Experience Matters
Russell Shaw blogs on The Huffington Post about who should be the Democratic nominee for president - and it’s not Barack Obama:
He’s [Obama] only been in the Senate for two years, and won’t even have served a complete term by 2008. More important, he has little executive experience, no track record at being able to forge or at least develop, policy decisions based on complex and multiple inputs.
I’ll tell you someone the Dems could nominate who does have the experience. That would be popular New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Valuable gubernatorial executive experience running a growing and complex state? Right where he is. Valuable national executive experience? Was Energy Department Secretary under Clinton. International diplomatic experience? Was the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. During his 14 years as a Congressperson, (as compared to Sen. Obama’s two years).he garnered significant foreign policy knowledge.
One commenter opines that Richardson can’t elected for the same reason people like Tsongas couldn’t - lack of charisma. I knew Paul Tsongas, Paul Tsongas was a boss of mine, and Bill Richardson is no Paul Tsongas. I remember being in New Hampshire with Tsongas in ‘91. The folks in New Hampshire knew Tsongas and liked him just fine - he did end up winning the primary, I always remind people - but Tsongas could walk into a room and disappear. Meanwhile, even in ‘91, when Bill Clinton was anonymous governor of distant southern state, he would walk into a New Hampshire hall and all eyes would turn to him. Bill Richardson, too, has charm to burn. It’s not just the best résumé of the bunch that he’s bringing to the table.
