If I had a few million military historians and put them through an elaborate vetting process and kept the ones who were particularly driven and ambitious… yeah, I could probably get one effective general out of them. Of course, he doesn’t have to “generalize” in a vacuum - if he’s smart, he builds a staff of smart people to help him.
Please let Rand Paul run. Please let Rand Paul run. Please let Rand Paul run. Please let Rand Paul run. Please let Rand Paul run. Please let Rand Paul run. Please let Rand Paul run.
No you wouldn’t, because even if such a person does exist, you’re not going to find him. People with savant-like qualities aren’t generally good at convincing people to pick them, and that’s what we’re talking about if we’re talking about someone who can do something amazingly well just by reading about it a lot.
We’ve seen precisely this scenario already. A bunch of Ivy League geniuses decided to micromanage a war in the 60s and failed miserably. Their theories in domestic policy didn’t go as they expected either. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, had an excellent grasp of what was possible, how to make things work properly, and how to prioritize his time. Even Jimmy Carter, a terrible President, wasn’t incompetent on the domestic front due to his experience as both a businessman and a governor. His most enduring positive legacies are his domestic policies.
Governors are simply a better bet than hoping that your junior Senator that says all the things you want to hear has what it takes. We keep on hearing about how Obama can’t get the important stuff done because of Republican intransigence. Yet Clinton did just fine. That’s because Clinton understood diplomacy and governance. Obama understands neither. He’s an activist and remains nothing more than an activist. He does have many of the raw qualities of good leadership, an analytic mind, the ability to get people to follow him, the ability to inspire, and yes, his academic background, which is an asset when combined with tangible experience. But he was elevated too fast. He also lacks any kind of ability to make friends. Clinton had warmth, as did Reagan. Is there any world leader that Obama is close to? That same coldness permeates everything he tries to accomplish with Republicans, and he blows it with them even more by giving partisan speeches in public while negotiating with them in private.
So, you think, for instance, that Hillary Clinton had no chance of ascending to the Presidency?
You don’t remember Vince Foster? Being impeached for lying about an affair?(When Gingrich was having an affair of his own at the time). Whitewater?
It was obvious the GOP was not going to work with Obama even before the election. Muslim? Terrorist fist-bump?
Hillary Clinton was a co-governor, co-President, and Secretary of State. It’s something that no one comes out and says, but it’s understood. When people refer to her experience, they aren’t referring to her unremarkable Senate tenure.
Woodrow Wilson was a governor and while President he imposed a fascist state. It’s true. Look it up. I mean, look up. To post #217.
Governors are always better. Except when they’re worse. It’s a rigged game that allows adaher to never lose.
Maybe the mods need to move this thread into the Game Room. Set some rules so that the rest of us can play.
Clinton and Gingrich has a good personal relationship that enabled deals to be struck. Their relationship was so good that their handlers couldn’t leave them unsupervised for fear they’d strike deals that were TOO big.
It was far from obvious that the GOP wouldn’t work with Obama, in fact, right after his election they had nothing but nice things to say about him. Things started off nicely, with a meeting between Obama and the Republicans, where they threw around some ideas for dealing with the recession. After an exchange of ideas, Obama’s attitude was, “Yeah, those are nice ideas, but let’s not forget, I won.” Which told Republicans clearly that they weren’t going to have much real input. Obama’s speeches in the days and weeks after continued to remind Republicans that they weren’t going to be allowed to drive the truck, since they drove it into the ditch.
Now an argument can be made that everything Obama said in those early days was justified. But he chose the path of my way or the highway and that was the end of it. When he genuinely works with Republicans on issues of common ground, things get done. On most issues he’d rather just demagogue.
That doesn’t mean that all governors are good. See, the nice thing about governors is that you can see how well they govern. Most governors don’t surprise once in the Presidency. They do pretty much what they did as governor. Bill Clinton was almost exactly the same, even managed to have the same scandals. On a more serious note, he also reacted to electoral defeat by acknowledging what he did wrong and changing.
But a Senator, or worse, a Senator who has never done anything else, you’d do just as well grabbing a random person out of the phone book. I would seriously take a good liberal blogger like Matt Yglesias as President than a career legislator.
