US parties flip-flop on experience in White House race

Back in 2008, a freshman senator named Barack Obama got savaged for his inexperience.

As Republicans prepare their 2016 presidential races, political messaging has flip-flopped as they face the most seasoned woman in American politics.

Hillary Clinton's decades-deep curriculum vitae -- US first lady, senator, secretary of state -- contrasts dramatically with three first-term Senate Republicans who have launched White House campaigns but have little national record to stand on.
Obama survived a bruising party nomination battle with the more experienced Clinton to become the first sitting senator to win the White House in more than half a century, when voters embraced a young, fresh-faced politician peddling a message of hope and change over veteran Senator John McCain.

With Senators Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio borrowing a page out of Obama's playbook, some Republicans who once hailed candidate McCain for his vast knowledge and experience are casting some 2016'ers as ambitious outsiders who could win the White House without Washington baggage.

"I think politics has changed a lot," said Senator Richard Shelby, one of several lawmakers who discussed the 2016 landscape with AFP.
"For the presidency, experience probably was never that valuable," Shelby said. "People get tired of you."

Even McCain, who once called Obama "naive" given his mere two years in the Senate before announcing his presidential bid, recognized that voters could well embrace green-behind-the-ears candidates Cruz, Paul and Rubio.

- Articulation over experience -

"Do I think that they would be better off with more experience in the Senate? Absolutely," McCain said recently.

"But I think the American people judge them much more on their vision and the articulation of that vision.

"If they like somebody and they think they could be a good president, I'm not sure they'll care how much time they spend in the Senate."
Well-known former governors are also signalling their White House aims, including Jeb Bush of Florida and Rick Perry, the longest serving governor in Texas history.

Current governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin, New Jersey's Chris Christie and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal are possible contenders.

But for the Senate's young guns, their Washington inexperience may be a primary asset.

"The longer you serve, the more detailed your record, with thousands of votes that can be used to attack you," said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at University of Virginia.

"It points to the perversity of our system," he added. Being an experienced "creature" of Washington hardly endears today's candidate to heartland voters.

While the Republican National Committee dwelled on Obama's "inexperience" in 2008, it assailed Clinton this month for her "decades as a Washington insider."
Rubio, who topped a Thursday poll of Republican hopefuls, not-so-subtly suggested that Clinton's 30 years in the public eye could be her Achilles heel.

At his campaign launch this month, the 43-year-old Rubio tarred Clinton, 24 years his senior, as "a leader from yesterday."

- 'I've been around' -

Democrats too have changed tack.

Support for Obama's "Yes We Can" newness has given way to a call for stability and a veteran hand to keep the American economy on a relatively even keel and tackle global challenges.

"I actually think there are a lot of voters who are looking for someone who has experience, who they feel is going to be able to do the job when they get elected, without a lot of on-the-job training," said Senate Democrat and former New Hampshire governor Jeanne Shaheen, a Clinton supporter.
During what is expected to be a fierce Republican primary battle, Cruz, Paul and Rubio will no doubt face pressure to explain why they feel they are prepared for the mantle of commander-in-chief.

Rubio can claim he was more experienced than Obama by citing his time as speaker of Florida's House of Representatives, said Fergus Cullen, a former Republican chairman in New Hampshire, which hosts one of the first presidential primary votes of 2016.

"I'm not sure Ted Cruz or Rand Paul can," he said.

A fourth senator might throw his hat in the ring: Lindsey Graham, who built a reputation as a hawkish third-term Republican who reaches across party lines on vital issues like immigration.

"My challenge is, hey, I've been around a while," Graham acknowledged.

After Obama, voters will be looking for "maturity and judgement," he said. "And that can come early in life, it can come later in life."