Obama’s got plenty of courage. I don’t see how that can’t be obvious to everyone. This is a shitty time to want to be the President of the United States, the economy is bad, the war isn’t going to be easy to fix. Chances are great whomever lands the job will not be as sucessful as he could wish.
My position on this really boils down to: If a lack of experience produces the sort of person we’ve seen so far, then experience is clearly not all it’s cracked up to be.
Moto, my problem is that you are conflating executive military experience with executive government experience. Executive government experience has long been the acid test of presidential candidates, and the Romney and Huckabee camps were gleefully knocking McCain for his lack of executive experience. I didn’t see anyone claiming McCain had executive experience then.
No, it’s not. The fact that you can’t answer the question- that how the type of experience you think is important somehow makes McCain a good candidate, despite all of his other flaws- simply points out that you don’t actually have a valid reason.
Hey, that’s perfectly alright- it’s completely understandable. Be a man about it, though, and admit it.
The only trouble is, which of McCain’s perspectives on torture to consider? He was against it before he was for it… 
First I do not see people shying away from a discussion on Obama’s experience. Plenty has been said about that which you have largely ignored.
Second care to point out the “moral outrage” being expressed here? I think the outrage stems from you moving the goal posts. Obama has no experience or he has no relevant experience or McCain’s experience is more germane to being president.
You have in no way proven any of that. McCain has been in the senate longer. McCain was a war hero. McCain has military experience. McCain was tortured. All things Obama cannot trump and no one is arguing against those points. What they are arguing against is your presumption that this equates to McCain making a better president.
Yet in no way, shape or form have you remotely proved that case. Indeed the actual evidence we do have on offer here argues against it (or rather argues it is a meaningless metric making him neither good or bad as a president by virtue of that resume). People have asked you for something supporting your assertions but you have dodged those and devolved to calling those who ask for it as members of a personality cult defending Obama.
Yes, there is a sense that “experience” is worth talking about and relevant to the discussion on the candidates. Just seems it should be that way. Obama does have experience as does McCain. Just in different areas. However, as mentioned, history provides us with zero ability to say because a candidate has more years of experience as (say) a legislator that translates into a better president.
My personal experience tells me that the executives I have known have been all over the board and I also can draw no sharp line that would say age or experience or what have you makes a good executive. It seems to come from a more subjective set of personal attributes that is difficult to pin down. You just know it when you see it more than an ability to define it.
I assume you voted for GWB. The irony, it burns.
It cannot possibly be worse.
Oh bull. This “test” you refer to has been nothing more than a rhetorical point brought to bear against candidates lacking such experience by candidates possessing such. And it doesn’t seem like the public buys this argument very often, if at all.
Certainly in 2000 Bush went against an incumbent vice-president (generally seen by the public, however accurately, as on-the-job training) and won.
In 1980 the candidate with less executive experience lost - though he did have some. In 1960 the same thing happened. And in races where the candidate with more executive experience won, it cannot be seen as the deciding factor from what I can see. Far more pressing political issues took priority.
Huh? Do you mean the candidate with more exec experience won (Carter had more than Reagan [including the BIG job] and Nixon had more than Kennedy [if Veep experience really counts]).
Obama has the kind of experience that is needed to clean up the clusterfuck that’s been created in Washington, the US, and the world. He’s experienced in facing problems and foes and working toward a common good. It’s a new world. The tired old crap they’ve been dishing out won’t work anymore. Time to turn the page and and put some fresh eyes on the problems we’re facing. He may not be the answer, but I for one have no interest in a guy who’s experienced in the old song and dance. It’s not working.
Thanks for noticing that. You’re right - in both cases the candidate with more executive experience lost, and this is what I was trying to point out.
Not such an acid test, really, if you think about it. And while I think experience as a whole has to be considered, executive experience might be a thing voters just don’t care about.
For me, the clear point is that last time the Republican party clearly thought McCain was inferior to George Bush (who had no military experience, had never been tortured and turned out to be one of the worst US Presidents ever.)
