Hillary was asked about the general message of this ad in the last debate. Her answer was particularly unmemorable. She was dismissive of the charge while citing her 35 years of experience in public service. So far, so good.
But wait, she said 35 years of public service. I haven't seem a time line, but this seems like a stretch. She's 60 now, so one would expect her public service to more or less go back to when she was ~25. She graduated from law school until she was 26. Is she counting her tenure at Rose Law Firm as public service? Is she counting her service on corporate boards like WalMart? The number she cited doesn't seem like it can possibly be defensible.
Does anyone else find it curious how big the disparity of experience is between the three front runners and the next three guys? Doesn’t it seem like this should matter to some people?
In terms of elected office, Hillary has served one term and change in the U.S. Senate. Senator Edwards served only one term in the Senate. Senator Obama announced his candidacy for President after serving only two years in the U.S. Senate (though he did serve approximately 8 years in the State Senate).
Now compare these three, even added together, with the dark horse candidates:
Joe Biden has been a U.S. Senator since 1973 (he was only 29 when elected). He is one of the Senate’s most sophisticated foreign policy thinkers, and was one of the leading contenders to be Secretary of State had Kerry won in 2004.
Chris Dodd has been in Congress since 1975 and in the Senate since 1981. He chairs the powerful Finance Committee and has been one of the most powerful Democratic members for several terms.
Bill Richardson is arguably the most qualified in the Democratic field. Since 1982 he served in Congress, as Ambassador to the U.N., as Secretary of Energy, and now as Governor of New Mexico. It’s hard to imagine a better resume.
Her opponents fear that any attack on Hillary's experience will spun as sexism. They are afraid the Hillary Clinton Industrial Complex will paint any attack on her experience as a statement that "being a first lady, and a wife and a mother isn't important." Still, thirty five years seems a bit like overreaching.
No. Experience does not matter. Obama is fond of emphasizing judgment over experience. This is understandable given his position, but I think there is a lot of truth to it. There are two main reasons I would advance why experience does not matter.
First, the job functions of the presidency are not ones to which experience would lend much capability. The presidency is not about being an effective administrator. It is about making decisions based on complex sets of factors. The returns of say, critical thinking, would therefore be much more than simply having done it before. After all, it is very possible that all experience means is that a person has done something over and over again badly. I cite by way of example our current president. By any measure, he is highly experienced. A former governor of a major state that has been president now for six years should be a capable leader at this point. Has that happened?
Second, Washington is a strange place that develops its own rules completely separate from how the rest of reality works. It is an echo chamber of self-reinforcing misconceptions about everything, aided by large sums of money that are there to see to it that those misconceptions continue. I would cite by way of evidence how the Washington conventional wisdom, radiating to those who travel in political circles outside of Washington, was totally and completely wrong about Iraq. Thus, it seems, that while one may gain some wisdom from having been around the block, one risks in this environment not only morality, but the quality of one’s critical reasoning skills. So, in conclusion, no. Experience does not really matter all that much.
I think experience should matter, but in the dem primary it doesnt. Experience informs good decision making, and a record of performing under pressure speaks to a candidate's capacity to lead.
It is troubling that we know so little about Hillary's experience, compared to her opponents.
I think some of the best experience somebody could have for the presidency is being first lady, at least the sort of active first lady that Hillary was. Why don't you think that should count?
Being first lady is not among the best experience someone could have for being president. Try things like: 1) being a CEO of a major corporation; 2) being a successful political leader for long enough that you know how to forge compromise and sell ideas to the people; 3) a Secretary of State or long time foreign affairs expert; 4) a senior counselor to the president or white house chief of staff; 5) President of the screen actors guild :)
Sure, she knows what the lifestyle demands are, and has many connections with foreign leaders, but she wasn't ultimately accountable, and while she was a trusted advisor, she wasn't the one who had to make the big decisions.
It's not a question of if it counts, but how much it counts. I think this experience is of much less value to the American people then other forms of political leadership.
Apart from her failed health care initiative, most Americans don't know what exactly she was doing as first lady. We know she was active, but we don't know many of the specifics.
Don't you think it's likely that relations between the two got pretty icey during the Clinton president?
The Clinton's did request to keep information on her involvement covered up until 2012 - so in part they don't want us to know what her role was.
Her opponents, or at least some of them, have a long history of established positions on certain issues. Being a first lady doesn't require you to take numerous policy stands.
