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Experience

sarah-palin-thumb.jpg
On the main matter of the day, culture critic Steven Shaviro has this to say:

Obviously Sarah Palin is a right-wing maniac. She opposes sex education and favors abstinence instruction only; she opposes abortion, even in cases of rape; she supports everything the oil companies want, and thinks that global warming may not even exist, and if it does, it is not the result of human actions; etc. etc. ad nauseam. All that is good enough reason not to want her anywhere near the White House.

But I’m stunned by the vituperation that seems to be overcoming the “liberal” portion of the blogosphere, denouncing her on the basis of her lack of experience, her teenage daughter’s pregnancy, etc.

For one thing, “experience” simply does not matter. At all. It is a completely bogus idea. The lack of experience didn’t stop Ronald Reagan from being the most effective political leader of the last half century (and therefore the one who did the most harm, and caused the most human suffering, of any President in American history). Neither does Der Arnold seem the least bit hindered in his machinations by having less “experience,” and less knowledge of anything outside Hollywood, than the average joker driving down the street. The fact is, “experience” can be easily borrowed or bought. Reagan didn’t need experience or understanding, because he had the right-wing policy wonks from the Heritage Foundation backing him. And Arnold has handlers inherited from his GOP predecessor Pete Wilson. A politician doesn’t need actual “experience,” as long as he or she has the right advisors. With the right advisors, a chimpanzee could be an effective US President (and the chimp would probably pull in higher approval ratings than Bush now does).


Chimpanzee_thinking.jpg

This maybe true for the Republicans, but it’s not so true for the Democrats. The left still has faith in the actual, in experience, in competence, is some kind sober relationship with the facts. The Republicans, on the other hand, are pure idealist in the sense that the illusion (be it God or voodonomics) is always more real than the real. The Republican party is Plato’s party; the Democratic party is Aristotle’s.

Comments (27)

1

Which party has the sweetest tits, though, Charles? Come on - educate us with your vast REAL knowledge!

Posted by Frat Boy | September 8, 2008 9:59 AM
2

Lyndon Johnson had the Best and the Brightest (advisors)...and he sucked.

Posted by John Bailo | September 8, 2008 10:13 AM
3

A more cynical view would be that experience doesn't matter to puppets.

Posted by snarky | September 8, 2008 10:18 AM
4

Apparently the Republicans never read Plato's Symposium.

Posted by Clarkj | September 8, 2008 10:18 AM
5

Also: Reagan had a great deal of experience; he'd been governor of the largest state (equivalent of the eighth-largest country in the world) for eight years; he'd run for president before, in 1976, and come close to the nomination. He was a known quantity. Sarah Palin is a total mystery, a blank slate. The fact that this idiot Shaviro doesn't even know what her oil-company position is suggests that she's still a zero.

Posted by Fnarf | September 8, 2008 10:39 AM
6

This guy is right. Arguing experience plays right into McCain's hands and allows them to play the feminist card to people who don't know what feminism is, but fancy they do.

They way to work around Palin is by ignoring her entirely whenever possible; and when not, by pointing out her right-wong bona fides and her two-faced-ness: flip-flopping on pork, abusing her power as Gov, etc.

Posted by She's Bush in pumps | September 8, 2008 10:40 AM
7

My earlier comment, which was eaten, pointed out that Palin does not support "everything the oil companies want"; in fact, she's taxed them to the point that one major has left the state.

This just points out further what a mystery she is. No one -- critic or supporter -- has any idea what her views are on ANYTHING.

Posted by Fnarf | September 8, 2008 10:47 AM
8

@5. I thought the same thing about his oil company statement... am I missing something? She raised taxes on the oil companies to increase the dividend to the Alaskan population, right? That can't be good for the oil companies. Maybe he's referring to the drilling thing...

Posted by Julie in Chicago | September 8, 2008 10:48 AM
9

"The left still has faith in the actual, in experience, in competence, is [sic] some kind sober relationship with the facts."

Gack. Then how the fuck do you explain how the very left-wing proponents of the new Sound Transit ballot measure came up with the "$69 per year" cost figure they are using?

Last year ST took in $279 million of sales tax revenue (at the .4% rate). So how could the $69 figure possibly have been derived? Let's have some ST supporter try spelling out how that $69 annual tax amount could have been derived using "some kind sober relationship with the facts."

Near as I can tell, that particular cost-guesstimate is one of two things: a psychotic brain-fart, or a lie.

