Donald K. Allen for President

Top of the Week

Monday, December 17, 2007

Last week the two front-running Democrat candidates, Mrs. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were attacking each other. They are focusing on an issue that applies to me as well – experience in government and politics.

Hillary says she has 35 years’ experience in politics, including eight years in the White House. She points out that she will “hit the ground running” when she takes office. This is pure flawed logic. Living in the White House is not anywhere near the same thing as working in the Oval Office. Most of the time she was doing what all First Ladies have done, and that is visiting other countries and other leaders’ wives, and getting involved in social and humanitarian issues.

If Hillary is elected, this will be the first time in our history since Franklin Delano Roosevelt that a President has spent more than two terms in the White House. Not long after Roosevelt’s death, Congress passed the Twenty-second Amendment, stating that, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

It’s important to understand that NONE of the presidential candidates have the experience needed to be president. Every one of them would be going through on-the-job training during the first year in office. So it doesn’t really matter whether you have had one year’s experience in government and politics or 35 years, or none. One of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Paine (1737-1809), said that, “Anyone could grasp the nature of politics and government; all that is required is common sense.”

Looking at what our politicians have done during your lifetime, do you think they used a lot of common sense in making decisions? I’m sure most of you believe you would have done certain things differently. I agree. It’s time we had an infusion of common sense into our presidency and returned the office to a state of dignity, honor, and respect. Sometimes “experience in politics” equates with corruption, dishonesty, and duplicity. The American Indian had a term for this, “He speaks with forked tongue.”