So McCain is a 71 year old reject. :eek:
Yes, like the “courage” that GWB demonstrated when we joined the National Guard to escape going to Vietnam. (and he didn’t even serve all of that)
I think people on the left are going to vote for candidates on the left, and people on the right are going to vote for candidates on the right, no matter what their shortcomings.
Lack of experience, mediocrity, etc. it doesn’t matter: as long as the candidate has the “correct” positions on the issues that matter (taxes, guns, abortion, foreign policy, etc), the candidate gets a person’s vote.
Some people in the middle may be swayed by, such issues, but I think that the majority of the people will stick with their party’s nominee no matter what.
However, if you do end up voting for someone who was mediocre and a coward (like GWB), who happened to be on the “correct” side of the issues that matter to you, you can’t turn around in the next election and use those “accusations” against the candidate from the other party, since you have demonstrated that they don’t matter to you as much.
Since Shodan is incapable of providing any proof that there is a correlation between “executive experience” and effective leadership, let me post some easily accessible facts.
Top 10 Presidents by 1948 poll: A Lincoln, G Washington, FDR, W Wilson, T Jefferson, A Jackson, T Roosevelt, G Cleveland, J Adams, JK Polk
Top 10 Presidents by 1990 poll: FDR, A Lincoln, T Jefferson, G Washington, T Roosevelt, W Wilson, H Truman, J Madison, A Jackson, JFK
Top 10 Presidents by 2000 poll: G Washington, A Lincoln, FDR, T Jefferson, T Roosevelt, A Jackson, H Truman, R Reagan, D Eisenhower, JK Polk
Bottom 10 Presidents by 1948 poll: WG Harding, US Grant, J Pierce, J Buchanan, Z Taylor, M Filmore, C Coolidge, J Tyler, B Harrison, H Hoover
Bottom 10 Presidents by 1990 poll: WG Harding, A Johnson, J Buchanan, US Grant, F Pierce, WH Harrison, Z Taylor, J Tyler, M Filmore, C Coolidge
Bottom 10 Presidentsy by 2000 poll: J Buchanan, WG Harding, F Pierce, A Johnson, M Filmore, J Tyler, R Nixon, US Grant, Z Taylor, J Carter
The top 10 presidents consist of 15 different men: 1 lieutenant, 1 colonel, 3 generals, 7 governors and 1 secretary of state. Two of them had no prior “executive experience” before (meaning military service and/or elected executive role).
The bottom 10 presidents consist of 14 different men: 1 lieutanant commander, 1 colonel, 3 generals, 1 governor-and-general, 1 lieutenant governor, 4 governors, 1 secretary of state, and 1 vice president (Tyler, who barely counts). One of them had no prior “executive experience” before becoming president (two, if you count Tyler).
The lists look remarkably similar, don’t they?
Well…they didn’t realize what a good knob-polisher McCain could be until he had a chance to kneel before Dubya for eight years.
-Joe
Afraid facts mixed up. It was I who engaged you in post number 24 and then again in post number 30. You did not respond to me until post number 32, in which you declared, bizarrely, that we could not compare McCain’s allegedly vast experience to that of Nixon et al until and unless Obama was running against one of them.
Again, facts mixed up. It was I who challenged you about his experience in post number 33. I am still challenging you. I’m happy to talk about Obama’s experience because it is the kind of experience our country needs — experience with marshalling people toward a common goal of renewal and pride in self. In case no one has informed you, America has a confidence crisis, with more than 70% of Americans believing we’re on the wrong track. We are disrespected the world over, even by people who used to be our friends. One could argue, in fact, that the only kind of leadership that can help us is the kind Obama has.
I believe I have been very critical of Obama. Recall that I said he’d have no hope of becoming president of Libertaria. Meanwhile, it seems to me that you’ve hooked your wagon to St. John the McCain, and that he can do no wrong because he broke his arms in a plane crash when he ejected upside down, and suffered torture at the hands of his captors. I even conceded that he might have a greater capacity for empathy with torture than Obama has.
