DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on May 24, 2008 21:32:40 GMT -5
Experience has varied widely among US presidents. From 1900 on, here is the major elected experience of each of them:
T. Roosevelt: 2 years, Governor of New York
Taft: Never held elective office before White House
Wilson: 2 years, Governor of New Jersey
Harding: 6 years, US Senate
Coolidge: 2 years, Governor of Massachusetts, 3 years VP
Hoover: Never held elective office before White House
F.D. Roosevelt: 4 years, Governor of New York
Truman: 10 years, US Senate, three months as VP
Eisenhower: Never held elective office before White House
Kennedy: 6 years Congress, eight years US Senate
Johnson: 12 years Congress, 12 years Senate, three years VP
Nixon: 4 years Congress, 2 years Senate, 8 years VP
Ford: 24 years Congress
Carter: 4 years, Governor of Georgia
Reagan: 8 years, Governor of California
G. Bush: 2 years Congress, 8 years VP
Clinton: 12 years, Governor of Arkansas
G.W. Bush: 6 years, Governor of Texas
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rosslynhoya
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Post by rosslynhoya on May 25, 2008 12:14:54 GMT -5
Experience has varied widely among US presidents. From 1900 on, here is the major elected experience of each of them: I appreciate the data DFW, but you do realize that many of these presidents actually DID something prior to elected office, right? Once upon a time apparently that was a criterion an educated citizenry used to elect their representatives. Hoover, Eisenhower, both Roosevelts, et al., shouldn't have their "experience" demeaned simply because it wasn't spent on C-SPAN flinging monkey poo across the aisle at members of the opposition. |
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moe09
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Post by moe09 on May 25, 2008 12:47:58 GMT -5
Actually C-SPAN started in 1979. Plus, let's not demean monkey poo by associating it with C-SPAN...
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moe09
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Post by moe09 on May 25, 2008 12:58:11 GMT -5
Went to concordcoalition.org.. found this..
"Mr. McCain’s plan would appear to result in the biggest jump in the deficit, independent analyses based on Congressional Budget Office figures suggest. A calculation done by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington found that his tax and budget plans, if enacted as proposed, would add at least $5.7 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.
Fiscal monitors say it is harder to compute the effect of the Democratic candidates’ measures because they are more intricate. They estimate that, even taking into account that there are some differences between the proposals by Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, the impact of either on the deficit would be less than one-third that of the McCain plan.
The centerpiece of Mr. McCain’s economic plan is a series of tax cuts that would largely benefit corporations and the wealthy. He is calling for cutting corporate taxes by $100 billion a year. Eliminating the alternative minimum tax, which was created to apply to wealthy taxpayers but now also affects some in the middle class, would reduce revenues by $60 billion annually. He also would double the exemption that can be claimed for dependents, which would cost the government $65 billion.
Mr. McCain’s advisers have said the new tax cuts would be paid for by eliminating earmarks and making large spending cuts, but they have not identified specifics. And they have spoken vaguely about making entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare less costly for the government. Mr. McCain’s chief economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said the campaign had simply presented its vision of what the tax code should look like and noted that some of the proposals would be phased in."
While it may be the same ol' crap we've heard since the beginning of Democracy, as you claim, at least it's not the same old crap of screwing the average guy to fill the pockets of the wealthy we've heard since the beginning of Democracy. I'm not saying it's the panacea to the nation's problems, but at least it can be said to be a nice change of direction from where we've been heading for the past 8 years.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on May 25, 2008 13:39:25 GMT -5
I agree that experience is a relative term and some of the nation's best presidents did so without significant Congressional experience, which was my intended point.
The example of TR is a good one. Between the ages of 21 and 42 (when he acceeded to the presidency), he variously served as a NY state assemblyman, a historian focusing on the War of 1812, an author, a rancher in South Dakota, a police commissioner in new York, a year at the Navy Department, a run up San Juan Hill, two years as NY governor, and six months as vice president. I would argue that these experiences made him a better president than 20 years in Congress would have ever done.
