Hillary's "Experience"

I was browsing through the blogosphere this morning and came upon this blog on motherjones.com. I've got a few issues with the writer's assertions, but it's not unreadable. The most interesting thing I read was a little nugget nestled in the comments:

"Congrats to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton who on 1/20/09 we will be able to address as President Hillary Rodham Clinton. A woman's place is in the house...The White House, and certainly this woman, who is the most qualified person to seek this office in modern times, deserves to serve as President. What an inspiration she is to everyone, not just women."
Posted by: Sharon Ash on 03/05/08 at 6:26 AM

I like her little twist on the old ‘50s stereotype -- I am a feminist, after all. But I take issue with this insane notion that Hillary is the candidate of experience. I responded briefly on that blog (I couldn't resist), but I'll expand on that here.

First of all, it's debatable whether or not one can count Hillary Clinton’s time as first lady as "experience." It certainly depends on what role the first lady played. Hillary was a fairly active first lady, so I'm not opposed to her counting that as a bit of experience.

But if she wants to share in the credit for the positive things that happened in the White House for the 8 years she was there, than she also has to be prepared to answer for the mistakes. If she wants partial credit for the robust economy of that time period, is she also going to take partial credit for that administration's lack-luster response to al-Qaida's actions during that period? If she wants us to remember what she tried to do for health care 10 years ago, we are also going to remember what she (and Bill) tried to do for her brother, their friends and their business partners.

Clinton’s entire experience as an elected official is 7 years in the Senate. So in the primary race against Barack Obama, yes she can tout her experience. But to say that she is the most qualified to seek the office in modern times is a bit silly -- unless we only count the last 7 years as "modern times."

So here are my rankings for the most qualified candidates to win the presidency in modern times (since WWII):

#10 DDE -- 2-yr Supreme Cmdr of the Allied Forces in Europe, 2-yr Supreme Cmdr of NATO.
#9 GWBush -- 6-yr Gov
#8 Carter -- 4-yr St. Sen; 4-yr Gov
#7 Reagan -- 8-yr Gov
#6 Bill Clinton -- 2-yr St Attorney Gen; 12-yr Gov
#5 JFK -- 6-yr Rep; 8-yr Sen
#4 GHWBush -- 4-yr Rep; 2-yr Ambassador to UN; 1-yr CIA Dir; 8-yr VP
#3 Nixon -- 4-yr Rep; 2-yr Sen; 8-yr VP
#2 Ford -- 24-yr Rep (8-yr Minority Leader); 2-yr VP
#1 LBJ -- 4-yr Rep; 12-yr Sen (7-yr Majority Leader); 3-yr VP

Administrative Bullshit: I rank experience in this order from best to worst: Vice Pres, US Senator, Governor, US Rep, State legislator, other elected official, other appointed official. The most difficult former president to judge is Ike, who had no experience as an elected official, but had a ton of military experience (5-Star General) and was elected as a war-time president. The above list is my opinion, which explains why it only appears on my blog and not in Poli-Sci textbooks. Feel free to submit your own rankings.

One final thought: Touting Clinton’s experience in this primary is setting her up for a fall if she wins the nomination. Her edge in experience over Obama disappears if she faces John McCain (4-yr Rep, 20-yr Sen, war hero) in the general election. After spending months on the “experience” push, Clinton and her supporters would have to do everything posible to keep experience out of the discussion. Wouldn’t that be ironic?