Comments on: Does “executive experience” equate to Presidential success? Part 1

By: Lisa

Lisa — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:13:57 +0000

Avi, that might be true in business, but in politics, our VP is not the second in command for running the country. The VP has as much power as the President lets him have, and historically that isn’t much (if any) at all. They get to break ties in the Senate. Whoo frickin’ hoo.

By: avi

avi — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:43:33 +0000

VP should count, EE is defined as being top OR #2 in running something.

By: Ed Darrell

Ed Darrell — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:31:28 +0000

I’ll quibble here and there.

1. Washington was a genius at business. He got significant money from his marriage to Martha Custis, but he built on that enormously. One quick example of his acumen: In 1765, he tired of being at the mercy of London tobacco merchants and the London tobacco exchange. So he got out of tobacco altogether, and farmed only crops that he could sell on the local market or export himself without the British interfering — wheat and other grains, meats, etc. In this way he got rich, quick.

2. As to Jefferson’s doing nothing to end slavery, remember that there was a clause in the Constitution that prohibited any mention of the issue in Congress until 1809. Jefferson served as president from 1801 to 1809. Plus, I think you give too little weight to the Louisiana Purchase, an executive play that was very much extra-Constitutional, and brilliant.

By: Monica

Monica — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:25:02 +0000

JFK and Abraham Lincoln both Presidents without executive experience. But really what impact does executive experience of V.P. candidate Palin have as mayor of an outpost highway berg of 7000, gov. of a state with population of about 600,000 and her in depth work with the PTA .

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:07:37 +0000

I grappled a bit with the Alien and Sedition Acts. (I didn’t want to turn each president into a huge essay, so I didn’t mention it.) One redeeming thing about the Acts were that they weren’t permanent… they had expiration dates. He never intended to them to be forever. But I decided avoiding a war that would have decimated us as a country won out, and thusly gave his presidency the overall ‘good’ rating. Had he not avoided that war, we might be writing this in French right now.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 13:15:57 +0000

I agree with not counting VP as executive experience. John Adams himself felt it was a useless, powerless position. I agree with GW being a good president. He also refused to run beyond 2 terms, which set an excellent precedent broken only by FDR.

As much as John Adams is my favorite founding father, I do not believe he was more than a mediocre president. Yes, he prevented war with France, but he also signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which ignored the Bill of Rights. Adams was a brilliant man who had, arguably, the best moral compass of any of the founding fathers, but a good president, I don’t think he was.

Jefferson ran on a platform of curbing the power of the federal government in favor of states’ rights, yet he exceeded the power of the presidency as it was defined in his time. The Louisiana Purchase was not something the president should have been able to do.

I’m glad you are doing this, as I went to bed last night thinking the exact same thing. Certainly the current president, who came in with executive experience, has not been a rousing success (to put it mildly). Lincoln, on the other hand, who was a lawyer, state legislator, and one-term Representative before being elected to the presidency, was brilliant and one of the shining stars of the executive branch.

On to Monroe…