It's ironic that the "Teddy" character at the Nationals games never wins a race. In real life, he succeeded at nearly every thing he did.
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kchoya
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Post by kchoya on May 26, 2008 11:45:13 GMT -5
I find the argument that Obama doesn't have enough experience to be one of the weaker ones proffered by those who aren't ready for a change. The people who founded this country had less experience than Obama, and they seem to have done alright in a situation that wasn't exactly perfect for those who didn't have much experience. JFK didn't have any experience. Hillary Clinton was the first lady for two terms, did she gain experience by osmosis? George Bush was a dolt. If you can vote for a guy who can barely put together cogent sentences then I think you can vote for a guy without so much "experience." In fact, I kind of like the fact that Obama doesn't have as much experience as others. It means that he's going to do things his way, as he promised, bringing some much needed change (I'm not going to lay out his platform, you can find it if you want to) to this nation. I don't want someone who has worked through the same old system for much of their careers. It means they're going to keep instituting it at the top. I want the opposite of GWB, and that's Obama. I think most people agree, and I think they sent that message by voting him into the nomination. People who don't have the "experience" generally bring something different to the table, much like what happened at the founding of this country, but I guess if people don't want something different, then I suppose that's their opinion, this is just mine. I tend to agree that experience is overrated. The trouble with Obama isn't his experience, its his policies. Which tend to be liberal boilerplate. His policies are pretty pedestrian, often wrong and certainly fail to address several big-time crises on the horizon. Most notably the demographic crunch that is going to have an enormous impact on people my age (early 30s) who will have to support legions of retired baby boomers. The Democrats have made it impossible to talk about this issue because every time someone brings it up, they demogogue it. When you combine his silence on this issue with his embarrassing stance on trade and general populism, I think that people ought to take a deep breath before they decide he's the guy to lead us for four years. That's the whole point - ask 97% of Obama supporters what his position on health care or energy or the Middle East, and they have no clue - he's about "change." It'll be interesting to see how long he gets away with such a generic, non-specific campaign. |
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Jack
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Post by Jack on May 26, 2008 12:20:23 GMT -5
[ That's the whole point - ask 97% of Obama supporters what his position on health care or energy or the Middle East, and they have no clue - he's about "change." It'll be interesting to see how long he gets away with such a generic, non-specific campaign. C'mon, you know the same is true of 97% of McCain supporters who will say they value his "experience" and his service to the country. 97% of people don't know anything about policy no matter who they support. At least Obama can talk about his economic plans, how ever much you disagree with them. McCain's answer to economic questions last time I saw him on Meet the Press (admittedly months ago) amounted to "Ask Phil Gramm, Warren Rudman, and Jack Kemp." |
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on May 26, 2008 13:16:18 GMT -5
[ That's the whole point - ask 97% of Obama supporters what his position on health care or energy or the Middle East, and they have no clue - he's about "change." It'll be interesting to see how long he gets away with such a generic, non-specific campaign. C'mon, you know the same is true of 97% of McCain supporters who will say they value his "experience" and his service to the country. 97% of people don't know anything about policy no matter who they support. At least Obama can talk about his economic plans, how ever much you disagree with them. McCain's answer to economic questions last time I saw him on Meet the Press (admittedly months ago) amounted to "Ask Phil Gramm, Warren Rudman, and Jack Kemp." That's a great point, Jack. One of the Clinton's talking points for some time was that Obama did not have ideas on these and other subjects. It was a calculated effort to capitalize on the ignorance of voters who did not do their research. Obama has laid out his plans and ideas in all of these areas through his speeches, website, etc. (It is also a historically ignorant argument. Did Bush campaign on anti-terrorism in 2000? No, and he didn't govern on it for the first 9 months of his presidency. But, he may be most remembered for the Afghan War and Operation Iraqi Freedom, to the extent the latter relates to antiterrorism.) To blame Obama because people have not used these resources to find out what his plans are or because people simply have not tuned in is cheap. And to label his campaign as "generic" is almost laughable on its face. Generic campaigns don't get 15,000 people to show up at an arena in Idaho during primary season. |
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Post by StPetersburgHoya (Inactive) on Jun 3, 2008 22:00:49 GMT -5
Dear Hillary - Just wanted to follow up on my previous open letter. Seriously - there's the door, walk through it.