Hate to piss on your "right vs. left dichotomy" thesis Charles, but it isn't, you know, true.

Posted by Michael Palin | September 8, 2008 10:51 AM
10

With Sarah Palin, the Republicans have set up a brilliant trap for the Democrats. And so far far too many Democrats (but not the Obama campaign itself) have stepped right in. The Republicans want Dems to attack her for her experience, her family life, her ability to govern. They want this to be a debate about gender.

Anything to distract from actual issues and policies and the state of this nation. Sarah Palin is a weapon of mass distraction.

Posted by cressona | September 8, 2008 10:55 AM
11

Just stop the attacks on Palin -- they are not working. Get back on a positive economic message. Please.

Here's why they are not working:

1. the whole Obama campaign devalued experience quite effectively for the last 19 months. It's out the window. WE threw it out the window. You can't get it back.

2. Palin does have experience. She ousted a corrupt party chair, she ousted a corrupt governor, she got oil companies to pay more to Alaska citizens -- exactly what the leftist nationalist govts. of Mexico Libya S Arabia did decades ago -- and she helped along a natural gas pipeline.
Plus she fired the personal chef, cut a few other things, etc.

As mayor she RAISED the sales tax for some kind of infrastructure project. She brought Wal-MArt to Wasilla.

[pause for obligatory coastal elite snorting; ignoring how when you're trying to win Wal-Mart moms, this helps] [oh and pls excuse my prior misspelling of "Wallmart" --as I've never been in one, I misspelt agin]

3. Every attack on experinec ebounces back on us because of McCain having more years of experience than Obama.

The most silly attacks are the notion that somehow being governor of Alaska just doesn't count, but being a senator from might Delaware (pop. what, 565K when Biden was elected??) or a half term senator of Illinois does.

She's vetoed line items, dealt with budgets, etc. etc. You can attack her for being a right wing conservative -- she is. But attacking her family didn't work, now attacking her on exp. isn't working, when you and we going to get back to that positive economic message?

Ever?

Posted by PC | September 8, 2008 10:59 AM
12

Palin's political career is an insult to women. I find it sickening that so many are looking to her as a role model.
The fact that she's attractive and that she has several children seems to excuse her incompetence as a politician. The damage that she has done to the fight for female equality in just the last few days is horrifying.

Posted by Jen | September 8, 2008 11:06 AM
13

PC:
Please don' lie about your Wal-Mart experience. It's unbecoming, even for you.

Thanx!

Posted by Keekee | September 8, 2008 11:08 AM
14

This may be true.

Posted by I can't believe you're a teacher. | September 8, 2008 11:24 AM
15

Charles,
Shaviro says "The lack of experience didn’t stop Ronald Reagan from being the most effective political leader of the last half century (and therefore the one who did the most harm, and caused the most human suffering, of any President in American history)."

Wow. I'm aware this Slog is unabashedly left-of-center and loathes Bush and other Republican Presidents (obviously, Reagan as well). But to say "he caused the most human suffering of any President" is a bit of a stretch. Mr. Shaviro try looking at the administrations of LBJ and even Richard Nixon and review the numbers of soldiers and civilians killed during their terms as a result of Presidential directives if those are the numbers you're looking at to define human suffering.

Posted by lark | September 8, 2008 11:33 AM
16

The Republican party is not Plato's party, since that would make Socrates a 4th BCE Ronald Reagan and that I cannot abide.

Posted by ben | September 8, 2008 11:40 AM
17

The Wasilla Gorilla!

Posted by DOUG. | September 8, 2008 11:44 AM
18

Who is that old dude that keeps hanging around Palin? He's creepy.

Posted by six shooter | September 8, 2008 11:47 AM
19

I fear for my life if this woman is elected President (McCain will not survive his first term by any means necessary).

It makes me sick to read about how average Americans are charmed that she is a mother of five with a special needs child).

(BTW, I may have to stop watching politics until after the election is over because I have lost 15 pounds in the past seven days do to the depressing thought that my life might be in the hands who will take all my medical care away from me, but would not let me smoke pot to ease the pain, or to chose to die with dignity).

Posted by elswinger | September 8, 2008 11:55 AM
20

What the left doesn't understand (especially the hard, urban left) is that there are lots of people, possibly mostly in rural areas and small communities, that do not have "strong" positions on the red meat issues (gays, guns, abortion and Iraq) that LIKE Palin as a PERSON. They identify with her simple origins and "folksy" personality (the way only union organizers can identify with Biden). These are the same people who voted for Bush because the more the left pointed out that he "talked funny" and had a "C average" the more they identified with him.

