Matt Zeitlin

The question of why Clinton is the experience candidate is a weird one.  Obama has been in elected office longer, and Clinton has only been in the Senate for four more years, during which she, like any Democratic senator, didn’t have the chance to get much done.  Before being in the Senate, she was the First lady of Arkansas and the US, and although she was exceptionally involved for a first lady, she was really only different from Laura Bush on the margins.  And yet, so many Democrats accept the hope vs experience dichotomy as both natural and accurate. Timothy Noah cites a poll showing that there’s a 39% gap between Clinton and Obama on the question of whether Clinton or Obama “prepared her(him)self well enough for the job of President,” with Clinton getting 79% and Obama only 40%.

But why is there this huge disparity when both of the candidates have had little experience in government and that Obama has had more (11 years in public office compared to Clinton’s eight)?  I think the reason lies in how Obama framed the choice between him and Hillary.  Obama, in talking about how the biggest risk is to stick with the same mindset blah blah blah implicitly denigrates Washington experience of the kind that Clinton is supposed to posses so much of.  This dynamic allows Clinton, who because of her wonky manner — her speeches are littered with bullet points, while Obama’s with verse — can seem experienced, to become the candidate of getting shit done, while Obama is the one who talks about getting shit done.

Noah says that Clinton’s false claiming of superior experience will eventually harm her later on the in the campaign, and while I agree with when he says that being a corporate lawyer, law school lecturer, mother of a smart daughter, first lady and a senator doesn’t make one exceptionally experienced, I see no reason why Clinton, as long as she’s against Obama, can’t continue to  ride this experience train.  She’s managed to trick the voters, and arguably herself, into thinking that she’s some sort of Lyndon Johnson-like congressional/political mastermind.  And Obama, who instead of really challenging her experience claims, is arguing that experience isn’t necessarily so desirable, is only making Clinton’s job easier.  There’s no reason to think that she can’t continue to do so: if Bush tricked the country and the press into thinking he was a moderate, compassionate, regular guy, than surely Clinton can continue her experience charade.