The Crossed Pond

There’s a video rolling around the blogosphere right now of Obama supporter Kirk Watson, a Texas State Senator, being asked by Chris Matthews to name just one thing that Barack Obama has accomplished during his time in the Senate. Watson found himself at a complete loss, and the clip made for a great “gotchya” moment. You can see the video (and transcript, and Captain Ed’s analysis) here.

Ed states the general consensus:

Obama simply doesn’t have any record to show. He has been in the Senate a grand total of three years, one of which he’s spent running for President. He has no record of even attempting to bring any of the themes on which he’s running now to the Senate for consideration as actual legislative product. Why didn’t he act when he had the chance?

I’m going to answer the main charge in a bit, so don’t think I’m ducking it, but a few things first:

The first, and most integral, is the question of how much experience matters. We have had a lot of Presidents, and a lot of cabinets, with a fairly wildly divergent amount of experience in them, and I don’t know that you can ever say that “the more experience the better”. That sounds counter-intuitive, of course, but consider that one of our least experienced Presidents was Abraham Lincoln, whose career prior to his election is weirdly reminiscent of Obama’s: four terms as a representative in the Illinois State Legislature, one term as a United States congressman, and outside of that, he was mostly known for his law career and for his brilliant rhetoric.

Compare that to George W. Bush in 2000. Two terms as a successful governor of one of America’s largest states, son of a President (who himself was one of the most experienced men to have ever held the job), and he brought with him a team that even had his critics give an impressed whistle—guys like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell, a veritable dream team of experience Presidential-level conservative political minds. We have our own opinions of them now, of course, but at the time, barely anyone could be found who wouldn’t begrudgingly admit that Team Bush would be one of the deepest wells of political experience to ever staff and hold the White House.

If you want another example, 1960 featured one of the closest races in American history between pretty wet-behind-the-ears John F. Kennedy, and sitting Vice President Richard Nixon (the only President ever to be elected twice to the offices of the presidency and the vice presidency). Nixon, of course, on the basis of his considerable experience, won the Presidency in 1968.

In pointing those things out, I’m not saying experience doesn’t matter. Of course it does. And openly debating whether Barack Obama has the chops for the job is certainly fair game—indeed it should be the central question of the election. But there is a point to be made that experience, as they say, isn’t all that.

I once read a fascinating article that I sadly have never been able to find since about Supreme Court Justices and their experience prior to serving. The author had written a book on the subject, and his response in an interview of his findings was that, in his mind, character beat out experience every time as a predictor of success and influence. Character, intellectual curiosity, will, ability to think outside the box, ability to be a leader rather than a follower, all of those, to his mind, mattered far more, from a historical perspective, than bean counting years on the bench or in office ever did. He was speaking of Supreme Court justices, of course, but I’d apply that to any position of political leadership.

Secondly, I guess I’m apparently one of the only people watching the Democratic race who can’t, for my part, name a single accomplishment of Hillary Clinton either. Unless ruthlessly overseeing one of the most phenomenal bombs in modern American history—her health care debacle—counts as an accomplishment. I wonder how your average Hillary superdelegate would answer Matthews’ question.

But, those points aside, the most fair way to answer Matthews’ question is to…well, look at Obama’s legislative record. Which nobody but Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings (guest blogging for Andrew Sullivan) seems at all interested in trying to do.

Mind you, Obama has only been a Senator for three years, one of which has consisted mostly of his Presidential campaign (of all three Presidential candidates left in contention, worth adding that John McCain has been the least active in the Senate during the primaries). But when you actually look at his legislative record, for a freshman Senator, it’s actually…well, on the extremely bulky side.

I’m copying a large chunk of Hilzoy’s post here, but it’s worth looking at, if the question is…well, worth answering.

I think it’s only a Rorschach test for people who don’t bother to find whether or not Obama actually has any actual legislative achievements. If he does, then of course this just shows that this one supporter didn’t know what they are. If he doesn’t, it might show something more, e.g. that Obama is a lightweight. As it happens, Obama does have substantive legislative achievements. I have written more about them here. A few highlights, all of which became law:

* Ethics Reform: Obama was the Senate’s point person on ethics reform, and sponsored or co-sponsored the bills that made up what the Washington Post called “the strongest ethics legislation to emerge from Congress yet.” I’m also a fan of this bill, which I think of as the Journalists, Bloggers, and Citizens’ Muckraking Empowerment Act: it creates a searchable database of recipients of federal grants and contracts.

* The Lugar-Obama initiative to strengthen the Nunn-Luger framework for securing loose nukes, and to extend it to securing and destroying stockpiles of conventional arms. (For instance, shoulder-fired missiles that could be used against passenger airlines, fired at our forces, or used to make any number of ongoing conflicts more deadly.)

* Various bills concerning the response to Hurricane Katrina, including an amendment putting strict limits on the use of no-bid contracts after disasters, requiring planning for the evacuation of people with special needs and senior citizens, creating a National Emergency Family Locator System, etc.

There are also a lot of good bills he worked on that did not make it, including the compromise immigration bill and a proposal to create an independent Congressional Ethics Enforcement Commission, and some that are on the Senate calendar now, like a bill to criminalize various deceptive election tactics, like deceptive robocalls, providing misleading information about where to vote or what conditions you have to meet to be eligible to vote, etc.

There’s a lot more. Honestly, there is. I wrote a summary here (and an earlier one here), and provided lists (1, 2, 3) of all the bills and amendments sponsored or co-sponsored by Clinton and Obama in the 109th and 110th Congresses, just so it would be as easy as possible for people to see for themselves. (Fun fact about each side’s legislative records: during the 109th and 110th Congresses (which is to say, the time that both Obama and Clinton have been in the Senate), only one sponsored a substantive bill that became law. Guess who it was? Hint: the bill concerns the ongoing conflict in the Congo.)

So, it turns out Senator Obama actually has been a pretty damn active Senator, with a fair few legislative accomplishments already under his belt—impressive for a freshman Senator (who usually just kind of hang out for a few terms until they get their feet wet and start qualifying for positions of seniority).

As this Matthews video flies around, maybe this is actually worth noting?

Like, instead of haw hawing about one state Senator’s inability to field the question, to note what the answer actually is?

I know I know, I’m new at this.