The Experience Gap: How Will it Play?

David Broder writes in the Washington Post:

“It was fascinating to watch the three top contenders for the Democratic nomination discuss their concept of the presidency during Tuesday night’s MSNBC debate in Las Vegas. But it was also stunning to realize that the three current and former senators who have survived the shakeout process — Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards — have not a day of chief executive experience among them.”

“By contrast, the Republican field is loaded with people who are accustomed to being in charge of large organizations. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee were governors of their states of Massachusetts and Arkansas, Rudy Giuliani served as the mayor of New York, and John McCain, as he likes to remind audiences, commanded the largest squadron in the Navy air wing.”

The issue of experience is relevant and certainly will play a role, but experience is not going to be the deciding factor for many voters. Furthermore, experience is not always all its cracked up to be. I can recall George Will describing the incoming Bush administration as government by grownups, because of the great experience and expertise of Bush and Cheney, as well as some of their appointees. Nevertheless, this administration has made many a misstep. While experience is an important and valuable quality, more salient to me is the issue of judgment in the next president. Experience in the chief executive is of little value if the judgments they make are poor. Furthermore, when the candidates raise the issue of experience, what will also spring to mind for voters is their assessment of that experience and how it shaped the candidate, and how it may have affected the voter or people like them.

Its instructive that while Rudy garners national favorable ratings as a great executive, many a New Yorker thinks his New York experience disqualifies him to be President and they would not vote for him. Experience is important, but judgment even more so and just like change, the question on that issue is not just experience, but the kind and quality of experience, not only for the candidate, but also for the people affected by the experience that candidate claims qualifies them for the office.

Hillary Responds to the Attack of the Double O

Hillary's response to this weekends three state Double O onslaught was to deploy Maya Angelou via radio in South Carolina, to counter the Obama/Oprah offensive. But I don't think that is hardly going to cut it. Obama made major inroads into South Carolina this weekend. 30,000 people attended the SC rally with Oprah. The Obama campaign was very shrewd and demonstrated a clear understanding of their business. Oprah's job was to fill the seats and make the pitch. Obama and his team's job was to close the sale and do the conversions. They obtained the voter information for everyone who attended and they were making 65,000 phones calls today to follow up with each every one. Without a doubt, he in one weekend struck deep and hard into the SC electorate, drawing a crowd of mostly women, many of them African American, a segment he was losing ground with. I suspect he made up some of that ground and that his rallies this weekend have given him an even firmer foothold on SC territory.

Oprah was extremely effective in directly attacking the idea that Hillary is more experienced and seasoned than Obama. She did a great job of positioning Obama as the candidate of change vs. Hillary. Hillary's response with radio ads from Maya to my mind betrays her weak point: she is the establishment candidate. For an electorate interested in change, she is not the candidate. Many of her endorsements reflect her establishment status (Andrew Young, Maya Anjelou, Quincy Jones etc.). The Obama campaign is getting better at painting her in this way. So this weekend is a major victory in the election war.

Hillary's response with the Maya Angelou ads can certainly be considered only part of her response. She has a highly organized campaign and organization wins elections. She's smart and she's ruthless and not without weapons of her own, such as Bill and plenty of money too.

Obama is picking up the big mo. He's challenging her in Iowa, competing in New Hampshire and may perhaps have generated momentum in SC. He's fighting an intense three state war for the early primary states and as the primaries get closer, the gloves are coming off. Lets get ready to ruuummmbbblleee!

Black Women First in Line to Sell Out Obama?

Poll: Black support helps Clinton extend lead - CNN.com CNN put out poll results today which indicate that more blacks are supporting Clinton than Obama, with black women seemingly leading the charge. According to the poll;

Among black registered Democrats overall, Clinton had a 57 percent to 33 percent lead over Obama. That's up from 53 percent for Clinton and 36 percent for Obama in a poll carried out in April. The 26-point difference between black women and men underscores the fact that the nation's vote is divided not only by race, but also by gender, said CNN political analyst Bill Schneider. "Black women don't just vote their black identity," he said. "They also vote their identity as women." The former first lady's strongest support among blacks came from black women, 68 percent of whom identified her as their likely choice, versus 25 percent who cited Obama.

