"Experience" is a code word for "Bring Back Bill".

[Raven]

Somebody's post here extolling the Clinton Era made me realize this. When you remove HC's years as First Lady from her resume, she and Obama aren't that much different in the experience category. Nobody in their right mind can consider hosting State Dinners and accompanying your spouse on diplomatic visits makes you qualified to be President. I am really beginning to believe that some Clinton supporters really want Bill back. While I can't blame them...he was a great President...it's just not how it works and it's not how it should work.

So, I challenge anybody to compare the two candidates' experience taking out of the equation HC's 8 years in the WH. Or, if you want to leave them in, convince me that being First Lady is good training for the Presidency.

[DianeG5385]

1. I think it's a code word for: No more fools in the WH who need on the job training

[Berry Cool]

2. I started believing it a long time ago.

It may have been the wingnuts who first felt or voiced the scary thought that Hillary would eventually run for the White House as a way to extend Bill's years as President to 12 and perhaps 16, but I think ultimately it's one thing they were right about.

If Hillary gets elected, I don't think Bill's going to be able to take a quiet, sedate role behind the scenes while she runs the show. I think the way he's campaigned for her already proves it.

I could believe back during her Senate runs that he would, because back then he actually seemed to behave like a supportive spouse who was taking a back seat while being behind his wife all the way. But this is different. Should she be elected, I can no longer believe he intends to be anything less than a co-president with her.

Therefore, when she says "Vote for me because I have the most experience," what she really means is "Vote for me because I'm going to be like the little kid who sits on Daddy's lap behind the wheel, 'steering' the car while Daddy actually drives it."

[Rageneau]

3. Hillary has twice as much experience as BO in the Senate alone!

Likewise in every other aspect of their lives. Hillary has more experience. As a community worker, as a private lawyer, as a congressional staffer, Hillary has been at it longer than BO. And, also unlike BO, Hillary was the first of her kind (female) to fill many formenrly all-male positions.

[Raven]

5. Thanks for responding to my question...you are the only one so far.

I agree that HC has been "at it" longer but I'm not sure being a congressional staffer is a qualification for the Presidency. Being at it longer just means to me that she's older and after all, on that theory, we should all be voting for John McCain because he's been "at it" the longest!

[demo dutch]

4. Oh please State Dinners & accompanying your spouse? It was quite a bit more than that

I think your referring to cookie baking Laura Bush

[Tom Rinaldo]

6. Is "Change" a code word for "Bring Back Kennedy"?

"Experience" has an objective linear definition. On one side of the scale is no experience. On the other side of the scale is extensive experience. One than can compare what different individuals have been through in life that you consider relevent. The perosn who has done the most by that basis is more experienced.

"Change" has no more of a sense of direction than a clock pendulum. George W. Bush broght about change from Bill Clinton.

Anyone who reduces Hillary Clinton's White House years experience to hosting State Dinners and accompanying your spouse on diplomatic visits is too uninformed to even debate with over it. Barack Obama himself gives Hillary credit for gaining relevent experience in the White House. But I find what Clinton was doing in the 70's and 80's to be damn relevent also.

[Raven]

7. I don't know if "change" is a code word for anything but change. I

know that I didn't think of the Kennedy Era when I first heard the word "change" but that's just me.

You make some very good points in your post and I think they were good enough to make it unnecessary for you to attack me as being "uninformed" and having no right to debate this. You have no idea what I may know and it is that kind of a statement that lowers the level of debate and discussion on this website.

One more thing, I think most people could agree that being First Lady does not a President make. Having said that, HC is a very smart and accomplished person but I haven't yet heard her tell us exactly what it was that she did in the WH to make her so "ready on day one".

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. OK, you make a good point too. I apologize to you for that

And I am sorry. But in talking about "buzz" words you hit on two "buzz phrases" that push many Clinton supporter's buttons, mine included. For example, I did find it odd that you chose to stress Hillary going with her husband on foreign trips with no acknowledgment of the many foreign trips that she made on her own. It seems to me you may be unaware of her international efforts on behalf of women's rights for example. And even Hillary Haters (and I am not saying you are one) know that she had a significant role in some policy issues while in the White House, the most obvious one being health care. Even when she failed to get her universal health care proposal through congress, she shifted emphasis and made real progress getting millions of new children covered. She spoke about this herself at the last debate.

But my apology is sincere. Thank you for the way you expressed yourself in reply to my last post.

[Raven]

11. Thanks Tom. This is helpful for me.

I find I have a gut reaction to people who coat-tail and it is very possible that I've lumped HC in with other tea-serving First Ladies and not given her credit for what she did on her own initiative.

This is a truth seeking exercise for me and ideas from every side are helpful.

[Madam Mossfern]

9. "Pillow talk"

and I don't mean that lightly. She was privy to Bill's experiences, his frustrations, his strategies first hand as a supportive spouse. Heaven knows that my husband would have an easier time of doing my job than someone equally new because of his conversations with me. She understands first hand the inner workings of the Presidential office.

I'm not a Hillary supporter, but I do think she may have a better understanding of what the job entails.

Now...to take the analogy of husbands from above. My husband may go in having a better idea of what the job is about, but the other guy who may be equally inexperienced may end up doing a better job because he is better suited to the position.

[jlake]

10. I think it's a codeword for "experience.... but I am still trying to figure out "hope"

What are we hoping for? That Obama can handle the job?

[gulliver]

12. Experience doesn't matter, but the product of it does.

Someone with 10 years of experience can be just as or even more seasoned than someone with 20.

But Obama clearly shows the signs of having very near insufficient experience. Not based on years. Based on how he handles himself real time.

Then the other side of experience is our experience of the candidate. No one knows much about Obama.

[MediaBabe]

13. Bring Back Bill? Umm... OK... I'm up for that. n/t