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This makes a better hypothesis to me than your thinking:Kind of a predictive microcosm for American politics and the Democrats... say goodbye to the older white men with gravitas and hello to the women, minorities and youngsters with pizzazz. Of course, to "the system" and many out there, this is just peachy. And of course, I feel differently.
At the very least, I would hope that even those who most hate my positions and beliefs would acknowledge that, as demonstrated by this race, "diversity" doesn't really mean "inclusion of all." It means replacing some with others, nothing more. If you argue that "we need change" or "we need something different," OK, but then you're admitting that there are fundamental differences between men, women, races, etc. that matter enough to make the distinction. And if you're going to say things like, well, we have a lot of women in this country, and to feel more a part of the system, they need to look up and see some leaders. UH-HUH... so why wouldn't that argument apply to white males as well?
Otherwise, it wouldn't MATTER if the president were an older white man or a young black woman. Yet somehow I think the subtlety of this point will just get crushed in a collective howl of "Nazi!" and "bigot!" So, please, howl away.
CAMPAIGN 2008
The 16-Year Itch
Voters seem unusually willing this year to entertain candidates lacking in Washington experience.
BY MICHAEL BARONE
Friday, January 4, 2008 12:01 a.m. EST
The Iowa caucuses have just passed and we await, with just two weekday prime-time news nights in between, the New Hampshire primary. The biggest surprise of the campaign so far is the success of candidates with minimal credentials and little if any experience in national governance.
The Wall Street Journal went to press before the results in Iowa were in, but Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, and Mitt Romney, a one-term governor of Massachusetts, were leading in Iowa Republican polls. Barack Obama, in his fourth year in the Senate, was running strong in the Democratic contest, as was John Edwards, who spent just one term in the Senate and has now been running for president or vice president for six years.
Even Hillary Clinton, campaigning as the candidate with experience, has limited credentials. She has some experience with the pressures of the White House and has taken some initiative on domestic policy, with mixed results. But as Patrick Healy of the New York Times pointed out recently, she never held a security clearance during her husband's presidency, and last week she was under the impression that Pervez Musharraf was running in parliamentary elections in Pakistan, although he was elected president in October.
New Hampshire may give us different results, and there is no guarantee that any of the top finishers in Iowa will be nominated, much less win the presidency. But what we are seeing this year is an unusual preference for outside-the-system candidates with less top-level experience than voters usually want in a president.
An unusual preference, but not unprecedented. In 1992 voters elected a 46-year-old Arkansas governor as president, and in the spring of that year, if the polls are to be believed, they were ready to elect a Texas billionaire whose governmental experience included serving as a junior naval officer and running a firm that provided computer services to local welfare departments. In 1976 voters elected a one-term former governor of Georgia who'd served as a state senator and a naval officer.
The metrically minded will see a common thread. Every 16 years--in 1976, 1992 and now in 2008--American voters have seemed less interested in experience and credentials and more interested in a new face unconnected to the current political establishment. What can explain this 16-year itch?
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