Obama, Sarah Palin and the "Tyranny of Experience"

Tip O'Neill, the late Democratic Speaker of the House from Massachusetts and a classic "old pol" big-spender politician, once made  the observation "all politics is local."  This little 'bon mot"  was repeated about for a decade or so like it was one of the Five Noble Truths of Buddhism. 

 

Personally, I always thought it was a stretch. I mean, what was "local" about the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Vietnam War?  Is the abortion issue a "local" matter?

But I'm going to go in that direction today with my own catch phrase:

  "All politics is expedience".  That's right.  Four little words. Etch them in stone. Shout it from the rooftops. Let the good man teach it to his son, as Shakespeare would say.  

The important thing in elective politics is not experience, not preparedness, not competency. The important thing is "what will get me elected to the office I seek"?   This is the rule.  How else to explain that  one party is running Barak Obama for office with about two years of elective experience from the Senate on one side and the other party has produced a tyro governor of a small-populace state to step in if their frail 72-year old Presidential candidate takes a bad turn medically in the four years of his proposed term. 

The story (or "the narrative") of the candidate is more important than if he or she can actually handle the job.  We're not seriously picking someone to run the country and safeguard the interests of our public--we, as voters, want to vote for a good story.  First African-American Candidate.  Good story. First woman GOP nominee for VP.  Good story. All the more experienced  candidates have been winnowed out--the Democrats at least have had the chance to actually that this risky step in the "collective wisdom" of a primary process.  All those who were more experienced than Senator Obama have been kicked to the curb. 

 

The Republicans have had Sarah Palin--a half-vetted charisma pick from "America's Last Frontier" by John McCain or his handlers. IN neither case can one feel competent that either candidate can handle the job.  This is particularly  true of Palin who had zero coverage  in the mainstream media until about two weeks ago and somehow has never bothered to step outside the country to see how the rest of the 96 percent of the world actually lives first-hand.

When did experience become secondary in politics?  Well, actually, since about 1840 in the USA, when the Whig Party of the United States elected William Henry Harrison, an old general with one victory in the War of 1812, to the Presidency in 1840. Many generals followed and at least one, U.S. Grant, was a full-blown incompetent at the job.  Now we no longer nominate generals with no civilian experience--we are more prone to candidates with records so slender they are less likely to have any record to be attacked about. And they can overcome their lack of experience with charisma.  

Very expedient.   Good luck America..and the world. 

 

Since I "borrowed" this title from a columnist, I offer an excerpt from the column by Reg Henry in the Seattle P-I newspaper.     

 

Reg Henry in the "Seattle Post Intelligencier":

... by picking Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain has liberated all of us from the tyranny of experience. He has picked someone who is not just inexperienced but spectacularly so, a privilege reserved for the good-looking.

But experience is so yesterday. In a more stuffy era, singers trained their voices for years in the conservatory; today they just pick up a guitar and get on with it. Stockbrokers, who needs them when babies can trade stocks online? Even journalists, who once spent years learning to drink and stay awake in council meetings, are now supplanted in the public affection by bloggers who don't know how to look rumpled.

Sure, experience still counts in some areas: Self-taught brain surgeons and proctologists are to be avoided, as is getting on a plane serviced by mechanics who took an online course. But in politics, a form of mass entertainment, experience is not required in our modern era. This is called progress.

Of course, before this announcement, the conservative talking point was that Barack Obama was not experienced enough for the White House. While some have desperately recalibrated the argument, now saying for the first time that executive experience is what is needed, that won't fly either. Palin doesn't have much of that, either.

The experience argument as used against Sen. Obama was always just a convenient way of saying: "Go away. Come back when you are experienced, by which time we will have another excuse and you will be too old to be exciting." Now his critics are reduced to not liking him because he doesn't shoot moose. This may not be progress but it is some wild and crazy fun.