Love and kisses,
SPH
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Jun 3, 2008 22:19:44 GMT -5
Dear Hillary - Just wanted to follow up on my previous open letter. Seriously - there's the door, walk through it. Love and kisses, SPH The crudeness of Hillary's speech tonight was far outweighed by the distinguished and honorable effort of Senator Obama. While some may disagree with Senator Obama on a whole host of issues, I believe it takes a "special" kind of person to not acknowledge/pay tribute to his extraordinary accomplishment tonight, an accomplishment that many of us believed could only be seen in the history books. |
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Bando
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Post by Bando on Jun 6, 2008 13:33:34 GMT -5
I tend to agree that experience is overrated. The trouble with Obama isn't his experience, its his policies. Which tend to be liberal boilerplate. His policies are pretty pedestrian, often wrong and certainly fail to address several big-time crises on the horizon. Most notably the demographic crunch that is going to have an enormous impact on people my age (early 30s) who will have to support legions of retired baby boomers. The Democrats have made it impossible to talk about this issue because every time someone brings it up, they demogogue it. When you combine his silence on this issue with his embarrassing stance on trade and general populism, I think that people ought to take a deep breath before they decide he's the guy to lead us for four years. That's the whole point - ask 97% of Obama supporters what his position on health care or energy or the Middle East, and they have no clue - he's about "change." It'll be interesting to see how long he gets away with such a generic, non-specific campaign. Isn't this just an argument from ignorance? I mean, the man has a website, you can look up his positions there. Just because you don't know his positions doesn't mean they don't exist. Furthermore, even if 97% of his supporters don't know his actual positions (which is itself a fantastical claim, let's see some evidence), I'm sure they're very familiar with general positions of the Democratic party, which Obama surely supports. |
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theexorcist
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Post by theexorcist on Jun 6, 2008 13:55:53 GMT -5
Sigh. The political threads here are more interesting than the basketball ones for right now. Gotta love being a Hoya.
Anyway. Bando. Obama won against Hillary because he was about "change". Bill Clinton won in 1992 on change - are you better off now than you were four years ago. Obama won over the Democratic constituency by arguing that the Clintonian path the Democrats had taken was the wrong one. One of the better examples came from a Slate (I think) article - claiming that Obama sold the gas tax holiday as cheap Clinton-era toadying for votes.
This strategy worked because Obama was a clean slate. He quickly adopted many of Hillary's positions. Clinton now had to define herself from Obama on things other than her ideas and she lost that fight. People can vote for Obama on "change" because the positions were very similar. Obama didn't spend his time in speeches talking about healthcare or defense or the economy, except in very general terms. Democrats didn't vote for Obama for his plan to fix the housing market - they want change.
Now. The general election. Entirely new kettle of fish. McCain is also trying to sell himself as an agent of "change" - a different kind of Republican who's consistently been a maverick. This may or may not work. If McCain doesn't do it well enough, Obama has the edge - the country's in a funk, and getting away from the Bush administration for a hard reboot seems like a good idea. Obama's already attacked McCain on being a continuation of Bush administration policies, despite quite a few differences.
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Bando
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Post by Bando on Jun 6, 2008 14:48:19 GMT -5
Indeed, he's even more hawkish than Bush.