I would say he wasn’t naive. It is well known that promises of preferential treatment and release are themselves among the very tactics used by torturers. McCain certainly knew it. That’s why, as he wrote in an article for US News & World Report in 1973, he didn’t tell them anything useful until he had been captive for quite some time because he didn’t trust them to give him medical treatment unless he held out. But he finally did tell them that he would give them military information, if they would take him to the hospital. He said that he was taken to the hospital when the Vietnamese learned of his father’s promotion.
He also said that he told them he’d “have to think about it” when they asked if he wanted to go home, and he said he thought about it “for a long time”. It was the Code of Conduct’s prohibition against accepting amnesty or special favor that, according to him, basically made his decision for him. As further explanation, he said he did not want the North Vietnamese (“gooks” as he called them) to have a propoganda tool about class warfare for those left behind. Finally he didn’t trust them to release him until he was in a plane and suddenly forced to sign a statement.
So it was a long deliberative process of weighing pros and cons, and not the image you seem to have in mind of a brave defiant maverick who instantly answered, “No!”.
Me too. What we need right now is the background and experience that Barack Obama has.
Also, let’s talk about negative experience, shall we?
Grandpa’s probably the best qualified family member to make crucial decisions (aside from maybe Grandma) up to point, but beyond that point, you simply don’t want him making the call anymore. At some point, grandpa’s kids–or even his grandkids–are more knowledgable, more aware, more focused, more energetic, more informed, more involved and more able to project into the future than Grandpa, who bases more and more of his decisions on “Well, back in MY day…” even when no one can see any relevance between today’s situation and that of four or five decades ago.
To say nothing of the game of chicken we play in electing doddering old codgers to high office–we dodged a bullet by only a few years (if we dodged it at all) when Reagan’s Alzheimer’s was revealed only shortly after leaving the most powerful office in the world. I’d think very carefully before running that serious risk ever again.
Yeah, yeah, I’m just an Obamabot who’s drunk the kool-aid and worships at the altar of St. Barack. Those caveats aside, the man is utterly brilliant. He’s not even officially the party’s nominee yet, and he has taken the party by the ears and is steering them into being a more streamlined and efficient operation.
Sorry naysayers, but this is exactly the kind of leadership we need in a President.
Thanks - What Exit - for reminding me that there was an OP!
I would respond one of 2 ways.
The first, which I would probably keep to myself, is to suspect the questioner was simply trying to suggest McCain is more qualified to be president because he is older, and has been a congressman for much longer than Obama, rather than honestly suggesting that some specific type of job experience is especially significant in deciding who to vote for.
I would be more likely to ask the questioner to clarify exactly what they mean by experience, why they believe that type of experience will translate to a better pres, and how important they consider that type of experience compared to a long list of other relevant characteristics. Because - as our (ahem) discussion so far clearly illustrates - folks are easily capable of talking past each other if they do not both agree to define terms consistently and then stick with those terms.
As an initial matter, I’d observe that McCain has no more “executive experience” than Obama. If they chose to bring up McCain’s military experience, I’d counter with Obama’s community activism and his campaign. But I wouldn’t expect to win this argument because - as I noted - I’d say neither of them has considerable experience that is directly applicable to the job of Pres.
Then I might observe that in the past “executive” experience - in terms of governor/VP/executive branch service - hasn’t seemed to have translated into our best presidents. I’d like my questioner to explain that, and why he now believes experience so important.
I could imagine offering that a lengthy career as a DC insider might not be exactly the greatest factor I desire in a candidate.
I’d probably note that McCain has more of most kinds of experience than Obama, just because he is a quarter-century older. But personally I don’t plan on simply voting for the older candidate.
But most of all, I’d try to get across that the suggestion that Obama lacks “experience” is a relatively silly charge, made by partisan individuals who wish to oversimplify complex issues into easily digested soundbites. Of course, if my questioner is one such person, than he wouldn’t be very receptive to such thinking, and I probably wouldn’t waste my time trying to convince him otherwise.