Do you think Jackie Kennedy was more qualified to be President than Lyndon Johnson? Was Barbara Bush as competent as George H.W. Bush b/c she married him, even though she was never VP or head of the CIA? I heard one person put it in a way that's a little ridiculous, "I wouldn't want some lady working on my car just because she married a mechanic."
The level at which she was active in Bill's presidency (and we know she was) makes me confident that she could step into the role of President with relative ease. That's all. You're right that it's worrisome how they want to cover her involvement up, and that it isn't the type of experience that presents us with a clear record of where she has stood on issues. But those are issues that ought to be separated from "experience" per se. When I worry about experience, I worry about whether the candidate will be able to step into office and effectively do the job from day one. I just don't see that being a concern with Hillary. I see plenty of other things being a concern with Hillary, just not that.
Criticizing Obama and Edwards for a lack of experience makes a lot more sense to me, and that's coming from an Obama supporter. If Obama is sworn into office in January of 2009, he will be doing so after being swept into national politics far more quickly than anybody, including himself, ever could have guessed. If I didn't think that he is as smart and as capable as I think he is, his lack of experience would be of concern to me. But I just don't have that same worry with Hillary.
Where's Tom's post about the latest Ron Paul money bomb?
oh and check out the polls. rudy leading every dem?
I don't know if you would go with ahead, as it is now within margin of error for Clinton and Obama.
The bigger deal is that for the big three republicans (Giuliani, McCain, and Thompson) all three are within the margin of error with Clinton, while Obama and Edwards have a more sizable lead on McCain and Thompson. Did last week's debate hurt her that much?
Sorry I'm late, Kofi, I was off sending Dr. Paul my $50. Happy Guy Fawkes Day, everyone!!!
I heard from the local Paul headquarters that the donation rate right now is running about $130k per hour on the drive. If this holds through the day, that'd give the campaign a total of 3.12 million for the day and put the total warchest up to 6.4 million of the $12 million desired by the end of the year. It's possible that the number of dollars raised today could go even higher, since today's averages so far have included the early-morning hours.
Augur, if Paul gets 3.5 million today, how close would that get him to second place in fundraising from his current position as third?
Rudy leading the Dems in polls doesn't matter right now because in my opinion, he cannot get the Republican nomination. I'm back to expecting Romney.
As far as Hillary goes:
The American people in the past fifty years seem to favor executive experience over almost anything else when choosing a President of the US. (This could be a selection effect in that there could be something heavily pushing executive types towards winning the nominations in the first place.)
As a matter of fact, there hasn't been a non-governor, non-VP president elected since John Kennedy in 1960.
Now, the big question seems to be whether or not being a mayor or a first lady provides enough executive experience to be considered properly vetted for the job. Conventional wisdom would be that Romney would win in '08, but brushfire wars in Afganistan, Turkey and Pakistan alone (plus the high pump prices that they'll bring) will preclude any Republican except Paul beating a Democrat.
Hillary's victory will make Reagan's in 1980 seem like a cakewalk.
Tom
Unless Hillary absorbed her husband's experience through osmosis or is really trying to run as Bill Clinton with channeling himself through a vajayjay she has about 7 years of real experience. All of her arguments that she has experience annoy me to no end.
Just found out something interesting....
Raising the money on the 'Net today cost the Ron Paul campaign exactly zero dollars.
The entire fundraising scheme was done by a bunch of independent Net dudes at Ron Paul Forum.
Hmphf, I wonder what would happen if the campaign actually worked on raising money?
Tom
did you consider the use of the word intern in romney's quote to be a deft touch? totally unnecessary and not even logically supported, but just a clear reminder of clinton's past
Does experience matter?
Not to me.
Tet,
You will be pleased to hear that I also just made a small contribution to Ron Paul.
I still think he's a bit of a loon, but at least he's not the wild-eyed UFO seeing kind of loons the Dems have. Anyways, as the only libertarian in the race, I felt a moral obligation to lend some support.
That's great, Alan. I hear that 40,000 of our closest friends also threw in an average of $100/each.
I'm having a discussion with Augur in email over what yesterday's fund raising bonanza will mean.
Considering that Dr. Paul now has more cash on hand than either Giuliani or Romney, it will be interesting to see what he does with it. I found out the interesting fact that the average presidential fund-raising campaign costs between 50 and 80 cents for every dollar raised. This $4 million plus from yesterday cost Dr. Paul nothing but the transaction fees.
Tom
Please enjoy an article I have written on this topic called "Experience Matters!"
http://nycivic.org/articles07/Bison/071231B.htm
Thanks,
Michael Oliva