Only In America
Only in America can a person go from being a relatively obscure state senator to the leading candidate to become the presidential nominee of a major party in just three years.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Obama and will vote for him if he is nominated. I agree with his positions on most issues and find him appealing and authentic, a refreshing break from the far too cautious, overly scripted nominees the democrats have run the past two elections. He may actually have the communication skills to convince people that things like a progressive income tax and improved access to health care are not part of a socialist plot to take over America but are actually in their interest. Who knows?
But, forgive me my skepticism, isn’t being President a tough job? After all, when the campaigning is finished, it will be the next President who will have to resolve the awful mess we’ve created in Iraq; who will be charged with managing a complicated and dangerous withdrawal from that country that could very well explode into deadly sectarian violence; who will have to deal with a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and an increasingly unstable Pakistan; who will face an increasingly nationalist Russia as well as an emergent China; who will face stiff opposition from entrenched interests both in his party and the opposition that will fight any effort to reform our health care system and to enact his agenda. And who will do all of this while having his every word and action examined with the scrutiny of an electron microscope.
Nothing in Barack Obama’s past counts as relevant preparation for these challenges.
Now, I don’t buy the Clinton line that Obama is all style and no substance. His positions on the issues are as detailed as one would expect from a candidate. No more or less detailed than those of Clinton. That’s why Clinton’s attacks this week have fallen flat. You want specifics, Obama says. I’ll give you specifics. But this misses the point. Any politician can come up with detailed position papers setting forth his or her plans. Having positions, though, is not the same as achieving results.
This is why Bill Clinton famously, if ineptly, said a vote for Obama is a roll of the dice. It’s also the line of attack we are beginning to see coming from John McCain. The other night on Hardball, even Chris Matthews, whose coverage of Obama has verged on hero worship, asked Texas State Sen. Kirk Watson, an Obama supporter, to name a single noteworthy legislative accomplishment of Obama’s. The question was followed by an uncomfortable silence before Watson muttered some vague generalities about his ability to bring people together. http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?last_story=/politics/war_room/2008/02/20/clinton_speech/&source=refresh&source=refresh
Perhaps Hillary Clinton is not the best vessel to deliver this attack. After all, as Barack himself pointed out, it’s not as though she was Secretary of the Treasury in Bill’s administration. But fairly or not, she can take some credit for being part of what most Americans still believe was a successful administration. With national security and the economy likely to dominate in November, she cannot be fairly portrayed as a novice. (Hillary’s negatives, of which we are all familiar, also make her too a less-than-ideal candidate, but that’s a story for another day).
Obama supporters have come up with some responses to the experience question, most of which are unpersuasive. Please don’t tell me George Bush had less foreign policy experience when he became President. Look what happened there. Comparisons to Bill Clinton are also inapt. Unlike State Senator Obama, Bill Clinton had been elected governor numerous times and had been a key player in Democratic Party circles. Moreover, the first two years of his Presidency couldn’t fairly be characterized as a rousing success. As for the comparisons to JFK and Lincoln, those are fairly absurd, as the historian Sean Wilentz demonstrated. (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-wilentz26jan26,0,5561702.story)
The best thing Obama has going for him is his claim that good judgment trumps experience – as his early opposition to the war shows. Whether that plays as well in the general election as with a Democratic primary electorate infuriated over its own leaders’ inability to stop Bush’s war remains to be seen.
Whichever Democrat is nominated, he/she will be facing a war hero with 25 plus years in Congress and numerous legislative accomplishments and a public image as a man of independence and integrity. It seems his opponent will be a brilliant and talented man whose main experience consists of seven years in the Illinois State Senate.
Which is why I say only in America. Maybe experience doesn’t matter. It certainly hasn’t so far. There’s a powerful streak in our country that ours is a citizen’s government. Maybe we’ve become so fed up with the experienced leaders, the Cheneys and Rumsfelds who got us into this mess, that we need to clean the slate. Maybe Obama is in fact the perfect man for the moment. I, for one, fervently hope so. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking it’s going to be a walk; it’s a roll of the dice.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Obama and will vote for him if he is nominated. I agree with his positions on most issues and find him appealing and authentic, a refreshing break from the far too cautious, overly scripted nominees the democrats have run the past two elections. He may actually have the communication skills to convince people that things like a progressive income tax and improved access to health care are not part of a socialist plot to take over America but are actually in their interest. Who knows?
