In article >,
"Bob Terwilliger" > wrote:

> Stan wrote:
>
> > If experience is so important for presidential candidates, then why in the
> > world did the Republicans eschew McCain in the 2000 Republican primary and
> > nominate a draft dodger with zero experience in foreign and national
> > politics; a person who had never even traveled abroad?
>
> Because that's who the voters *wanted*. I think hindsight shows it was a
> disastrous mistake.

In the case of the current president, I agree that picking him over
McCain was a disastrous mistake. Ironically, during the past eight
years, McCain has remanufactured himself into Bush Lite in his bid to
win the White House this year. Considering that the vast majority of
presidents came into the White House with no experience, I think McCain
made a strategic error in his campaign by emphasizing his experience and
playing down Obama's, especially since Obama is really the maverick
McCain once was. McCain's an idiot if he thinks he can foist himself as
a political maverick while voting with Bush over 90% of the time.

Except for Nixon and the first President Bush, no other president since
JFK came into the White House with any real experience for the job, yet
now the Republicans are couching McCain's experience as an essential.
This is all the more hypocritical in light of the fact that the
Republicans down McCain 8 years ago in favor of an inexperienced draft
dodger and that McCain has voted with this failure of a president over
90% of the time. The Republicans can't win on the experience card,
especially with Palin on their ticket, and even if they could get away
with playing the experience card, it is clear that McCain's experience
shows a lack of foresight and a total disregard for what's important to
most Americans.

McCain's entire campaign strategy, especially his selection of Palin, is
a clear demonstration of the Republicans' desperation and hypocrisy to
keep the White House.