Political Commentary

Who?

15 Comments

I’ve never heard of Chet Edwards. And it strikes me that having a running mate with the last name “Edwards” is a little impolitic right now, given the current problems with the one named “John.”

At least he seems to have a lot more experience than Obama. But then, he’d have had trouble coming up with someone who doesn’t. More signs of an attempt to appear to be moving to the center, and perhaps pick up Texas and do better in the south (though that still seems unlikely).

[Update a couple minutes later]

Actually, in reading his bio, I’d think that this would be an unbeatable ticket if he was at the top, instead of veep. But he’s not, and it won’t be. All of this presumes, of course, that he actually is the pick. We’ll find out soon enough.

[Update in the afternoon]

There are a lot of reasons to think that this is just a head fake. He’s a very conservative Democrat, and it would probably push the nutroots over the edge to vote for Nader.

[Another one a couple minutes later]

More thoughts from Geraghty:

Sure, he’s very pro-choice, rated F by the NRA, and manages to hang on to a central Texas House district. And Pelosi recommended him. But the debate would consist almost entirely of the GOP vice-presidential candidate saying, “I agree with Chet’s old position, the one he had before he put his manhood in a blind trust and flip-flopped to agree with Obama’s liberal position.” Edwards would constantly be in the awkward position of defending positions he doesn’t agree with. Add that to the fact that 90+ percent of Americans know nothing about him, it’s a formula for disaster.

Let’s hope he does it.

15 thoughts on “Who?”

  1. I dunno, I’ve been voting against him for years. But, he’s got a nice, safe gerrymandered district to fall back on. A lot of the folks who used to vote against him wound up in another district during the last gerrymander session.

    He’s pretty much a party-line Democrat. That’s probably why you’ve never heard of him; there are a couple hundred more just like him out there.

  2. But then, he’d have had trouble coming up with someone who doesn’t.

    Fred Thompson, for instance. Thompson and Obama have about the same amount of government experience.

  3. Thompson and Obama have about the same amount of government experience.

    You’re even more full of excrement than usual today, Jim.

  4. I’ve often heard and often felt the sentiment that the tickets should be reversed for the democrats and republicans. I’ve always wondered if this is because some of the people who are nominated for VP would really make better presidents but don’t want to go through the pain of running, or if it’s just that I really don’t know as much about them so I don’t have as much I don’t like.

  5. Jeff, the campaign process does a pretty good job of weeding out anyone any sane person would want as President, so I think your first hypothesis is more correct.

  6. Mr. Harris,

    Not that it probably matters to you, but I believe Fred Thompson has about twice as much Senate experience, based strictly on time elapsed since election, as does Barack Obama, Mr. Thompson having served a full term. Also, none of said experience was diluted by the exigencies of running for national office. Obama has barely set foot on the Senate floor in roughly a year, so the effective differential in meaningful Senate experience is more like 3:1.

    Then there’s the fact that while, regrettably, both men are lawyers, Mr. Thompson actually practiced law for a number of years. Mr. Obama, in contrast, went from studying it to teaching it, but never practiced it as a profession.

  7. Thompson and Obama have about the same amount of government experience.

    Really? Obama spent time as an assistant US attorney? Obama was re-elected to the US Senate? I never knew any of that! I really wish University of Illinois would release those records, so I can learn more about Obama’s governance.

  8. Thompson was also an assistant US Attorney, and Minority Counsel on the Watergate Committee. It’s laughable to think that Obama’s experience is similar.

  9. I believe Fred Thompson has about twice as much Senate experience

    Of course the question is not Senate experience specifically, it’s overall experience. Obama served 7 years in the Illinois State Senate, which is similar.

    It’s true that Fred Thompson practiced law in the 1980s and that does count for something. But according to Wikipedia, it was personal injury cases and white collar crime. Obama taught constitutional law, which is more relevant to the presidency.

    Thompson has a lot of experience lobbying for various special interests after his stints in Washington. That’s yet another kind of experience, but some would say that that’s a negative kind of experience.

    People made a particular point of saying that Obama has no executive experience. Well, Fred Thompson doesn’t either.

    Let’s agree that it doesn’t count if Fred Thompson plays the President of the United States on TV.

    Thompson and Obama each have their own kinds of experience, but all in all it’s pretty comparable.

  10. Yeah, but Jim Harris does have a valid point, in that the argument of “no experience” is a pretty weak one when it comes to Presidents. In terms of just running the show without screw-ups, the only relevant job experience is being governor of a big state, and no one like that is running this year. I don’t think being a Senator for even a billion years is good preparation for being President. The jobs are very different.

    Furthermore, in terms of your ideas, and your judgment of other men, and your character, experience is completely irrelevant, except insofar as it gives others the evidence by which to judge those things.

    In that respect McCain has a serious advantage: he’s been around so long, we have a huge record of actual decisions and actions by which to judge his character and judgment. Obama, by contrast, has made so few important decisions it’s harder to know what he’ll do when the next one comes along, if he’s President. I think there’s a good chance this is part of the reason behind McCain’s recent rise: the times have suddenly started to seem more uncertain (how far will gas rise? what are those fucking Russians up to now?), and in those cirx there’s something to be said for putting a guy in charge who, whatever his faults, is a reliable and well-known quantity.

    I suppose one could argue, however, that Obama has rather little “real world” experience for his age. The Founders demanded a minimum of 35 years of life experience from the President, feeling that younger men are simply to naive to do the job with proper caution and conservatism. But in their day a 35-year-old man would have spent no less than roughly 20 years as a functioning adult, with a profession, earning his keep (and usually supporting a family), making his way in a rough and tumble world.

    Today, however, we have college and post-graduate schools that keep young men out of the real world until deep into their 20s or even 30s. Barack Obama, for example, except for a brief two-year job after college, did not leave school and enter the real world until he was 30 years old. It’s difficult to argue that at age 47 he has the same real life experience as, say, James Madison at the same age, or even John Kennedy.

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