Right. Obviously Obama should be more like John Boehner - who has complete control of the Republicans in his caucus.
There is a solution. Require all Speakers of the House to have been Governors first. That way they’d be better legislators.
You’re digging yourself a hole that is impossible to extricate yourself from. The notion that governors make better presidents is one frequently flung into the discussion. But it cannot be defended without first deciding who the better presidents are and then making excuses for all bad presidents who were first governors and for all good presidents who were never governors. Wilson was a governor. Bush II - who is the worst modern president - was a governor. Reagan - who set the country up for economic collapse - was a governor. Bush I - who was a good president who had the misfortune to preside over and be blamed for the period of the inevitable economic collapse that was Reagan’s legacy - was never a governor. Carter was a governor and it would be a thing of beauty to read your defense of him. Along with your take-down of non-governor Nixon.
I’m sure I’ll see those just as soon as I see your cite on the Republicans “saying nothing but good things about” Obama until the horrid little man hurt their feelings.
I take it you wish to do away with Senate approval of presidential nominations? Hard to hold the POTUS accountable for his appointees when he can’t freely select them, innit?
Are you saying they didn’t? When Bush won by a slimmer margin, he saw it as a mandate.
He was elected to do certain things the electorate wanted, things Republicans opposed even though they thought of them first.
I’m not going to claim that just elevating a governor is guaranteed to bring success, but there’s a reason very few Senators in the era of Big Government have become Presidents. Now maybe in the age when the government was small, anyone with good instincts could have run it. But nowadays it’s strictly a job for those with experience in running large organizations. And that experience has to involve actual successes. I wouldn’t want my own governor, Rick Scott, in the White House, but Mitch Daniels was one of the best governors in the country. It would be incredible if he ascended to the Presidency and failed given his proven skills.
It’s not hurt feelings, and BTW you can read any insider book that is satisfactorily non-partisan to you and you’ll get the story of who said what and when. The “I won” comment was national news when it happened. It’s not hurt feelings, it’s the attitude of “my way or the highway”, and “I’m listening, but since I won, your input will only be considered”. The Republican victories didn’t change much. There was a chance for a new beginning, and the two sides had another few meetings that seemed to go well. Then, just as Boehner, Ryan, and Cantor thought they were close to a deal, Obama gave a speech, with them invited and sitting in the front row, that attacked them. His aides had to apologize to them up and down and insist they never knew that was what he was going to do. It’s the shittiest diplomacy ever.
He selects them just fine, he just doesn’t always get his first choices, usually because they have demonstrated lack of respect for the law. He likes to pick activists like himself. Rule of men, instead of rule of law.
That’s utter nonsense.
How is passing laws that were originally written by Republicans, and then making them even more conservative because that’s not good enough for the Congress that’s made his failure their number one priority, “my way or the highway”?
Except for five of the last nine. (Ford doesn’t count.)
Being a general or a president doesn’t require savant-like qualities.
Besides, I don’t have to go on some exhaustive search. I have a large pool to start from and the ones who want the job will step up.
Funny, I seem to recall the next president, also a former governor, wanting to undo a lot of what Carter did on the domestic front.
Obama-Senator
GWB-Governor
Clinton-Governor
Bush 41-VP, CIA director, UN rep
Reagan-Governor
Carter-Governor
Nixon-VP
LBJ-Senator, VP
Kennedy-Senator
Eisenhower-general
Truman-Senator, VP
FDR-Governor, Naval secretary
I count only four of the 11 post-New Deal Presidents as Senators, and Obama is the only one to lack other relevant experience, like military(Kennedy) or business experience.
Obama went from the ivory tower, to community activism, to state legislature, to federal legislature, to the Presidency. At no point did he acquire any leadership or management skills.
It does if you haven’t gained the necessary experience first. Bill Clinton writes about how much he learned from his failed first term as governor. If he’d never had that experience, it’s doubtful he would have been a good President. what he learned from that first repudiation enabled him to rebound from his second at the federal level.
Much as with a general, the armchair generals who want the job are the last people you’d want to hire. All the worse to hire an armchair Commander-in-Chief.
Not deregulation, which was the most useful thing he did, or his fed philosophy, which has been mostly unchanged since the appointment of Volcker.