I've done my own informal polling of sisters and much to my dismay, I find many of them wanting to go with Hillary. They are voting their gender and I guess they are going to rejoice when and if Hillary wins the nomination and/or the presidency. They express lack luster interest in Obama. They seem to think that Hillary is going to have their back. I find it very hard to understand. Somehow, 68% of black women figure that Hillary (who's top advisor will be Bill) is going to have their back more than Obama (MARRIED to an educated, accomplished, sho nuff sister that epitomizes the kind of baller many sisters aspire to be) who will have a black woman advising him every day about policy issues.

We supported the cracked out DC mayor, we cheered when OJ won, we lift up the race hustler, media hog preachers Jesse & Sharpton on the regular, but Obama cannot get any love from the sisters of America? This brother is a fine example of everything brothers in America should be doing. Michelle Obama as the First Lady will be a beautiful light for all the little black girls of America and a First Lady's power is very real. This accomplished brother who is DEMONSTRATING his respect for black women by being married, monogamous, raising the children and taking care of the family he created together with a black woman is being rejected by 68% of them. Obama is doing the right thing by a black woman RIGHT NOW, which I think makes a good case that he will do the right thing by black women as President. But 68% of the sisters can't give him no love? Cause they think he won't have their back, but Hillary will?

What is wrong with this picture?

Where is the Love?

Obama declares he's running for president - CNN.com

Obama declares his run is on and an already crowded presidential contender field gets a little bigger. I'm waiting with bated breath to see what kind of contortions the black establishment goes into to justify what I suspect will be their effectively no support for Obama's run. Because from where I'm sitting right now, Barack is not getting the love. He is a democrat. He is politically liberal, he is anti Iraq war, he is pro choice, he is married and super smart. He has every positive personal aspect Jesse had for his run and lacks many of Jesse's negatives. But I'm not feeling the love coming from the Black Caucus, from the NAACP, from Tavis Smiley (who said at a recent fund raiser for public television in Indianapolis that he thought Barack was guilty of believing the hype and had not paid his dues with the black community) or any other part of the black political establishment.

It smells like a political sellout. Because if the black establishment is not backing Obama, where else are they going to go? The only other conceivable democratic beneficiary of their support is Hillary Clinton. Barack is certainly as qualified as Hillary to run. But I'm beginning to suspect that the black establishment political interests may be bound up with the Clinton political machine. The Clintons are a formidable money raising magnet. Bill, for all his negatives, is still popular and has been a formidable campaigner for black democrats. He's got a lot of IOU's I suspect. They are skilled political tacticians and I have no doubt they will be ruthless in fighting the battle to secure the democratic nod.

The early skin in this game on the part of the black establishment may be this whole discussion about Obama's "blackness" thats been taking place. The argument set forth is that Obama is not black enough because he is not a descendant of slaves, but rather of more recent immigrant stock. He doesn't really have a "black" sensibility. Its a stupid argument I wholly reject. Ripapma, a poster at Booker Rising, has phrased the counter to this argument very well; "Ain’t Black enough" is a term used by "race hustlers" to demean individual success, achievement and virtue in favor of an ideology that promotes victimhood, accepts the status quo, and elevates mediocrity. They provide no reliable or repeatable criteria for who is and who isn't Black enough. The "race hustlers" think for you, speak for you, and act for you, but only if you're Black enough, or the right kind of Black."

Now, I'm not hearing the black establishment say he is not really black, no no, they are speaking in code. The code phrase is "black americans don't know who Barack is" or "he has not paid his dues with black america". I even heard some commentators suggesting that he needs to have Jesse Jackson take him and introduce him to black america. Get real.

Maybe whats going on is not really some silliness about whether he is black enough. Maybe its just plain jealousy and avarice at play here. On the jealousy side, for a variety of reasons, Obama has captured America's attention, white and black. So much so, that he has been able to put himself in the running for the White House. No other black democrat of the last 20 years has been able to ascend to this point. Maybe they are mad. Maybe they feel like "he just got here, he should get in line and put in work just like the rest of us".

On the avarice side, for the black establishment.there is no percentage in backing Obama's run. He hasn't been on the national stage long enough to have a lot of chips to cash in or favors to call. Its still way early to know how things will shake out, but at this point you do have to regard him as a longshot to win. A credible longshot, but a longshot nonetheless. Hillary has it over the rest of the field in political capital and you can bet she will spend it. The black establishment will want to be in on that largess. They will have to make a strategic choice.

A credible black democratic candidate has materialized. I may be off the mark, but I think we are about to witness the selling out of Obama in favor of Hillary.