Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Poll: Which US presidential candidate do you like best?

Bush had been knocked about a lack of foreign policy experience, which definitely showed during the debates. Ironically, he had trouble coming up with the name of the President of Pakistan, Perez Musharraf, a person who would later play a huge role in the fight against al Qaeda. His advisors that were talked about would have been Condoleeza Rice, a Russian expert, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell. At the time, foreign policy wasn't very high on the list of priorities since it was pre-9/11 and Russia and missile defense looked like the biggest topics of foreign policy. Terrorism wasn't on anyone's radar, so even the "experts" had a lot of catching up to do. Even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Richard Myers, was chosen at the time for his experience with missile defense.

Note that Bill Clinton had no foreign policy experience either, but he did have twelve years in the governor's mansion in Little Rock. Nobody in the press cared since foreign policy was on nobody's mind during the 90's.

In the campaign, Bush emphasized how well he worked with a Democratically-controlled Texas legislature with the press essentially calling Texas state Democrats "Republicans in Democrat clothing," especially with Bush being best friends with the Democratic Speaker, Bob Bullock. So the press didn't think he was battle tested against "real" Democrats. Bush also emphasized his relationships with Mexico being that he was governor of a border state to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

As for executive experience, he had already been easily re-elected by a huge margin with lots of Democratic support as governor when he started running for president and had six years as a chief executive by the time he made it to the Oval Office.

Today, foreign policy is a huge issue. With hot spots all over the world with North Korea and Iran, plus the continuing Iraq deployment, we need someone with foreign policy experience. Obama and Clinton have none. McCain has a lot, but he's never been a governor.

On some previous presidents, Harry Truman was considered a terrible president at the time and won re-election by a miracle. Remember "Dewey Beats Truman?" President Eisenhower's lack of experience really showed. While he was popular with the people, his relationships with Congress were terrible and he could do very little. It was during his sixth year that Republicans took one of their biggest bloodbaths in the 1958 midterm elections in the party's history, losing 48 House seats and 13 Senate seats (though gaining one seat in the brand new state of Hawaii, though Democrats picked up three in the two new states of Alaska and Hawaii, so the GOP was -12 and the Dems +16 net).

While John Kennedy is lionized today, he was actually losing his re-election effort at the time. His trip to Dallas was because he was afraid of losing Texas despite having a Texan as his vice president. Lyndon Johnson didn't even bother to run for re-election, knowing he wouldn't win. Nixon had long resume, including a stint as Eisenhower's VP, but a stupid decision to cover up a break-in that he had not had anything to do with ended up with him resigning in disgrace. Gerald Ford had never been elected and ended up losing to dark horse Jimmy Carter in one of the closest elections in this nation's history. Carter's now considered one of the worst presidents we've ever had.

That led up to Ronald Reagan, a successful two term governor of California and a successful two term presidency. George H.W. Bush had never been governor either but had been a Senator. He was a one-termer. And H.W. Bush had been coined the man with "the longest resume in the west," having been Director of the CIA, congressman, senator, UN Representative, vice president, etc. It didn't help his campaign against Bill Clinton.

So our recent history of presidencies has been pretty thin with only Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton having served two full terms since Roosevelt. Bill Clinton's the first and only president to ever win two terms without ever having a majority of the vote (43% and 49%). Assuming nothing unusual happens, Bush will be the third.