There's been a lot of political content in Facebook status messages lately, at least among my "friends." In response to some of that, for much of last week my status message was a snarky point about experience for a president versus experience for a VP. "(can't have the n00b attending state funerals)" was part of it.
As Nate points out, though:
This picture embodies what is perhaps the essential difference between the qualifications for the presidency and the qualifications for the vice presidency. In a perfect world, we would all like a president who is Ready on Day One (TM); it is not uncommon for a newly-elected president to face a major crisis almost immediately upon taking office. But more commonly, a president takes the Oath of Office under relatively calm waters, allowing them something of a learning curve.
On the other hand, when a vice president takes over for a president, the nation is necessarily undergoing a crisis, because the death (or resignation) of a president is perhaps as traumatic an event as can reasonably be imagined (in the "best" case resulting from a slowly-developing illness, and the worst, an attack by terrorists or foreign adversaries).
(emphasis added)
So yeah, point taken, snark retracted. (I probably won't go so far as to post a contrite Facebook status message, since right now my status soliciting opinions about Obama's mandatory community service thing.
Posted by Matt Bruce at September 2, 2008 01:04 PMSo I thought about this topic this weekend and came to sort of the opposite conclusion: I think any veep taking over will get a honeymoon period with a tremendous amount of support from the start. Sort of an "we're all in this together with you" rallying moment. Then again, this senario has literally never happened in my lifetime, so maybe I am completely off-base.
Also, while it is generally true that "a president takes the Oath of Office under relatively calm waters", that will not be the case in this particular instance; whoever takes over on 1/20/09 will instantly be a wartime president.
Finally, I just cant convince myself that "experience" is all that important in determining who will be a great president. Does a few more years of Senatorial bloviation really make one more fit to be the president? (I do realize that I am in the minority here, so there are politicial considerations, just not for me...)
Posted by: Kubi at September 2, 2008 02:35 PMWow. I had literally not realized until now that the "Nate" at fivethirtyeight was the same Nate Silver from BP.
Nothing to see here, move along...
Posted by: Paul at September 3, 2008 09:15 AM