Are YOU Experienced?

Joe Klein at Time has an interesting take (that I've also seen separately mention at Andrew Sullivan's blog) on the experience issue: pointing out that with all three remaining candidates being senators without any actual executive experience, we should take a look at how they have run their campaigns.

If nothing else, a presidential campaign tests a candidate's ability to think strategically and tactically and to manage a very complex organization. We have three plausible candidates remaining--Obama, Clinton and John McCain--and Obama has proved himself the best executive by far. Both the Clinton and the McCain campaigns have gone broke at crucial moments. So much for fiscal responsibility. McCain has been effective only when he runs as a guerrilla; in both 2000 and '08, he was hapless at building a coherent campaign apparatus. Clinton's sins are different: arrogance and the inability to see past loyalty to hire the best people for the job and to fire those who prove inadequate. "If nothing else, we've learned that Obama probably has the ability to put together a smooth-running Administration," said a Clinton super-delegate. "That's pretty important."

ADDITIONALLY: Illuminating read: check "Inside the Clinton Shake Up" by Josh Greene at the Atlantic about how loyalty has determined who Clinton has running her campaign, in a frightening echo of how Bush has run things. (actually that article is really good -gonna explore more in its own post later)