I think this is a good article (from an admitted Obama supporter) that kind of sums up the experience/management ability issue to me: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/02/the-natural.html Perhaps the most telling critique of Obama, to my mind, is his lack of executive experience. (The same can be said for Clinton, of course, if you don't count the First Lady period, when she insists her husband was the president.) I asked him directly last year why a voter should back someone who has never run anything bigger than a legislative office. He responded by pointing to his nascent campaign. He observed out that he was up against the full Clinton establishment, all the chits she and her husband had acquired over the years, and the apparatus they had constructed within the party. He had to build a national campaign from scratch, raise money, staff an extremely complex electoral map, and make key decisions on spending and travel. He asked me to judge his executive skills by observing how he was managing a campaign. By that standard, who isn't impressed? A first term senator - a black urban liberal - raised more money, and continues to raise much more money, than Senator Clinton. More to the point, the money he has raised has not come from the well-connected fat-cats who do things like donate to the Clinton library. His base is much wider, broader and internet-based than hers. It has many more small donors. Now look at the strategy he laid out last year, as he explained it to me and others. Iowa was the key. If he didn't win Iowa, it was over. But if he could win Iowa, he would prove the principle that a black man could transcend the racial issue, helping in New Hampshire, and then also helping him peel off what was then majority black support for the Clintons in South Carolina. Then his strategy was meticulous organization - and you saw that in Iowa, as well as yesterday's caucus states. Everything he told me has been followed through. And the attention to detail - from the Alaska caucus to the Nevada cooks - has been striking. Now consider the psychological and emotional challenges of this campaign. It has been brutal. It has included many highly emotional moments - and occasions when racism and sexism and all sorts of hot-button issues have emerged. Then there was the extraordinary spectacle of a former president and spouse bringing the full weight of the Democratic establishment and the full prestige of two terms in the White House to dismiss some of Obama's arguments as a "fairy tale" and frame him as another Jesse Jackson. How did the candidates deal with this? The vastly more experienced and nerves-of-steel Clinton clearly went through some wild mood-swings. Obama gave an appearance at least of preternatural coolness under fire, a steady message that others came to mimic, and a level of oratory that still stuns this longtime debater. In the middle of this very hot zone, he exhibit a coolness and steeliness that is a mark of presidential timber. He played tough - but he didn't play nasty. Keeping the high road in a contest like this - without ever playing the race card or the victim card - is an achievement. Building a movement on top of that is more impressive still. So far, he has combined Romney's money with Clinton's organizational skills and Ron Paul's grass-roots enthusiasm. No other campaign has brought so many dimensions into play. And he won Missouri. (Photo: Obama at the Apollo by Hiroko Masuike/Getty.)
I can't believe Hillary is running on "experience" when she has less than Obama (when looking at elective office). She really is running on "exposure" to government -- but her hands-on responsibility is quite limited. Of course, her "exposure" comes with a heavy grime from shady dealings.
I just skimmed the article so I apologize in advance if I missed something. It seems to me that many Obama supporters are trying to have it both ways now. They chide Hillary Clinton for not having much more national experience than Obama yet also critize her for being part of the Clinton establishment. If you are going to criticize her for being part of the Clinton establishment and talk about things like building bridges back to the 20th Century then you have to consider her experience as First Lady as governmental experience. Except that Obama was the first one in the SC debate to take a shot at past personal history by mentioning that Hillary was on the board of Walmart it was after that that Hillary mentioned Obama's Rezko ties. At the same time Obama's snub of Hillary Clinton at the State of the Union isn't exactly the mark of someone trying to change the tone of the debate. The problem with this idea of Obama showing preternatural coolness is that while no one can be expected to stay calm in something as tense as closely fought presidential race but Obama has based his campaign on this yet has been shown to be capable of pettiness himself. The advantage for Hillary is that that never was the basis of her campaign.
Hasn't Clinton tried to argue the same? That the President is a singular figure and it wouldn't be the "Bill & Hillary" administration, yet trying to claim her time as first lady as part of her experience? What exactly do you include in her "35 years of experience"? She's the one trying to make the argument that she's experienced and he's not. The Rezko stuff was mentioned by Clinton multiple times on news shows and on the campaign well before that debate. Wow - you're the first person I've found that actually thinks it was a snub. I didn't think anybody anywhere actually believed that. Everyone else seems to think that Clinton and Kennedy, as good friends, were talking for a moment and Obama was trying to not be in the middle of it.
