Last December, I made this offer to supporters of the three leading Democratic candidates for president, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama:
If you are a local supporter of any of the three leading Democratic candidates, Clinton, Edwards, or Obama, I'll give you a chance to put up your argument here. There are three conditions: First, your argument should be limited to what they have accomplished, especially as elected officials. I do not care whether they look good in a swimming suit (or bad in a pants suit), or whether they have had interesting lives, or whether they can talk really pretty. I want to know what, if anything, they have done. Second, each entry should be no more than a thousand words long. Third, you should email it to me no later than the end of the year, so that I can post it before the Iowa caucus on January 3rd.
No one took me up on that challenge. Not one local supporter of these three Democratic candidates was willing to say what, if anything, their candidate has accomplished, especially as an elected official.
But I still think it's a good challenge. When we choose someone for a job that requires experience, we ordinarily look first at the "Accomplishments" section of their résumé. If those sections of the Clinton and Obama résumés are empty, or nearly empty, we should know that before we elect either president. And so I am renewing my challenge, and extending it in several ways to make it easier for the local supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Here are the new conditions:
As before, your argument should be limited to what your candidate has accomplished, especially as an elected official. (For example, it woudl be interesting to know what, if anything, Obama accomplished as a community organizer, but that is less important than his service in the Illinois senate.) The entry can be posted here, in which case it should be no longer than about a thousand words. Or, it can be a blog entry on a leftist blog, or a column or editorial in a local paper or on a local web site. In those cases I will link to it, with a few quotes to give readers here a starting point. A local leftist blogger can get extra traffic for a post supporting Clinton, by meeting this simple challenge. An Obama girl (or boy) at one of our local local papers can get extra readership for a column or editorial that they might want to write anyway. An Obama delegate who writes, for example, Knute Berger, could get a column and (possibly) support for his candidate — just by telling us what, if anything, his candidate has accomplished.
Since I want to make it as easy as possible for Clinton and Obama supporters to meet my challenge, I will keep this offer open until one has won the presidency, or both have been defeated. However, if I get an entry sooner that meets my conditions, then I will go ahead and post it. (And if I get more than one entry, I may post several.) But I will not post any entries before April 22nd, the date of the Pennsylvania primary. So you have at least a week for both candidates (and probably much longer), and until November for one of the candidates.
To be fair to anyone who chooses to respond to my challenge, I must add this warning, phrased as politely as possible: When Clinton and Obama describe their own accomplishments, they both sometimes exaggerate — just a little. So if you are trying to figure out just what, if anything, your candidate has accomplished, you should not rely entirely on what they say they have accomplished.
(As I have said before, I do not think this is an impossible task, I do think a reasonably well informed person could write such a statement for either candidate. But, I doubt whether it is possible to make strong statement for either candidate. Which is, of course, why I am renewing this challenge. I think that neither Clinton nor Obama has accomplished enough to make them plausible candidates for president — but I am willing to give those who disagree a chance to prove me wrong.)
Posted by Jim Miller at April 14, 2008 08:04 AM | Email This