Does "experience" matter? A Nick Kristof column

By: teacherken
Published On: 1/20/2008 9:06:55 AM

crossposted from Daily Kos at the suggestion of Lowell 

To put it another way, think which politician is most experienced today in the classic sense, and thus — according to the “experience” camp — best qualified to become the next president.

That’s Dick Cheney. And I rest my case.
That is how Nicholas Kristof ends his NY Times column today, a piece entitled Hillary, Barack, Experience.    It is an exceedingly well-written column, and quite pointed in its examples and its remarks.  I am going to explore it a bit below the fold, although you might simply want to skip the rest of the diary and just read Kristof.   After all, I have already given away his conclusion.


As one might expect, Kristof begins with the example of Lincoln, and to set the stage appropriately offers a quote from a candidate who dismissed the importance of Washington experience, that being our 42nd president, who happens to have been named Clinton, who ran against an incumbent President Bush who
aired a television commercial urging voters to keep America “in the hands of experience.”
   But Kristof does not stop there, choosing instead to offer us a broader sweep of history:
Looking at the 19 presidents since 1900, three of the greatest were among those with the fewest years in electoral politics. Teddy Roosevelt had been a governor for two years and vice president for six months; Woodrow Wilson, a governor for just two years; and Franklin Roosevelt, a governor for four years. None ever served in Congress.
   One might disagree with his inclusion of Wilson in that triumverate.  I certainly think a case can be made that Truman is at least his equal, but perhaps I do so because of the issue of race, contrasting Wilson's resegregating of the national capital and his unbelieveable endorsement of the movie "Birth of a Nation" (based on a book entitled The Klansmans) as good history versus Truman desegregating the military by executive order.   Kristof goes further dismissing the idea of the need for running something more than a Senate office as not being a Democratic talking point since the candidates with the most executive experience are named Huckabee, Romney and Giuliani.

Kristof then examines the other side of the historical coin:
Alternatively, look at the five presidents since 1900 with perhaps the most political experience when taking office: William McKinley, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. They had great technical skills — but not one was among our very greatest presidents.
  He then goes on to explore individual experiences and what it bring to the table:

McCain's experiences as a prisoner of war gives him an insight and moral authority to speak about torture
   

Obama's experience as a community organizer give him insight on how to address the ongoing issue of poverty, and the ideas he offers are rooted in that experience  His overseas living gives him a valued perspective, and even his time in the Illinois legislature offers a record of some important achievements.

In one paragraph, Kristof praises all three Democrats:
Mrs. Clinton’s strength is her mastery of the details of domestic and foreign policy, unrivaled among the candidates; she speaks fluently about what to do in Pakistan, Iraq, Darfur. Mr. Obama’s strength is his vision and charisma and the possibility that his election would heal divisions at home and around the world. John Edwards’s strength is his common touch and his leadership among the candidates in establishing detailed positions on health care, poverty and foreign aid.
   He acknowledges that there are real differences among the three, bu describes Clinton's claim of 35 years of experience as "spurious," following that by pointing out that the real experience in the Democratic field was Richardson, Dodd, and Biden, now all gone.   And then, just before the final lines which I used to begin this diary, he offers a real caution, which in light of yesterday's results might be a point to consider:
And the presidential candidate left standing with the greatest experience by far is Mr. McCain; if Mrs. Clinton believes that’s the criterion for selecting the next president, she might consider backing him.


Experience can be beneficial, but only if one truly learns from it.   After all, we used to have a politician who would regularly remind us that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result was an indication of insanity.  While the phrase was not original to him, it is something we do associate with our 42nd president, William Jefferson Clinton.  

I look to a somewhat mixed set of criteria.  What is the experience, and how is it applied? What is the judgment offered by the candidate?  When the candidate was wrong in previous judgments, what indication is there that s/he has learned from it?  I do not expect perfect judgment.  How does the candidate balance the political reality with the desire to achieve that which is correct, to inspire us to change the current political reality so meaningful reform is possible?


Those are some of my questions.  I look at how a campaign is run, what the candidate says, with whom the candidate associates and uses as key staffers and surrogates.   I still am neutral, attempting to use my opportunities to communicate to help enlighten and clarify not only for myself but for others who are still undecided.   I accept that Kristof's article tends to be more favorable to Obama, but it does so in a fashion that I think illuminates without necessarily harshly criticizing either Edwards or Clinton, although in the latter case he has some points to make.

I am curious if those who are partisans of one or the other, between obama and Clinton, can read the entire column before they choose to respond, or if our discourse has now so disintegrated that civil discourse across the lines of support is impossible.

I think it is useful column.  I wonder what you think?


Peace.

Comments



my tip jar at big Orange said I expect I will be flamed for this (teacherken - 1/20/2008 9:08:01 AM)
(here's the rest of that tip jar:)

and accused of attacking Clinton or advocating for Obama.  I am doing neither, nor am I ignoring Edwards.    I repeat again the one paragraph from the article:

Mrs. Clinton's strength is her mastery of the details of domestic and foreign policy, unrivaled among the candidates; she speaks fluently about what to do in Pakistan, Iraq, Darfur. Mr. Obama's strength is his vision and charisma and the possibility that his election would heal divisions at home and around the world. John Edwards's strength is his common touch and his leadership among the candidates in establishing detailed positions on health care, poverty and foreign aid.

All of our candidates have their strengths.  I would wish they could advocate for their candidacies by focusing on these rather than they - or their surrogates - denigrating their opponents.   I apply that desire to all three campaigns.  Accept what I say or not, but I believe I have been consistent on asking for a different tone, both when discussing the presidential primary process and in our other exchanges among ourselves.

Peace.