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Judgement Trumps Experience
Sep. 16th, 2007 09:32 amWhen I was in college Ken and I ran for co-chairs of the social program committee. Our opponent was a woman named Rumi (the rules permitted people to run either as a co-chairs or sole chair who would later pick a vice-chair). Rumi had been on the committee for at least a year, and we had never been on the committee. The head of Student Activities, who later left the university to avoid a bribery scandal, wanted Rumi to win and knew that we would be trouble... we weren’t part of his inner circle.
Ken and I sat down and wrote our speech. We only had a few minutes of stage-time, so it had to be quick. I suggested that first we write Rumi’s speech, then write a speech that worked against it. We realized that her speech would be all about how we have no experience, and haven’t attended a single committee meeting, and she’s the one with all the experience.
When “candidate speech night” came, we all got up on stage and the moderator asked who wanted to go first. Everyone knows that it’s best to go second, so when they asked us to pick who goes first, we said, “we do!”. Rumi was surprised. I guess she had practiced both ways but was hoping to go second so she could rebut anything we said.
Ken and I got up to the microphone. Ken started to speak: “If you want the candidate with the most experience, the person that has been on the committee for years, that has been involved in every detail of past events and can sustain the social events as you know them...”
Then I grabbed the microphone, “And vote for our opponent, Rumi.”
Ken returned, “That’s right. If you want more of the same, vote for Rumi. Because we’re here to tell you that we’re the people with new ideas.”
I chimed in with a number of new event ideas that we had, and pointed out that I would bring back the traditional Rocky Horror Picture Show that used to always happen the weekend before Halloween.
We ended our speech and then turned the microphone to the moderator, who introduced Rumi.
She looked terrified. It seemed that ever sentence in her speech was about how experience was where it’s at. Our prediction was true.
Our speech was a hit.
Sadly, we lost by about 70 votes. And we were thankful, to be honest. We would have hated to been committee co-chairs. It would have taken up all our time, and we would have fought with the head of Student Activities all the time, or becoming part of his creepy inner circle.
This week Barack Obama gave a speech that attacked (without mentioning Hillary Clinton by name, I think) Democrats that voted for the war in Iraq without reading the intelligence. Hillary Clinton makes a big deal out of the fact that she regrets her vote and was fooled by Bush. The criticism of Obama is that he isn’t as experienced as Clinton, and his response is that the “experienced” people didn’t demonstrate good judgement.
Good judgement trumps experience?
President Bill Clinton’s administration hurt by inexperience at the beginning, but he got help.
President JFK’s administration was hurt by inexperience, but look at he accomplished? He didn’t have the burden of experience, which seems to include a lot of political debts to pay that prevent you from working on the agenda that you have.
The last couple Governors in NJ have been hurt by not having experienced staffers, who botched the first couple months. Corzine (our current Governor) was smart enough to fix this problem and have a chief of staff that had been in Trenton for a long time, so that he could navigate the crazy politics of New Jersey’s statehouse better.
Under President Bill Clinton the Republican Noise Machine learned that it can be very effective to have the president always distracted by some kind of made-up scandal or other issue. Even if it isn’t true, defending it keeps the entire staff from getting their work done. This time they will start this from day one. In fact, they will start the moment the primary elections indicate who the winner will be and won’t let up until the Democrats leave the White House. The ability to deal effectively with the noise will be the biggest factor in getting elected, and once elected it will be the biggest factor in having an effective presidency.
So the question becomes who will be able to rebuke the noise machine best... the easy target (Clinton) who will be able to learn from past mistakes, or the cleaner candidate that won’t have experience to deal with the attacks?
Ken and I sat down and wrote our speech. We only had a few minutes of stage-time, so it had to be quick. I suggested that first we write Rumi’s speech, then write a speech that worked against it. We realized that her speech would be all about how we have no experience, and haven’t attended a single committee meeting, and she’s the one with all the experience.
When “candidate speech night” came, we all got up on stage and the moderator asked who wanted to go first. Everyone knows that it’s best to go second, so when they asked us to pick who goes first, we said, “we do!”. Rumi was surprised. I guess she had practiced both ways but was hoping to go second so she could rebut anything we said.
Ken and I got up to the microphone. Ken started to speak: “If you want the candidate with the most experience, the person that has been on the committee for years, that has been involved in every detail of past events and can sustain the social events as you know them...”
Then I grabbed the microphone, “And vote for our opponent, Rumi.”
Ken returned, “That’s right. If you want more of the same, vote for Rumi. Because we’re here to tell you that we’re the people with new ideas.”
I chimed in with a number of new event ideas that we had, and pointed out that I would bring back the traditional Rocky Horror Picture Show that used to always happen the weekend before Halloween.
We ended our speech and then turned the microphone to the moderator, who introduced Rumi.
She looked terrified. It seemed that ever sentence in her speech was about how experience was where it’s at. Our prediction was true.
Our speech was a hit.
Sadly, we lost by about 70 votes. And we were thankful, to be honest. We would have hated to been committee co-chairs. It would have taken up all our time, and we would have fought with the head of Student Activities all the time, or becoming part of his creepy inner circle.
This week Barack Obama gave a speech that attacked (without mentioning Hillary Clinton by name, I think) Democrats that voted for the war in Iraq without reading the intelligence. Hillary Clinton makes a big deal out of the fact that she regrets her vote and was fooled by Bush. The criticism of Obama is that he isn’t as experienced as Clinton, and his response is that the “experienced” people didn’t demonstrate good judgement.
Good judgement trumps experience?
President Bill Clinton’s administration hurt by inexperience at the beginning, but he got help.
President JFK’s administration was hurt by inexperience, but look at he accomplished? He didn’t have the burden of experience, which seems to include a lot of political debts to pay that prevent you from working on the agenda that you have.
The last couple Governors in NJ have been hurt by not having experienced staffers, who botched the first couple months. Corzine (our current Governor) was smart enough to fix this problem and have a chief of staff that had been in Trenton for a long time, so that he could navigate the crazy politics of New Jersey’s statehouse better.
Under President Bill Clinton the Republican Noise Machine learned that it can be very effective to have the president always distracted by some kind of made-up scandal or other issue. Even if it isn’t true, defending it keeps the entire staff from getting their work done. This time they will start this from day one. In fact, they will start the moment the primary elections indicate who the winner will be and won’t let up until the Democrats leave the White House. The ability to deal effectively with the noise will be the biggest factor in getting elected, and once elected it will be the biggest factor in having an effective presidency.
So the question becomes who will be able to rebuke the noise machine best... the easy target (Clinton) who will be able to learn from past mistakes, or the cleaner candidate that won’t have experience to deal with the attacks?
