Needed: New Talking Points
Posted on August 31st, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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A half-term governor has more claim to leadership and experience than does a one-third-term U.S. senator who has risen through a big-city political machine. ~Lisa Schiffren
Mind you, this comes from the same person who thought that a ten and a half-year governor of Arkansas was beyond the pale and unspeakably foul because he sometimes raised taxes to pay for road improvements (oh, yes, and he also believed in God, which is very undesirable). I’m not sure that a VP choice that satisfies Ms. Schiffren is necessarily politically savvy. This is what the GOP hacktivists* are reduced to arguing. It really is, as I have guessed it would be, a race to the bottom: which ticket will prove itself to be more absurd and unfit before November 4? The slightly less absurd pair wins.
It’s not clear to me that Republicans should want to brag about a nominee whose only experience in statewide elected government has lasted just about as long as the current presidential campaign, much less should they want to remind voters that her experience prior to that was governing a small town with fewer inhabitants than the average Chicago ward. It also doesn’t make much sense to stress that Obama did rise through a big-city political machine and managed to catapult himself to the political heights in less time than it took Palin to reach Juneau as governor, unless the goal is to remind people that he is, in fact, an impressive political talent. As for Biden, it’s fair to note that he has often been wrong on foreign policy. Together with John McCain, he fully backed the attack on Yugoslavia, whose after-effects are now being felt in Georgia, and together with George Bush he supported the invasion of Iraq. Strange that Schiffren doesn’t mention that.
* Hacktivist here is the combination of a hack and an activist; no hacker references intended.
Filed under: politics
Experience can be a good thing, and it’s more institutionalized in a parliamentary system, where people tend to have to spend time climbing up the greasy pole. However, experience tends to favor a relatively narrow group, in the U.S., graduates of the Ivies and especially Harvard and Yale Law Schools. I’m a lawyer, and I can tell you that studying law tends to promote a certain narrowness of view. I’m not convinced the dominant views at Columbia are superior to those at the University of Idaho,
The experience of belonging to a political class that has been consistently wrong for decades may not be such a good thing. Biden may know where Qatar and Albania are, but does he know what to do about them? Does he have a strategic vision of the world that will help us out of our current box? I rather doubt it.
What we don’t know about Palin is whether she has studied or has any thoughts about history. If she hasn’t, she could be putty in the hands of the Scheunemanns of the world. As a politician, no doubt she’s pretty skilled. There are, however, many unknowns, especially in how she understands world politics–if she purports to do so at all, at this stage.
In principle, this is why it’s desirable to draw candidates from state governors, since they are usually not coming from that sort of background. The trouble with coming from the outside and having little experience in this class is that a candidate such as Palin feels compelled to yield on precisely those areas of policy in which she has not worked before. These are the same areas of policy where it is most important that she not simply be an echo of McCain and his advisors.
Arguably, someone who had been in Washington for a period of time would not necessarily have to be tutored by a Scheunemann, since such a candidate might already have a reasonably good grasp of foreign affairs and would understand that Scheunemann is a loon. Or you have the example of a Reagan, who already had developed some definite views about foreign policy earlier in his career. Such people know their own minds on these subjects, whether or not they are prone to adopting a lot of nonsense in the process.
No offense to Gov. Palin, but her remarks on foreign policy on Friday made it very clear that she will mouth whatever phrases McCain’s team gives her on these matters. If she has any grounding in history, I fear it is the wrong kind that lends itself to the easy moralizing and 1938-ism we know only too well. Folksy governors with little acquaintance with foreign affairs unfortunately seem to make for easy targets for interventionist advisors; their own non-Washington credentials persuade them that they need to listen to “experts.” The “experts,” of course, have their own agenda.
It’s not a question of offense. What she knows and believes about world affairs is fair game.
I prefer her frontier earthiness to BHO’s Ivy League platitudes and statist pandering and Biden’s Cliff Clavin impression, but Daniel’s concern that she’s an easy mark for interventionism strikes a chord. Still, so far I don’t detect in her the hollowness that so many politicians display.
It’s early days, and I’m not going to prejudge the woman. Even if she doesn’t disappoint, though, I’m disinclined to vote for Maj. Kong.
I think that a distinction needs to be made here. Those of us who, whatever our ideological orientation, are disgusted with the bi-partisan establishment consensus on so many issues can probably agree that “experience” is, if anything, a negative qualification for national office.
But preperation is another matter. For example, Lincoln (and I know he is disliked by our host and other readers of this site, but that’s irrelevant to my current argument) was not experienced, but he had spent a considerable amount of time thinking, writing, and (famously) debating about the most important national issues of the day prior to his nomination. Whatever one thinks about the manner in which he governed, he was prepared to be president.
In contemporary terms, it’s important for a candidate to have equivalent preparation. Most of the reasons for this should be obvious. Perhaps the most significant reason was articulated by Daniel above: someone who hasn’t gone through that process is in important respects an empty vessel highly susceptible to being influenced by conventional “expert” opinion.
From my left libertarian perspective there are many reasons why Ms. Palin would be a disastrous VP or (shudder) president if something happened to McCain. But I would think that her lack of preparation should give pause even to those agreeing with her socially conservative views.