Help Wanted. Experience Necessary?
In any single metric comparison you get an unenlightening result.
Though raised by Hillary Clinton to slam Barack Obama, John McCain "wins" the experience contest. He, quite simply has been around longer in public life.
I have 21 years of experience as a lawyer; but, that doesn't tell you a thing. There are lawyers around with less and more experience that are better and worse than I am.
Let's add a factor. Experience as an indicator of ability to defend our country, and for drama who's best at 3:00 a.m. Here you have to go beyond time in grade and judge what the contestant was doing while gaining the experience. Put differently, does the contestant's background indicate that he or she will make a good decision at 3:00 a.m. in the morning?
Looking at the contestants on stage, the winner is less clear. All are Senators, a collaborative position. None have spent any time as an executive charged with real time decision making. As far as exposure to foreign affairs and defense matters, McCain would appear to be the winner, with Clinton trailing by a good bit and Obama even further in the rear.
Next you get to what their time and exposure to the issues has led them to conclude. For our purposes, let's look at their views on Iraq. McCain plans to stay the course and "win." Clinton and Obama favor varying plans of withdrawal over a shorter period of time.
On this test there is no objective winner. We have to use our subjective views of the issue to choose a winner. If you like the Iraq war, think there is a chance of winning it, stabilizing the region, improving our security by being there, McCain's your winner. If you never liked the war, came to believe it was a bad idea, have no idea what "winning" it means, view the region as inherently unstable and not tied to our security interests, your winner is? Clinton or Obama; but then you're back to using another metric. Which do you think will do a better job of withdrawal and which do you think will deal with the resulting situation in the region better? Or, does the last question throw McCain back in to the race based on the "we're in a mess, what can be salvaged" line of thinking?
We can play this game, adding factors until November. But we won't be helped by the contestants. They will continue their single word and pithy sound-bite campaigning. Experience! Change! False Promises! In the end, for better or worse, we will go with our guts feelings about them.
3 comments:
A political resume isn't everything. Character matters. Being an intelligent, capable leader matters. Case in point: Abraham Lincoln's political experience prior to being elected president. He served 4 terms as an IL state representative and 1 term in the US House of Representatives. He ran for US Senate and was not elected to that post. In today's environment, he would have a terrible time trying to convince voters to give him a chance. He turned out to be one of the nation's best presidents.
Go with your gut, whatever that tells you. That's my advice.
Most people either either walk away from complex problems or solve them by intuition. At least, that's what my gut tells me.
When it comes to the call at 3 a.m., nobody answers it by themselves. A president has plenty of qualified help to provide facts and options.
The quality I look for in a "crisis manager" is someone who stays cool and collected when everyone else is yelling "the sky is falling." We need someone who doesn't act unless they really need to act, since you can never take back a completed act but you can always change your mind about a contemplated act.
McCain has a short fuse. Hillary needs to prove she wears long pants. Obama will be calm and purposeful, and will look farther down the road than the next day or two. Their campaigns say a lot about how they would handle the job of president.
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