Political Experience: What Matters, and Why?

[AKA_Monet]

Can you all separate the two? Experience vs. knowledge--doesn't one lead into the other?

I think there is an issue of "leadership" that comes into question. If elected (or selected depending on where you sit), the persons will be our leaders.

We currently have a leader who had plenty of leadership experiences including his own VP. But they still ran our country into the ground. Our troops fight with little gear doing the best they can do and come back home to what? A job doing what? Health support services doing what?

We had an economic surplus 10 years ago, now, we have a gajillion dollar deficit. So no matter whose platform any of us support, regardless of what we think, these will have to be cleaned up before we go full throttle into any other country exacting our military might...

There will always be poverty, suffering is the human condition, and war is not the answer to it. But as human beings apart of this planet--this Global Economy--we have to play in this pool and try to make something better of it.

So, for me I am looking for revelation and revisionist thoughts. Something that can help may children's grandchildren... (Not that I have any...)

[UGAalum94]

It's a really interesting question. We seem to want an impossibility: someone with extensive government experience who is still somehow an outsider and in touch with the common person.

Along with the good judgment thing, I think assessments of overall character play in. I know that opens the door to a lot of personal life crap, but I have known very few people who were completely crappy in their personal lives and yet exemplary professionally.

I'm not saying that I'm looking for someone without sin because I certainly don't expect that, but I think the kinds of mistakes that people make and their reaction to them are revealing and may be kind of predictive of the leadership you can expect. Charismatic and charming but not particularly faithful got us one kind of leadership; reformed ne'er do well after religious conversion got us another.

Certainly every person is unique, so I don't mean you could expect that based on a certain type of mistake in the past you could expect a certain type of leadership, but the patterns of a person's life do reveal something worth knowing about how they are likely to handle things in the future.

And maybe oddly, past successes could reveal traits that would harm a person's effectiveness in office because the demands of one job are different than the demands of another. Someone who in congress was devoted to building consensus and compromise might actually struggle with the sort of singular leadership of the executive. (I realize that the pres. has to work with congress, so I don't mean that consensus building could in itself be a bad thing, just that it's a different job.)

But in terms of kind of resume-based government experience, I want to see enough evidence, preferably in terms of a voting or veto record to be able to determine what a person might do or what agenda he or she might advance. I'm not particular about whether it's at the state or national level.

[texas*princess]

I think Captain of the Basketball team experience is absolutely essential b/c I think it's the captains who call the plays, so in the grown up world, they can call plays in DC.

[a.e.B.O.T.]

-Someone of great character who can fully represent the US to the world

-Someone of fair judgement. I try to figure out a candidate's definition of fair. I am not going to find a candidate who aligns perfectly with my beliefs, and as it stands now, both POTUS candidates have a little bit of this and a little bit of that. So, figuring out if they are going to be fair or bias, or what they think of as normal protocol is to lean towards strictly their side of the political area or if they are willing to be the president of all of us.

-Someone who won't be a Veto whore.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by texas*princess

I think Captain of the Basketball team experience is absolutely essential b/c I think it's the captains who call the plays, so in the grown up world, they can call plays in DC.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by texas*princess

I think Captain of the Basketball team experience is absolutely essential b/c I think it's the captains who call the plays, so in the grown up world, they can call plays in DC.

I don't think you got the memo:

Originally Posted by KSig RC

(Try to keep this clean - argue your point, but disparaging comments that are off-topic will result in me punching your mom. You are forewarned. Be a freaking adult.)

[summer_gphib]

For this election, I'm just looking for someone-- ANYONE who doesn't have their head up their ass.

That is why, right now, I still don't know who I am voting for.