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Boz
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Post by Boz on Jun 6, 2008 15:04:03 GMT -5
Ignoring the snarkiness above ; ;D .... .....speaking of letters to Hillary Clinton: www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=171579Obviously, I'm not the biggest Stewart/Colbert guy, but I do enjoy them on many occasions. This is one of those times. Colbert got some good shots in at all three and this is milk-out-the-nose funny. |
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Jun 6, 2008 15:42:32 GMT -5
[ That's the whole point - ask 97% of Obama supporters what his position on health care or energy or the Middle East, and they have no clue - he's about "change." It'll be interesting to see how long he gets away with such a generic, non-specific campaign. C'mon, you know the same is true of 97% of McCain supporters who will say they value his "experience" and his service to the country. 97% of people don't know anything about policy no matter who they support. At least Obama can talk about his economic plans, how ever much you disagree with them. McCain's answer to economic questions last time I saw him on Meet the Press (admittedly months ago) amounted to "Ask Phil Gramm, Warren Rudman, and Jack Kemp." I'd like to know how he's "getting away with" anything. Despite bringing people out in droves, being a great orator, and having George Clooney tell us you "just want to follow him" Obama just got exactly half the popular vote versus Clinton. He would have lost in an electoral college format in that race, and now runs a dead heat with the guy representing the party of the least-popular president in history. From the party that almost lost to the guy who pardoned Nixon, this should not be a surprise. So despite four more years of Bush incompetence, Barack O'Kerry is still in a dogfight for the same voters that lost the Dems the 2004 election. Obama isn't getting away with his campaign. Voters are clearly on the fence and the Dems need to realize they have to leave their gay trial lawyer friends' union ceremony a few minutes early and work to get the working class back. Otherwise, it's President McCain. |
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Jun 6, 2008 19:15:00 GMT -5
C'mon, you know the same is true of 97% of McCain supporters who will say they value his "experience" and his service to the country. 97% of people don't know anything about policy no matter who they support. At least Obama can talk about his economic plans, how ever much you disagree with them. McCain's answer to economic questions last time I saw him on Meet the Press (admittedly months ago) amounted to "Ask Phil Gramm, Warren Rudman, and Jack Kemp." I'd like to know how he's "getting away with" anything. Despite bringing people out in droves, being a great orator, and having George Clooney tell us you "just want to follow him" Obama just got exactly half the popular vote versus Clinton. He would have lost in an electoral college format in that race, and now runs a dead heat with the guy representing the party of the least-popular president in history. From the party that almost lost to the guy who pardoned Nixon, this should not be a surprise. So despite four more years of Bush incompetence, Barack O'Kerry is still in a dogfight for the same voters that lost the Dems the 2004 election. Obama isn't getting away with his campaign. Voters are clearly on the fence and the Dems need to realize they have to leave their gay trial lawyer friends' union ceremony a few minutes early and work to get the working class back. Otherwise, it's President McCain. I think the public has largely been a victim of bad coverage in the press on some of these issues. For one thing, Obama is polling ahead of where Kerry polled in 2004 right now among Hispanic voters, even when the press and others are suggesting "Can Obama get Hispanics to vote for him.) And, as the following site suggests, Obama is not polling as well as Kerry did in New England (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/06/new-map.html), even though he will undoubtedly win all of the states Kerry won in New England. As an east coaster, I also don't see Obama as the latest in a string of latte drinking, trail mix eating hippies. What is striking though is how Obama is doing in the midwest/plains - states that have been ceded by the Democrats for the past few elections. While McCain may not have to campaign as hard for OH as Bush did, states like MO and IA are very much in play in the midwest, and it isn't hard to envision a scenario where Obama wins VA. Bob Barr is getting between 5 and 10% in NC and GA, though this will not likely be enough to enable Obama to pick off these states. |
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Jun 6, 2008 20:29:45 GMT -5
