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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Are we really still debating experience?

Apparently the Clinton campaign is asserting that John McCain is more experienced than Obama, with the conclusion that Democrats would be better off voting for the Republican Senator than Mr Obama(?). I already covered the inanity of the experience argument, but here's another taste.

From the Votemaster, a table of presidents ranked by greatness (a consensus among many different surveys) with their respective experience. An analysis freebie: the top ten presidents averaged 10 years experience; the bottom ten had 14 years. So much for learning from your mistakes. And then there's this anecdote:
Suppose you had to choose between two Presidential candidates, one of whom had spent 20 years in Congress plus had considerable other relevant experience and the other of whom had about half a dozen years in the Illinois state legislature and 2 years in Congress. Which one do you think would make a better President? If you chose #1, congratulations, you picked James Buchanan over Abraham Lincoln. Your pick disagrees with that of most historians, who see Lincoln as the greatest President ever and Buchanan as the second worst ever...

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