Of course experience is necessary when it comes to picking our nominee. But considering how often she brings it up, you'd think there was a glaring difference in the sheer amount of experience between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. If we look simply at their time in office however we see that she doesn't enjoy any great advantage in this regard at all. She has one more term in the Senate than he does but he's spent more time as a legislator over all.
Branding.
What Hillary seems to be doing is just a basic campaign trick and not raising a genuine concern over Obama being fit for office. It's an effort at branding him in peoples minds before they get to know him. She is telling people what weakness to look for so they won't perceive the potential strengths that he has. It's clever because he is young and looks that way and it's such a vague concern that you can't really nail down what his problem is. If you can't nail it down, it's more difficult for him to actually address.
But it's worth looking at why people buy into the comparison to her in the first place. Hillary does have one important experience that Barack Obama doesn't and that is having been in the White House already. This is why it works in people's minds. We've already seen her as part of the Executive.
And here is where this thing can backfire on her. If she overplays this card now, the thing that could beat her in the general election could wind up preventing her from ever getting there. Because as the campaign goes on, what people are craving more and more is a sense of change. This may be particularly poignant to the swing voters next November so it's important that the Democrats are careful about who we put up there next to a new face from the GOP.
Hillary knows this. That's why she says, "Change is only a word if you don't have the strength and experience to make it happen." This sounds like an attack on Obama and it is. But underneath it is defensive as well. Because this is her key weakness as nominee. The GOP can beat her in 2008 because by nominating her we give up the appearance of being the choice of change which could be the number one factor before it's all done.
In 2008 we will have had twenty straight years of two families ruling from the Executive. If Hillary is the nominee, we will be asking the country to essentially continue that pattern at a time when there is incredible discontent over the way things have been going. They will be able to essentially use the failures of the Bush Administration against the Democratic nominee.
All you have to do is remember that they made the argument that you should vote Bush over Kerry because Kerry didn't have a good enough solution on the table to the problems that Bush himself had created. Don't count on irony to prevent them from making an argument because it's actually how they do business.
Political Dynasty. Ruling families. If the Democrats don't discuss this now during our nomination, you can count on the GOP to make sure it's what everyone is talking about next October.
We will find ourselve making the argument, "But look at the Bushes! You voted for W." But of course now they know that was a big mistake. We know that the arguments in elections get this dumb. And when it gets dumb, the GOP tends to get the presidency.
It's worth thinking about who has the most experience in Washington in a year of no incumbent when the nation craves change. I'm pretty sure the wrong candidate is pointing it out.