Experience

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Dakatsu
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Experience

Post by Dakatsu »

I've been hearing the argument of experience against Obama and Palin. Here's my thought: I highly doubt experience is what you all base your vote on. More than likely, like myself, would look for the candidate that they agree with, and who feels honest. I haven't found a liberal who is voting for McCain because \"he has more experience\", and I doubt I will find a conservative who is afraid of Palin's low experience. Isn't it REALLY just an argument for the sake of throwing crap at someone?

Consider this, Clinton and Bush were both governors, and George Washington had no political experience. Who do you think is better, Clinton, Bush, or Washington, in terms of their presidency?
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Kyouryuu
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Post by Kyouryuu »

Washington was the Commander-in-Chief of the entire Continental Army before he was President, though. That probably puts him more in line with Eisenhower than a governor. :P
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Lothar
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Post by Lothar »

A candidate's \"experience\" gives voters two things:

1) Predictability / confidence in positions. If you can look at someone's votes or policies over several years, you can feel reasonably confident in how they'll conduct themselves in the future. In other words, when you're looking for the candidate you \"agree with\", experience can make you more confident that you're agreeing with their REAL positions.

2) Confidence in leadership ability. Some people have great ideas but just can't get stuff done. Others have great ideas and are able to get people to work with them to accomplish them. (And others have bad ideas and are able to accomplish them... doh!)

Now, neither of these cases require the person's \"experience\" to be in government. Military experience can count for a lot (as with Washington and Eisenhower). So can business/professional experience or judicial/legal experience.

As I see it, Obama's biggest weakeness when it comes to \"experience\" is that he doesn't have a lot of specific accomplishments to judge on. He's spent a lot of time campaigning and not a lot of time voting (except for \"present\") or writing/working on legisltation. The records from his various positions as \"community organizer\" are hard to come by, and what information we do have is fairly vague. Palin's biggest weakness when it comes to \"experience\" is that it's been on a fairly small scale -- mayor of a small town, and governor of a low-population state. We know she can get it done on that scale, but VPOTUS is a big step up.
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Will Robinson
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Post by Will Robinson »

Under Experience in the encyclopedia I found these two sub headings:

Palin = get 'er done

Obama = the dog ate my homework
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Post by Gooberman »

Palin = For the bridge to no where before she was against it.

Obama = Runs a campaign whose budget in 10 days is Palins budget in 1 year. She was Governor about as long as he was running.....
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