I feel the need to talk about experience again. Hillary's claims of 35 years of experience never cease to fill me with anger. It is such a gross exaggeration. It works for now because in comparison to Obama, she does have the edge. But that will all change if she wins the nomination.
If she faces John McCain in the general election, she'll be up against someone who, by any objective standards, has considerably more experience. So while her argument right now is that the biggest qualification for being president is experience, she'll have to change her tune and all of a sudden and argue that experience isn't as meaningful. Sure, she can change what she talks about by focusing on how similar McCain is to Bush. But I don't know if the press will let her change the subject so easily. I imagine she'll try to continue using the "35 years" line, but when you compare McCain's 22 years in the Senate to what she has been doing over the last 22 years, he comes out way ahead.
This is one of the things that bothers me about her. She has no problem using an exaggerated and disingenuous argument even if she knows she'll have to backpedal later. Obama on the other hand is arguing for change. That applies whether you are talking about preventing another eight years of Clintons or getting the Republicans out of the White House. And I don't anyone doubts his actual desire for change.
I know there are a lot of pundits out there saying why one candidate or the other is better for the general election. I am not claiming that my argument is original, but I am surprised I haven't heard more people voicing it.
2 comments:
I have wondered the same thing..how did she get all this experience? And why isn't anyone forcing her to expand on this "experience". Was she in this elected office I didn't read about before NY Senator? Is her experience because she was right by Bill's side when he was President taking meetings that were top sercret? Before Bill got in the White House, didn't they "experience" White Water?
I guess if we think of Hillary's experience, Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan would have more experience than Obama too.
I don't want to give the impression that I think she is inexperienced. She clearly was a very active first lady, and she is also very smart. But I do think she is overstating her experience. And I don't think she should be claiming it as one of her major strengths, especially when she would be going up against John McCain, who has far more experience than her.
Also, from what I have read, there isn't good evidence that they did anything wrong with Whitewater.
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