# Obama supporters, answer his lack of experience **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 12, 2008, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661 "2008-06-12T06:19:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661/161 "2008-06-23T13:57:49Z")
[QUOTE=Fear Itself] The experience issue cuts both ways. I think McCain’s military experience is a serious handicap he will have to address. Many people will regard his diplomatic toolkit as consisting of just a hammer, which makes all problems look like a nail. That, and his single solution for all economic problems seems to be tax cuts. [/QUOTE] Umm…yeah. That’s been the only tool in the Republican Economic Toolbox for quite some time. They cure EVERYTHING. See that good thing that happened? Tax cut. See that bad thing? Lack of tax cuts. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661/162 "2008-06-23T14:03:47Z")
Now, Joe, be fair – there’s also the insidious, perfidious oozing of teh gay into the nation’s precious bodily fluids that’s to blame, too. ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661/163 "2008-06-23T14:05:10Z")
[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy] Now, Joe, be fair – there’s also the insidious, perfidious oozing of teh gay into the nation’s precious bodily fluids that’s to blame, too. [/QUOTE] Come now, **ETF** , a little Tax Cut will get rid of that bad attitude. How about I give your boss an 8% cut? Surely that will turn that frown upside down. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661/164 "2008-06-23T14:11:16Z")
[QUOTE=TequilaSunrise] I don’t think it’s fair to call anyone who manages to become US President an idiot, really. [/QUOTE] Where have you **been** the past seven years?! ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661/165 "2008-06-23T14:28:37Z")
[QUOTE=Merijeek] Come now, **ETF** , a little Tax Cut will get rid of that bad attitude. How about I give your boss an 8% cut? Surely that will turn that frown upside down. -Joe [/QUOTE] And what do I get? A paper cut? :mad: ---
**Author:** ![stolichnaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bcef8e/32.png) [@stolichnaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stolichnaya)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661/166 "2008-06-23T14:30:19Z")
Just sit back and relax and prepare to get trickled on. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2008, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661/167 "2008-06-23T14:39:13Z")
[QUOTE=TequilaSunrise] I don’t think it’s fair to call anyone who manages to become US President an idiot, really. They’ve managed to become the Leader of the Free World ™, which is far more than I’ve ever accomplished. [/QUOTE] I agree, Criminally negligent and corrupt is more accurate. Self absorbed to the point of delusional denial perhaps. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2008, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661/168 "2008-06-24T17:08:06Z")
This week’s [Newsweek](http://www.newsweek.com/id/142892) has a guest editorial by the executive editor of “Governing” magazine that contrasts the relative value of time in the trenches of a state legislature versus time in the ivory tower of the US Senate: > [@Alan Ehrenhalt](#): > > We are in the opening days of a presidential campaign that pits youth against age, the virtues of experience against the freshness and riskiness of the new arrival. > > I’m not here to refute all of that: John McCain is 25 years older than Barack Obama, and he always will be. But here’s something I bet you didn’t know: If Obama becomes president, he will have spent more time serving as a state legislator (eight years) than anyone who has occupied the White House since Abraham Lincoln. > > You’re thinking that’s kind of irrelevant. John McCain has been a member of the U.S. Senate since 1986; do I really mean to suggest that Obama’s eight years in the Illinois Senate (not the most august deliberative body, as anyone who has seen it will attest) provide the same preparation for the presidency? Well, not exactly. But looking back on quite a few years covering Congress, and an almost equal number of years following legislatures, I’m drawn to some slightly curmudgeonly comments about what it is that U.S. senators do, and what it is that state legislators do. > > Twenty-first century U.S. senators are, virtually by the nature of the job, gadflies. They flit from one issue to another, generally developing little expertise on any of them; devote a large portion of their day to press conferences and other publicity opportunities; follow a daily schedule printed on a 3x5 card that a member of their staff has prepared; depend even more heavily on staff for detailed and time-consuming legislative negotiation that they are too busy to attend; and develop few close relationships with colleagues, nearly all of whom are as busy as they are. > > … > > By contrast, what do state legislators do? … At their best, they keep all the state’s significant issues in mind; it is possible to do that in a state legislature in a way that is not possible in Washington. During the years that Obama served in Springfield, 1997-2005, he was forced to wrestle with the minutiae of health-care policy, utility deregulation, transportation funding, school aid, and a host of other issues that are vitally important to America’s coming years, but that U.S. senators are usually able to dispose of with a quick once-over. State legislators have to do this largely on their own, without ubiquitous staff guidance, because staffing is not lavish even in the more professional state capitols. They enter into day-to-day bargaining relationships over the details of legislation with colleagues of both parties; there is no one else to do it for them. > > … > > And perhaps most important, there is simply more personal contact across the aisle than there is in Congress. Legislatures have grown more partisan in the past decade, as all of American politics has. But in most state capitols, the wall of partisan separation is nowhere near as high as it is in Washington. When Obama was in the Illinois Senate, he was obligated to sit down in a small room day after day with his Republican counterparts and work out the details of legislation expanding health-care coverage and revising campaign-finance law. > > … > > But for a smart, curious and hard-working young legislator–for a Barack Obama in the Illinois Senate-can we be so sure that the skill set picked up over eight years in a state Capitol is inferior as presidential preparation to two decades in the pompous, cordoned-off environment of the U.S. Senate? I seriously doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661/169 "2008-06-24T17:19:54Z")
Heh. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying all along. I’m glad to see someone in the “mainstream” is finally picking up on this aspect of his experience and the benefit it will be. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2008, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661/170 "2008-06-25T01:27:32Z")
[QUOTE=Shayna] Heh. That’s exactly what I’ve been saying all along. I’m glad to see someone in the “mainstream” is finally picking up on this aspect of his experience and the benefit it will be. [/QUOTE] IMO intent has sooo much to do with how well experience works for the individual and then for those he represents. If your intent as a community organizer is to bring diverse pepole and resources together to solve real problems for average citizens and it turns out you’re dam good at it, how might that translate into a POTUS that truly intends to solve real problems? Couldn’t that experience be equally or even more valuable to years in the Senate with a very different intention? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-supporters-answer-his-lack-of-experience/452661.md?page=8)