I think the same thing is happening with Palin. The more the left attacks her on WHO she (and her family) is, the more these voters feel attacked by the left because they say "I may or may not agree with her, but she's LIKE me".

Where the VP does not usually "matter", the more the left talks about how old McCain is, and how dangerous that makes Palin, the more Palin matters (advantageously to McCain) because of these same voters.

I came from one of those small towns (population 40,000) and the people I talk to there that two weeks ago were uninterested in this election (likely to stay home?) are now energized by Palin. And not because of her policy positions, but because of her personality and her experience. And by experience I mean that she came from small town America, seems like an average small town girl that made good, likes sports, fishing and hunting, has a family that deals with the issues that average families deal with, and hasn't been on the receiving end of any special privileges that they can't relate to (as a racial minority, a long time Senator or the son and grandson of an admiral.) She seems like someone that stands in line at the grocery store and cooks dishes that involve cream of mushroom soup and hamburger.

None of the other candidates radiate that kind of "likability". They all seem more like rarefied, elite, millionaires then neghbors. One of the most telling things I heard this weekend came from a Fire Breathing Liberal who's firmly in Obama's camp. She said that "Palin scares the hell outa me because she seems so likable".

I think Palin's going to prove to be like quicksand to the left. The more they fight against her, the more disastrous the outcome. Allot of "simple folk" are going to identify with her and see attacks on her as attacks on them.

She's got the stuff that got G.W. Bush and Bill Clinton elected twice. She seems like someone you would want to hunt or drink beer with. And that counts for allot more than it probably should with people who hunt and or drink beer. (And, out side of large cities, there are still allot of people in this country that hunt and/or drink beer.)

I'm going to call this election for McCain / Palin now... Just for the record. (But I wouldn't be willing to place any heavy bets on it. And I've been wrong before.) partly because the left made a fatal error in making their initial attacks on Palin personal. Now, any substantive attacks will be tinged by that, and seen as personal by the voters who identify with the "kind of person" she is. There is no effective method left to deal with her, and the Republicans are going to keep pushing her to the front of the story because of the teflon coating the left has now galvanized her with.

It never fails to amaze me that Democrats are so adept at snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory.

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me | September 8, 2008 11:59 AM
21

BO08 already hosed the "experience" issue by making the explicit argument that experience is a liability, a remnant of the status quo ... "a leper" as Bill Richardson painted the pose in caricature. Ludicrous, but deadly effective in the primaries.

I'll bet the "then and now" spots are already in editing.

Posted by RonK, Seattle | September 8, 2008 12:11 PM
22

What the left doesn't understand (especially the hard, urban left) is that there are lots of people, possibly mostly in rural areas and small communities, that do not have "strong" positions on the red meat issues (gays, guns, abortion and Iraq) that LIKE Palin as a PERSON. They identify with her simple origins and "folksy" personality (the way only union organizers can identify with Biden). These are the same people who voted for Bush because the more the left pointed out that he "talked funny" and had a "C average" the more they identified with him.

I think the same thing is happening with Palin. The more the left attacks her on WHO she (and her family) is, the more these voters feel attacked by the left because they say "I may or may not agree with her, but she's LIKE me".

Where the VP does not usually "matter", the more the left talks about how old McCain is, and how dangerous that makes Palin, the more Palin matters (advantageously to McCain) because of these same voters.

I came from one of those small towns (population 40,000) and the people I talk to there that two weeks ago were uninterested in this election (likely to stay home?) are now energized by Palin. And not because of her policy positions, but because of her personality and her experience. And by experience I mean that she came from small town America, seems like an average small town girl that made good, likes sports, fishing and hunting, has a family that deals with the issues that average families deal with, and hasn't been on the receiving end of any special privileges that they can't relate to (as a racial minority, a long time Senator or the son and grandson of an admiral.) She seems like someone that stands in line at the grocery store and cooks dishes that involve cream of mushroom soup and hamburger.

None of the other candidates radiate that kind of "likability". They all seem more like rarefied, elite, millionaires then neghbors. One of the most telling things I heard this weekend came from a Fire Breathing Liberal who's firmly in Obama's camp. She said that "Palin scares the hell outa me because she seems so likable".

I think Palin's going to prove to be like quicksand to the left. The more they fight against her, the more disastrous the outcome. Allot of "simple folk" are going to identify with her and see attacks on her as attacks on them.

