How Fares McCain?

Not as poorly as some had hoped or feared, in fact.

According to RealClearPolitics, his "RCP Average" in head-to-head polls against both Clinton and Obama (see here) is above both potential Democratic nominees' averages by 1% and 1.4%, respectively.

But before you McCain supporters start popping the corks on the champagne, consider this. The chart showing the fluctuations of the Averages shows that McCain has come off of a period in which both Hillary and Obama were beating him, and especially Obama. 1% and 1.4% are very slim leads, and the election is by no means decided.

Renovation

As anyone who had seen my blog before (that would be me) would attest, this is a bit of a change. I'm taking Barack to heart, and saying, "It's time for change we can believe in!" Well, you can sure as heck believe in this.

I added "BlogLog" and "NewsClues" to show some of the blogs and news sources that I use (not really MSNBC or Fox- I just thought those might be news sources to include, although some people would dispute my characterization of Fox as a "news source"). I also changed the layout, since the previous layout was cramping the videos that I had embedded. After I post this, I will also put a wee little bit more about my fair self under the "About Me" section.

Hope anyone who stumbles across this by accident enjoys it,
Patton

Does Experience Actually Matter for a President?

All right, everyone knows about the arguments that Hillary has been making since Day One against Barack Obama. I am referring, of course, to the "I have experience" argument (even though HRC's real world experience is debatable). The notion that an experienced President is necessarily a better one, and, conversely, that an inexperienced President is necessarily a worse one, is not borne out by the records of certain past presidents. Woodrow Wilson had never held a national level position. He had been governor of New Jersey for 2-3 years before he ran for Prez. We can see, of course, how his relative inexperience on a national scale hurt him when it came to conducting World War I. There are several other examples of strong Presidents who were relatively inexperienced, and highly credentialed Presidents who apparently did not gain much from their years of experience. The President who guided us through what was probably our greatest domestic crisis ever had served four terms in the Illinois House of Representatives and one term in the U.S. House of Representatives before his election to the presidency on the eve of the Civil War. I refer, of course, to Abraham Lincoln. Oddly enough, both his successor, Andrew Johnson, and his predecessor, James Buchanan, had years and years of experience in government. Buchanan failed to do anything worthwhile to prevent the Civil War, and Johnson messed up Reconstruction and got impeached to boot.

What I would like to see in the race is more focus on the candidates' past judgment, and how they think they would handle an MRC (Major Regional Contingency) or even, potentially, something larger than that. If 9/11 happened again, who would respond the best and fastest? That's what the voters should ask Hillary, Obama, and McCain (and Paul and Gravel, I suppose, if anyone cares about them anymore).