The Democratic debate in Iowa yesterday made clear what the contest on that side of the primary has come down to:
Much of the debate was couched in language pitting experienced political veterans against new ideas from candidates who haven't spent decades as Washington insiders. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton took center stage, deflecting barbs from the other candidates and leaving former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, who entered the debate virtually tied for first place with Obama and Clinton in Iowa, according to a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll, struggling to assert himself as a first-tier candidate nationally.
Forget John Edwards and all the others. This is between Clinton and Obama, and it's a clash of experience and new ideas. Most polling indicates that Clinton beats Obama more on experience than he beats her on new ideas, which is why she is the front-runner now. But the distinction is more or less a media-created artifice. I'm not so sure voters really want "new" ideas. They want the country to go on more or less the way it has been going, with small changes that make them feel slightly more at ease rather than slightly more worried. And no one has the experience to be president. It's a one-of-a-kind job you have to learn as you go. Clinton is more experienced than Obama only because she has been a senator longer -- which means she has been a debater and talker longer, not a leader -- and because she observed her husband presiding for eight years. Some passengers become good drivers, and some do not.
Whoever the Democratic and Republican nominees are will have some combination of "experience" and "new ideas," and I don't think it will matter all that much. Voters will choose the candidate they believe on a gut level can be trusted with the country when faced with the tough choices and who otherwise will move us incrementally and not go out of the way to startle us. We'll listen to the candidates, but we will be putting together a picture of who the candidates are, not what they say they will do.