She's got the stuff that got G.W. Bush and Bill Clinton elected twice. She seems like someone you would want to hunt or drink beer with. And that counts for allot more than it probably should with people who hunt and or drink beer. (And, out side of large cities, there are still allot of people in this country that hunt and/or drink beer.)

I'm going to call this election for McCain / Palin now... Just for the record. (But I wouldn't be willing to place any heavy bets on it. And I've been wrong before.) partly because the left made a fatal error in making their initial attacks on Palin personal. Now, any substantive attacks will be tinged by that, and seen as personal by the voters who identify with the "kind of person" she is. There is no effective method left to deal with her, and the Republicans are going to keep pushing her to the front of the story because of the teflon coating the left has now galvanized her with.

It never fails to amaze me that Democrats are so adept at snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory.

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me | September 8, 2008 12:14 PM
23

What the left doesn't understand (especially the hard, urban left) is that there are lots of people, possibly mostly in rural areas and small communities, that do not have "strong" positions on the red meat issues (gays, guns, abortion and Iraq) that LIKE Palin as a PERSON. They identify with her simple origins and "folksy" personality (the way only union organizers can identify with Biden). These are the same people who voted for Bush because the more the left pointed out that he "talked funny" and had a "C average" the more they identified with him.

I think the same thing is happening with Palin. The more the left attacks her on WHO she (and her family) is, the more these voters feel attacked by the left because they say "I may or may not agree with her, but she's LIKE me".

Where the VP does not usually "matter", the more the left talks about how old McCain is, and how dangerous that makes Palin, the more Palin matters (advantageously to McCain) because of these same voters.

I came from one of those small towns (population 40,000) and the people I talk to there that two weeks ago were uninterested in this election (likely to stay home?) are now energized by Palin. And not because of her policy positions, but because of her personality and her experience. And by experience I mean that she came from small town America, seems like an average small town girl that made good, likes sports, fishing and hunting, has a family that deals with the issues that average families deal with, and hasn't been on the receiving end of any special privileges that they can't relate to (as a racial minority, a long time Senator or the son and grandson of an admiral.) She seems like someone that stands in line at the grocery store and cooks dishes that involve cream of mushroom soup and hamburger.

None of the other candidates radiate that kind of "likability". They all seem more like rarefied, elite, millionaires then neghbors. One of the most telling things I heard this weekend came from a Fire Breathing Liberal who's firmly in Obama's camp. She said that "Palin scares the hell outa me because she seems so likable".

I think Palin's going to prove to be like quicksand to the left. The more they fight against her, the more disastrous the outcome. Allot of "simple folk" are going to identify with her and see attacks on her as attacks on them.

She's got the stuff that got G.W. Bush and Bill Clinton elected twice. She seems like someone you would want to hunt or drink beer with. And that counts for allot more than it probably should with people who hunt and or drink beer. (And, out side of large cities, there are still allot of people in this country that hunt and/or drink beer.)

I'm going to call this election for McCain / Palin now... Just for the record. (But I wouldn't be willing to place any heavy bets on it. And I've been wrong before.) partly because the left made a fatal error in making their initial attacks on Palin personal. Now, any substantive attacks will be tinged by that, and seen as personal by the voters who identify with the "kind of person" she is. There is no effective method left to deal with her, and the Republicans are going to keep pushing her to the front of the story because of the teflon coating the left has now galvanized her with.

It never fails to amaze me that Democrats are so adept at snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory.

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me | September 8, 2008 1:00 PM
24

Sorry for the triple post... Slog (technically) kinda sucks lately....

Posted by You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me | September 8, 2008 1:07 PM
25

There are many times I'd have voted for the chimp, but its name never appears on the ballot.

Posted by NapoleonXIV | September 8, 2008 1:47 PM
26

Nice expensive new glasses. Partial frames, lenses anti reflective coating, corrected for distortion at temples. Highlights added. Someone should price the makeover.

Posted by snarky | September 8, 2008 2:03 PM
27

WHICH Plato--younger or older--is the Plato of the Republican party? The Plato of "The Republic," who recounted a brilliant debate about the ideal form of government; or the Plato of "The Laws," who set forth an extremely hard-practical set of regulations and rules to be followed by those in power?

Aristotle, as I recall, was an excellent logician, but his employer was an unsavoury tyrant, Philip of Macedon, who engaged him to tutor his son Alexander ... who set up a huge empire that quickly fell apart after his early death.

Posted by Seajay | September 8, 2008 8:22 PM

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