On Experience

With the presidential elections right now mostly between Obama and Clinton, and since I just got official news that Richardson has dropped out, it seems appropriate to talk about experience. Hillary has spent much of this campaign claiming she has more experience than the rest of the field. What has bothered me was that if we were really voting on experience, we would have chosen Richardson without question. During his not-yet-complete two terms as governor of New Mexico, he was wildly popular, oversaw growth (especially by attracting businesses), cut some taxes, and watched as some major state indicators improved (including education). On top of that, he has been Secretary of Energy, US Ambassador to the UN, and a volunteer negotiator to Iraq, North Korea and Sudan.

But experience isn’t the main criteria. It is popularity / name recognition. Then, once we look at the popular ones, we can compare their experience. Okay, so let’s compare Hillary and Obama. Hillary has served one full term in the Senate, and when the presidential inauguration comes around, she’ll have completed two more years – for a total of eight. Barak Obama will have served four years in the Senate when inauguration day comes around. So Hillary has a small advantage there – nothing worth bragging about.

Before being Senator, Obama served eight years in the Illinois Senate. Hillary served eight years as first lady. So here is my question: Is being First Lady substantially better experience than serving in a state senate? I do think it depends on the First Lady. In this case, I don’t know of any major items that would help her claim of experience except her work on Health Care reform. I don’t want to minimize that just because it failed. I do believe it was valuable experience. But that is the only thing I can think of. Instead, it seems like she is suggesting that she was involved in the decision-making process in some capacity. I don’t doubt that her and Bill discussed policy and politics nor do I doubt that she provided valuable advice. But even so, I am still not convinced that giving good advice to the President when consulted can be used to back up the claim that she has far more experience than Obama.

Any way I analyze it, the three candidates we are left with are all relatively inexperienced. I only wish that people would realize this and we could move past it and focus on the things that really separate these candidates: their ideas, their beliefs, and their character.