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Old and Qualified versus Change and Inexperience

by thescribetony | July 11, 2008 at 05:51 pm | 113 views | 1 comment

Commentary by Tony Sarrecchia

John McCain is old, at least according to an AP-Yahoo news poll. He is also seen as having military service and qualifications to do the job as president.

The words chosen for Barack Obama weren't quite as flattering.

The first word used to describe him was the non-judgmental ‘change’. His second place response was ‘lack of experience’ (13%). And third? ‘Dishonest’ (9%).

The poll went on to point out that. although 48% of people who took the poll were Democrats, only 40% of them would vote for Obama if the election were held today. McCain picked up 39% despite that only 36% of those polls claimed to be Republican.

A one percent lead for a democrat in a poll where voting democrats lead by 20% cannot be encouraging for the Obama camp. For McCain to rank so close behind Obama indicates that there is growing support among centrist (read that as ‘clear thinking’) democrats for the Old Guy.

As much as people are looking for change from the mediocrity currently in the White House, we should keep in mind that Obama has less than 48 months experience as a actual senator. Fewer months if you count the time campaigning for president, and writing books. Obama himself, on this CNN report, said “I am a believer in knowing what you’re doing when you apply for a job. And I think that if I were to seriously consider running on anational ticket I would essentially have to start now, before having served a day in the Senate. Now, there are some people who might be comfortable doing that, but I’m not one of those people.”

Yet, somewhere between 2004 and now, Obama has garnered that experience? As Oscar Wilde said, “Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.”

Or, to quote Bud Fox’s father from the 80’s movie Wall Street, ‘Course my son did work three summers as a baggage handler and freight loader. With those qualifications, why should I doubt his ability to run an airline?’

Obama did work as a senator for a couple of months—why should we doubt his ability to run a country.