Senator ≠ President
Over at The New Ledger, Ben Domenech has an interesting take on Obama's speech last night. Ben always has something interesting to say. He's on my regular click-list.
Ben says, in a nutshell: senators make lousy presidents.
In my piece this week in the Dead Tree edition of National Review, I put it this way:
Here’s the part of Obama's interview with Matt Lauer I find the most interesting: “I don’t sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar,” said the former college professor, who ran a health care reform summit meeting like the cranky chairman of a faculty committee of a third-rate college. Who finds it impossible to describe something as simple and clear as Islamic fundamentalism without weasel-wording equivocations. Who, in other words, thinks this is a college seminar.
So we've got a Senator-in-Chief, and a Professor-in-Chief. It would be nice to have a Commander-in-Chief, too.
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Feb '10
Re: Senator ≠ President
There's a good reason Governors tend to make good Presidential material.
It's also the reason Senators typically don't get elected President, though plenty of them have the ego and do run for the position. Last time around, though, we didn't have a choice-- both candidates were Senators.
May '10
Re: Senator ≠ President
I love the Dead Tree edition. I'm looking forward to reading the whole article!
May '10
Re: Senator ≠ President
As alluded to by BusySysAd, I believe it is a long held political axiom that Governors make the best Presidents, as they have actually gained executive experience in running a large entity, while Senators essentially do a lot of harrumphing.
Though to be fair to Senators, Obama only spent around ~18 months as a full-time Senator, before hitting the Presidential campaign trail. So to chalk him up to being a Senator-in-Chief is unfair to life-long harrumphers like Kerry, Kennedy, Dodd, and Biden.
Obama is rather an Agitator-in-Chief. I can't remember where I recently heard/read this, but the idea is that he has NO leadership experience, and all he has to fall back on is his Alinsky-ite training. He used to agitate the Government for payouts, but now he IS the government, but doesn't know what to do with it.
Obama's biggest shortcoming is his total apparent lack of leadership ability. Governors on the other hand usually come to the job with plenty of leadership experience, and usually with some crisis management experience to boot. The White House is not a place for community organizing, it is a place for governing.
Wherefore-art-thou Jeb, Mitch, and Mitt?