But, forgive me my skepticism, isn’t being President a tough job? After all, when the campaigning is finished, it will be the next President who will have to resolve the awful mess we’ve created in Iraq; who will be charged with managing a complicated and dangerous withdrawal from that country that could very well explode into deadly sectarian violence; who will have to deal with a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and an increasingly unstable Pakistan; who will face an increasingly nationalist Russia as well as an emergent China; who will face stiff opposition from entrenched interests both in his party and the opposition that will fight any effort to reform our health care system and to enact his agenda. And who will do all of this while having his every word and action examined with the scrutiny of an electron microscope.
Nothing in Barack Obama’s past counts as relevant preparation for these challenges.
Now, I don’t buy the Clinton line that Obama is all style and no substance. His positions on the issues are as detailed as one would expect from a candidate. No more or less detailed than those of Clinton. That’s why Clinton’s attacks this week have fallen flat. You want specifics, Obama says. I’ll give you specifics. But this misses the point. Any politician can come up with detailed position papers setting forth his or her plans. Having positions, though, is not the same as achieving results.
This is why Bill Clinton famously, if ineptly, said a vote for Obama is a roll of the dice. It’s also the line of attack we are beginning to see coming from John McCain. The other night on Hardball, even Chris Matthews, whose coverage of Obama has verged on hero worship, asked Texas State Sen. Kirk Watson, an Obama supporter, to name a single noteworthy legislative accomplishment of Obama’s. The question was followed by an uncomfortable silence before Watson muttered some vague generalities about his ability to bring people together. http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?last_story=/politics/war_room/2008/02/20/clinton_speech/&source=refresh&source=refresh
Perhaps Hillary Clinton is not the best vessel to deliver this attack. After all, as Barack himself pointed out, it’s not as though she was Secretary of the Treasury in Bill’s administration. But fairly or not, she can take some credit for being part of what most Americans still believe was a successful administration. With national security and the economy likely to dominate in November, she cannot be fairly portrayed as a novice. (Hillary’s negatives, of which we are all familiar, also make her too a less-than-ideal candidate, but that’s a story for another day).
Obama supporters have come up with some responses to the experience question, most of which are unpersuasive. Please don’t tell me George Bush had less foreign policy experience when he became President. Look what happened there. Comparisons to Bill Clinton are also inapt. Unlike State Senator Obama, Bill Clinton had been elected governor numerous times and had been a key player in Democratic Party circles. Moreover, the first two years of his Presidency couldn’t fairly be characterized as a rousing success. As for the comparisons to JFK and Lincoln, those are fairly absurd, as the historian Sean Wilentz demonstrated. (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-wilentz26jan26,0,5561702.story)
The best thing Obama has going for him is his claim that good judgment trumps experience – as his early opposition to the war shows. Whether that plays as well in the general election as with a Democratic primary electorate infuriated over its own leaders’ inability to stop Bush’s war remains to be seen.
Whichever Democrat is nominated, he/she will be facing a war hero with 25 plus years in Congress and numerous legislative accomplishments and a public image as a man of independence and integrity. It seems his opponent will be a brilliant and talented man whose main experience consists of seven years in the Illinois State Senate.
Which is why I say only in America. Maybe experience doesn’t matter. It certainly hasn’t so far. There’s a powerful streak in our country that ours is a citizen’s government. Maybe we’ve become so fed up with the experienced leaders, the Cheneys and Rumsfelds who got us into this mess, that we need to clean the slate. Maybe Obama is in fact the perfect man for the moment. I, for one, fervently hope so. But let’s not kid ourselves into thinking it’s going to be a walk; it’s a roll of the dice.
