Beldar Blog. That Obama is probably the most inexperienced president ever to serve, should he be elected, is not in dispute. The fact is, when you get down to it, it doesn’t matter.
That’s right. Obama’s lack of experience is not an issue. In fact, his inexperience and naiveté give me comfort, making the prospect of his winning the election just a little easier digest. For the conservative out there who still isn’t following me, I ask you this: If Obama had an extra 20 years practice at implementing his Marxist agenda behind him would you be happier with him in the White House? Do you think you’ll approve of his policy decisions and performance more during his last years in office?
Unfortunately, a President Obama would have no problem getting his socialist agenda pushed through, experience or not. He’ll have lots of help.
Its about ideology. Reagan wasn’t the greatest president of our time because he was experience, he was the greatest president because he had clear, conservative principles and he acted on them. Jimmy Carter was the worst president of our time because he had clear liberal principles and he acted on them.
Now, keep in mind, conservatives and liberals with all the ideology in the world aren’t going to decide the election. The fence-sitting independents will. The American Idol watchers. These are the people who might think it’d be neat to have a young, black president this time instead of an old white one, and vote accordingly. The less shallow among them will look to things like experience to help them decide. Unfortunately, they don’t think much about ideology, which is what truly separates and distinguishes the candidates.
What about the call at 3:00 in the morning? Hilary Clinton never took such calls and she’s the one who launched that little back and forth. A president has a league of lackeys, all experts in their own little niche, keeping their finger on the pulse, ready to brief the chief executive with a short list of the most practical options if something remarkable happens in their corner of the world, and the president has advisers that’ll help him choose what is most politically expedient. The question is, from what set of principles will the next president base his decisions on? How will he choose among the options?
The conversation over coffee with the American Idol watchers needs to be about whether they really like the idea of earning money so someone else doesn’t have to. It needs to be about whether foreign policy decisions are based primarily on furthering national interests and making Americans safer and more prosperous or improving the popularity of our government among the governments of the rest of the world. They need to decide between a government that recognized groups based on things like skin color, gender, etc, or a government that respects the individual. They need to decide between a larger, more powerful government that does everything for them while doing anything to them, and one that stays out of the way and preserves opportunity for everyone.
Tags: conservative, election 2008, experience, ideology, liberal, mccain, obama, republican
September 29th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Why not let Obama devastate our country? Bush has had his turn, and as far as I can tell, there wont be much left to turn over to Obama.
September 29th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I think you said it yourself: “If Obama had an extra 20 years practice at implementing his [...] agenda behind him would you be happier with him in the White House”. Please pardon the omission of that lone adjective but that basically says it all. I think you’re hiding behind your personal religion and morals too much to see a candidate when you see one. I bet you’d vote for McCain if he stood for everything you hate except Abortion and a “pro-christian” agenda. It is close minded like you that are polarizing our politics today.
September 29th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Andy, you missed the point or didn’t read the entire article. Did you see where I said:
“Now, keep in mind, conservatives and liberals with all the ideology in the world aren’t going to decide the election. The fence-sitting independents will.”
I have not been a big fan of McCain. He is not one of my favorite Republican lawmakers by a long shot, but, he has the best chance of promoting important parts of the conservative agenda we agree on.
If you want to keep it about the amount of experience, knock yourself out. Go for it. I’m talking to fellow conservatives here.
Go try to convince someone who isn’t drinking the kool-aid that Obama has more experience than McCain.
If people vote for experience, if they vote for the candidate who has shown over the years that he’ll reach across the aisle and fight his own party to do what he thinks is right for the country, they’ll vote for McCain. Obama simply has no significant amount of experience at anything.
Thanks for stopping by Andy. I appreciate your comments and hope you’ll continue to visit.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:12 am
I think experience is a good thing. If you were looking for someone to operate on your body or to sell your house you would want someone experienced. Being a good president will require some technical skill, knowledge, and ability to win over the opposition to get things accomplished.
I don’t think having “experienced” individuals/advisors can get you the best answers because everyone has their own agendas to further their own personal cause. The last thing I want is for the elected president to have people that I don’t know have direct assess to the his ear and not the public. The current financial crisis best illustrate this. A majority of people on “mainstreet” do not support the bailout and neither do I. But no one is listening to the general public in the White House except some of the Congressional Representative who courageously voted “NO”. The bailout should be designed to be advantageous to the ‘mainstreet’, and once mainstreet is fixed then financial problems will stabilize, not the other way around. Remember, the majority of money on wall street comes from mainstreet (peoples retirement, savings, mutual funds, IRA, 401K, SEP, pension) and large institutional funds (i.e., universities, insurance companies, etc). Moreover, the readjustments and market forces will allow new investors to move things gradually out of this mess and allow new people with bold ideas and money to have the opportunity to make some financial advances in their future, and not the “old money’ crowd that the bailout is going to benefit. The bailout will allow the “old money” crowd to stay financially on top and the majority of people like myself to stay at the bottom foreever.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:09 am
David, thanks for your thoughtful comment and your visit.
Experience is a good thing, but it isn’t as important as ideology. There is a big difference between selling homes or performing surgery and filling a high level executive management position. You don’t need 20 years experience cooking eggs to manage a chain of Denny’s.
My point in this article was to show that Sen. Obama, even without the decades of experience in government McCain has, will be able to efficiently push through his extremely liberal agenda.
If the contest is about experience, McCain is the clear winner. There is no contest. Not only does have over 10 times the experience Obama has, his experience includes actually living and doing the things Obama has only talked about so far, but not demonstrated.
Was Joe Biden being honest when he said of Obama:
“I think he can be ready but right now, I don’t believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.” …and… “I think that I stand by the statement.”
Was he being honest when he said that or do we have a Democrat candidate that will tell us anything to get elected?
As for experience, Biden said: “I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off.”
Joe Biden, the Democrat VP candidate, effectively said the country would be better off with McCain than Obama.
If the Democrat candidate has that much confidence in McCain’s ability and experience, why don’t most other Democrats?
But, I digress.
My only point is, experience isn’t going to be the deciding factor in this election, and lack of it won’t get in the way of pushing a staunchly liberal agenda when making decisions in the Oval Office.
October 5th, 2008 at 1:00 am
Your query: would you rather have an overt experienced Marxist over a covert, inexperienced one. I’d rather have the experienced one because at least the voters would be aware of it and owe the upcoming program to their own stupidity - whatever next? Angry Muslims?
October 5th, 2008 at 6:48 am
Interesting Cassandra. The problem as I see it, as Obama does gain experience, he won’t become necessarily more covert, although he will have more of a track record of Senate votes revealing his agenda.
I’m working on a piece right now about Obama’s religion. As I’ve researched for it, what I see is someone willing to put on any mask to appeal to those he wants to hold power over.
He isn’t stupid.
The voters that elect presidents - the fence sitters in the middle, don’t really have a clue about ideology and political philosophy - they vote for whoever sounds best, who tickles their ears.
The trick is making sure they understand exactly what they’re getting into, but they are gullible when Obama and Biden tell them only the rich will be taxed and they’ll just reap the benefits.
October 27th, 2008 at 3:59 am
I think that obama will make a great difference in the united states because we do not need another bushb in our lives because that will be terrible!