I don't know that anyone was arguing that she didn't have experience. The question was, does 8 years a first lady count as White House experience?

Obama's only been a senator for 3 (or 2, whatever) years, but he's been a legislator for 11. That's no small amount of experience. And, as 'goon pointed out, it's a combination the the person leading and the people that person leads. He's already put together a team with boatloads of foreign policy experience (an area he's most often attacked for re: experience). Bush's failing in foregin policy was not lack of experience, it was his inability to effectively assemble and lead a team. Obama, I believe, is someone who has that ability.

What form of executive experience does he have that would lead you to believe that? I think it's an issue of the personna he shows in public in his speeches rather than anything he has done.

Just the latest in what I'd been reading into this thread, both sides of the issue, and I just felt the need to say something about it.

Though she wasn't elected, she's been very active for three decades (prior to becoming first lady) in national and state politics, most notably in the arena of public health, though she was also practicing law at the time - so it wasn't a full-time position.

Go look it up.


I don't agree with the lady and would vote for Obama in a heartbeat over Clinton. In fact, I already liked him. But, I do consider the time she spent making decisions and pushing for things I didn't like, whether as an appointee to various committees or the experience she gained as First Lady, to constitute as experience.


This election is so not even awesome. For all the mudslinging I have seen in campaigns past, I never felt like the petty BS that comes along with campaigning has sucked the life out of me like this campaign. Seriously, the news switches to politics and I contemplate suicide. OK, I'm being overly dramatic, but I die a little inside. I'll probably vote for Obama but this campaign is just too much bleh for me.

Well, the point I guess I'm trying to get at is, she may have gained some experience, but I'm so angry over how she came by much of that experience that I am ready to discount it.

I like the point made earlier about "accountable" experience. The experience she gained by doing things we did not elect her to do was not exactly a period of accountability, given that the people didn't have much say in her getting involved and the only way to get her out would be to also bump out the guy the people DID elect. So she could pretty much do whatever she thought she could get away with. Is complete disregard for the wishes of the voters good experience? Is that the experience we want to place her in office with?

And yes, scaeagles, it's true that all we have to go on are pretty speeches. But speeches ARE a major part of leadership, so there is something revealing going on there.

Bush, by comparison, cannot speak, cannot lead, cannot even hold an executive team together. Areas he failed at the most, are the areas I'm focused on electing a candidate by. If Hillary, with all her "experience", all her connections, etc., cannot put and hold together a successful election team, what basis do I have for believing she can assemble a successful executive team? Oh yeah, her time in Bill's White House... which means probably a rehash of Bill's executive team. That sounds like "same old same old" to me.

And for the record, Bill does have something to do with the situation we're in currently - his administration allowed the economy to grow unchecked into a period of what Buffett wisely calls "irrational exuberance". Thus leading to the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Bush, as a reaction to the bubble and attempt to recover the economy, spurred on the real estate market, (and once again leading Buffett to cry "irrational exuberance") leading to the current troubles . So do we want the same people that started it all back in charge? Or do we want to try our luck with someone new?

Unfortunately, he retired. There's a new pastry chef now.

So then he is more than ready to run! He got the experience, now he freed up his schedule to run as an Independent this November.



ETA: JEEBUS; the man retired in 2004. The White House REALLY needs to update their web site!

True.

So that means there's a new guy with 4 years' experience in the White House. That's like... a whole presidential term!

Though Mesnier is also not a native born citizen so he is otherwise disqualified regardless of any valuable experience he may have.