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Question about Obama's "executive experience"


EersSkins05

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I was watching the CNN documentaries done on both candidates, and thought of something interesting about Obama with regard to the accusation that he doesn't have any executive experience.

Why doesn't he assert that being the President of the Harvard Law Review was executive experience?

I know it's a purely scholastic position and they make no decisions that affect people's lives, but law review president's do have real responsibilities, real necessities when it comes to delegation of duties, working with a support staff and advisors, and producing a final product which, to put it lightly, is filled with pretty complicated concepts.

When Rudy Giuliani said he'd never led anything, why wasn't this his response? To just avoid the topic altogether?

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Maybe he was President of the Senior Class also.

I think he offered his best shot, the real world, and quite noble, experience as a community organizer.

You don't think it's a little bit of a step from "president of his senior class" to "President of Havard Law Review?" aka one of the most prestigious honors in the US academic community?

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A lot of the folks I talk to seem to think being the CEO of a large corporation would count as executive experience. If so, I would say being in charge of hundreds of thousands of volunteers and staffers in a hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars election campaign counts as executive experience.

By all accounts Obama has run a highly disciplined and organized campaign. He slayed the dragon in Hillary Clinton by out-hustling, out-strategizing, out-fund raising, and making infinitely better use of his finances. Hillary people spent the campaign staying at the Hilton while Obama's people slept in cars and on couches. Hillary spent $4 million on high priced advisors in one Month while Obama spent less than a million. Despite the fact that she had a loyal framework and a high powered organization left in place from her husband's Presidency, he was able to construct one from scratch that was more powerful.

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"Executive experience" is a catchphrase that only showed up when Palin was nominated. It was on every right wing talking head's lips the day after the nomination, and began popping up on the Tailgate fifteen minutes later. It's pretty meaningless.

John McCain has zero executive experience, but I am perfectly comfortable with the national legislative experience that he does have.

With that said... No. Being in charge of a legal journal is not the same, not even one that is as prestigious as the Harvard Law Review. I was an editor of a legal journal (not THE editor, but AN editor) and it is just not the same thing as running a governmental body or even a large business.

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If "executive experience" really is insignificant, why do we generally elect governors?

I'm not saying that you HAVE to have executive experience to be qualified to be president, but generally, that's how we vote.

Simple (I think).

Senators have to vote on lots of controversial things. Then you can look at all their votes, and tally them up, and hold them against them, and rally interest groups against them.

Governors are more of a blank slate. You can project on to them whatever views you yourself hold on a particular issue. What is Governor Schwartzenegger's position on the "no child left behind" Act? None - he didn't have to vote on that. But he can say that he supports "education reform" and you can take that any way you want to.

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Break it out.

Biden and McCain have way more experience on everything else than both.

Obama has a little more experience on everything else

Guess it is how you define experience. Obama is a policy wonk and has debated and discussed innumerable national and international issues.

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If "executive experience" really is insignificant, why do we generally elect governors?

Because Governors don't have voting records that their opponents can smear them with.

Therefore, Governors can say they're in favor of anything, and rarely get called on it, because "hey, I didn't write it".

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"Executive experience" is a catchphrase that only showed up when Palin was nominated. It was on every right wing talking head's lips the day after the nomination, and began popping up on the Tailgate fifteen minutes later. It's pretty meaningless.

Hey, they had to come up with some kind of soundbite to explain why, after announcing for months that three years experience isn't enough, they've suddenly decided why one-third the experience is somehow better.

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