I'll side with Kevin on the "experience" debate. To argue that Barack Obama has more direct legislative experience than Clinton and is thus not vulnerable to experience attacks is to be misled by a hyperliteralism around the word "experience." As Kevin puts it, "Obama partisans are missing the point here. Like it or not, most voters have a sort of vague operational view of experience that means something like 'involvement in big league politics.' And on that score, Hillary gets 15 years: 8 years as an activist first lady and 7 years as U.S. senator. Obama, conversely, gets a total of 3 years as U.S. senator. It may seem unfair that his eight years in the Illinois legislature don't count, but for most people they just don't. Being a backbench state legislator just isn't big league politics. Seen through this lens, the problem with Obama isn't that he's less experienced than Hillary, but that he's inexperienced, full stop." I'd recast the issue of experience, actually, as one of familiarity and comfort. To voters, government is a sort of black box. It's actual workings are pretty much a mystery. So every four years, you vote for someone who appears to basically share your beliefs and your worldview, who you're comfortable with personally, and who seems able to step into that back box and make things happen. And if you can only get some of those traits, so be it. Voters are used to Hillary Clinton. They're even more used to John McCain, who's not only been on their television screen for eight years, but looks like most of the guys they're used to seeing on their televisions screens in this context. They're not used to Barack Obama. That, in part, is why he can shake them from apathy, and create this movement. But it will also be why many mistrust him, and are willing to believe everything from attacks on his patriotism to charges that he's just "not ready." So far, Obama has had to appeal to primary voters, who are a much higher information electorate, and much likelier to vote for the candidate who involves them. In the general, he's going to have to attract a lot more people who don't really want to be involved so much as they want to vote for someone and trust that that person will take care of things for awhile. McCain will try and trade on that. Obama will try and degrade his credibility by ticking off aspects of his record that voters disagree with. But when McCain says that Obama has never met a world leader or had to vote to authorize a war, don't think that Obama can defuse the attack by pointing to his experience in the Illinois State Senate. Voters don't really know what goes on in Washington and they're totally unaware of how Springfield works. Many like Obama, and some are even excited about him, but if he wins the nomination, the challenge will be whether he can convince the apathetic majority to feel comfortable with him.
