Ahhh, the "e" word... the (please excuse the Canadian spelling throughout) favourite attack by Republicans on Obama, and the favourite trait to ignore within their own candidates. "Barack Obama simply lacks the experience to be president", hammers John McCain. Of course, not everybody sees this as such a detriment: "Isn't Sarah Palin a wonderful VP choice?", quoted an inside Republican, in clear disagreement with McCain on the experience issue. That Republican? John McCain.
Clearly, this line of attack has gained significant traction within the electorate, as revealed by a recent AP poll taken September 12, 2008:
Fully 47 percent say Obama lacks the proper experience — an even worse reading than the 36 percent who had the same criticism about McCain running mate Sarah Palin, serving her second year as Alaska governor after being a small-town mayor.
Ignoring the striking 11-point discrepancy, the take-home message of the poll - and why the McCain campaign continues to push this line of attack - is that it has proven highly effective. But why? What is the public's rationale for placing such a high priority on a fat resume? In my humblest of opinions, there is no intrinsic value in simply being in a government position for a longer period of time - experience is only valuable if it informs your judgment, solidifies your policy framework, and expands your knowledge base. Yet the discourse surrounding this suggests that "experience" should be treated as an end in and of itself - courtesy of some beneficial framing by our wonderful friends in the MSM.
Some of the rationales for this line of thinking are obvious: the importance of sound leadership is as high as it's been in our lifetimes. In the Stanley Cup playoffs, when the stakes are most critical, do you want your team do be led by the super-talented 3rd-year centre (Sidney Crosby) or the wily veteran defenceman who grasps the hardships he will be up against (Nicklas Lidstrom)? There's also the element of the unknown: we are instinctively attracted to the familiar, yet are more reserved when traversing uncharted waters. This affects every aspect of our life. When you search for a radio station, do you stop at a song you recognize, or a song you've never heard before? Experience also provides a contextual backdrop for the candidates' platforms. The more experienced candidate has a history of governance, which allows voters to contrast what politicians say against what they have brought to the table. They can thereby answer the question of "can I trust him" with greater authority. In the absence of that history, the voter's natural reaction is likely to be one of suspicion - and deservedly so, given the past results of our elected officials.
This immediately places Obama at a handicap, yet it doesn't have to. I know exactly why I'm not bothered by Obama's relative newness, just as I know exactly why John McCain's lengthy career of service does not change my perception of him in the slightest. I believe that whatever Obama lacks in experience, he more than compensates through intelligence, foresight, a level-headed disposition, sound policy, and a strong philosophy of governance - qualities I find lacking in Sarah Palin. These are qualities that I expect to grow through experience, yet for Obama, they come naturally. Likewise, whatever experience advantage McCain had has been squandered through negativity, nastiness, cynicism, impulsive decision-making, disagreeable policies and a general air of intellectual incuriosity. His experience seems to have provided us with a narrow thinker who doesn't seem to know much about everything, and is uncannily linked to the corporate Washington insiders he dislikes so much.
But can a similar case be made in favour of McCain by his supporters? Of the 47% citizens who are bothered by Obama's inexperience, and the 36% who are bothered by Palin's, how many of them have considered to answer the same question with the same level of introspection that us Kossacks have employed? Considering the high impact that this line of attack carries with voters, we owe it to ourselves to ask this question of each other: what are we really looking for in our next president?
For our action-oriented Kossacks: first off, let me say, you don't nearly get the kudos you deserve, and we should all be extremely grateful of your efforts to expand democracy as far as you can take it. But also, this may be an interesting point of discussion when going door-to-door and talking to prospective voters. This is not a partisan question: if a neighbour mentions that he or she is worried about Obama's or Palin's experience, just ask the question: "why is experience such an important issue for you?" The only goals in posing this question are to gain an inside look into their thought process, and to encourage voters to be more reflective about their role in their democracy, so that they can make the most strongly grounded decision for them. If they are still convinced that Obama's not their candidate due to his inexperience, that's fine. But we are cheating ourselves when we allow their rationale to be as simplistic as "somebody else told me that experience was important for the job".