I'd like to know how he's "getting away with" anything. Despite bringing people out in droves, being a great orator, and having George Clooney tell us you "just want to follow him" Obama just got exactly half the popular vote versus Clinton. He would have lost in an electoral college format in that race, and now runs a dead heat with the guy representing the party of the least-popular president in history. From the party that almost lost to the guy who pardoned Nixon, this should not be a surprise. So despite four more years of Bush incompetence, Barack O'Kerry is still in a dogfight for the same voters that lost the Dems the 2004 election. Obama isn't getting away with his campaign. Voters are clearly on the fence and the Dems need to realize they have to leave their gay trial lawyer friends' union ceremony a few minutes early and work to get the working class back. Otherwise, it's President McCain. I think the public has largely been a victim of bad coverage in the press on some of these issues. For one thing, Obama is polling ahead of where Kerry polled in 2004 right now among Hispanic voters, even when the press and others are suggesting "Can Obama get Hispanics to vote for him.) And, as the following site suggests, Obama is not polling as well as Kerry did in New England (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/06/new-map.html), even though he will undoubtedly win all of the states Kerry won in New England. As an east coaster, I also don't see Obama as the latest in a string of latte drinking, trail mix eating hippies. What is striking though is how Obama is doing in the midwest/plains - states that have been ceded by the Democrats for the past few elections. While McCain may not have to campaign as hard for OH as Bush did, states like MO and IA are very much in play in the midwest, and it isn't hard to envision a scenario where Obama wins VA. Bob Barr is getting between 5 and 10% in NC and GA, though this will not likely be enough to enable Obama to pick off these states. Just win Ohio and make sure Pennsylvania doesn't fall and it's ballgame, same as 2004. The issues are the usually strongly Democratic Michigan is Reagan Democrat central and due to the partial-disenfranchisement debacle of the primaries suddenly becomes unreliable. Wisconsin also is unreliable, mostly because the Huckabee-lovers have moved past the Madison crowd in numbers, not really anything particular to Obama. I don't even think Iowa is a question, it's blue. If he wins VA (first Democrat win since Truman), he won't win it in isolation so it probably means he's in business. NoVa will be more divided but he'll be so unpopular in the Shenandoah region, he won't pull it off without a major shift. Ted Strickland, please pick up the white courtesy phone... |
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Jun 6, 2008 20:40:17 GMT -5
Fair points, all around, Giga. My only quibble is that VA may be more blue than folks realize, given the population increase in Northern Virginia, and the Senate race. So, I could see a situation where VA becomes one of the three or so states that get attention/focus after Labor Day in a close race.
Throw in MO, NM, NH, CO, and the path to the White House may be to pluck off 2 smaller states instead of throwing your eggs in the OH/FL basket.
I see your point on WI too, but Obama tends to do best in racially homogenized states, and WI likely qualifies as such. And, he has the benefit of years of spillover media emanating out of Chicago.
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Jun 6, 2008 21:16:24 GMT -5
Fair points, all around, Giga. My only quibble is that VA may be more blue than folks realize, given the population increase in Northern Virginia, and the Senate race. So, I could see a situation where VA becomes one of the three or so states that get attention/focus after Labor Day in a close race. Throw in MO, NM, NH, CO, and the path to the White House may be to pluck off 2 smaller states instead of throwing your eggs in the OH/FL basket. I see your point on WI too, but Obama tends to do best in racially homogenized states, and WI likely qualifies as such. And, he has the benefit of years of spillover media emanating out of Chicago. If he wins WI, MO, NM, NH, and CO and loses Ohio and Michigan (along with VA and FL), he still loses. The rust belt is where it's won and lost. It's that important and he can start with a VP pick that appeals to that region. If PA falls at risk, it's importance is 10-fold. This is as critical as it gets. He has to reach out to these voters. He has to hit hard on the economy and stick with it. He can't have distractions from anti-abortion justices and gay marriages. The people in those states have to pay their mortgage every day with their job at risk and gas costing more monthly than their car payment. He has to let them know he understands they are priority #1. |
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