Thursday, January 04, 2007

Clinton and "Experience"


Edwards served one term in the US Senate and left.











Charlie said...

I remember Reagan's line in his debate with Walter Mondale in 1984: "...I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."

The word "experience" is often used in political rhetoric to imply "youth and immaturity" in your opponent. Hillary has to differentiate herself in some way from the others. She's been around longer than either of them, which counts as experience in the language of politics, I guess.

None of the Democrat contenders have the experience of John McCain or Mitt Romney or Rudy Giuliani, so it will make for an interesting match-up if, for instance, Obama ends up running against McCain.

An interesting post, Mark. Thanks!

Mark Daniels said...

You mention the experience of the three Republican frontrunners, Charlie. That's sort of interesting.

Only Romney has experience as a governor, which belaboring a point I've made many times before, is the gold standard of US presidential politics. However, that gubernatorial advantage may be somewhat mitigated in Romney's case.

No doubt for fear of almost certain defeat, he decided not to run for a second term in Massachusetts. (This is similar to Edwards' decision not to seek re-election in NC, where he would likely have been clobbered in 2000.)

As to the other two GOP frontrunners: McCain has no executive experience.

And in the case of Giuliani, Americans have never counted mayoral experience without the benefit of subsequently holding higher office as sufficient credentialing to be President.

(Off the top of my head, the only President I can think of who was a mayor was Grover Cleveland, who held the office in Buffalo after being sheriff of Erie County. I'm sure there must have been more former mayors who became President, but I can't think of any more. I'll have to look into that.)

It appears that whatever we all collectively decide in 2008, we're apt to break some precedents.

I'm not convinced that the apparent frontrunners in either party will be the nominees, though.