Looping, or just loopy? In defense of political experience, at the risk of political entrenchment
by Jill

Yesterday, I went to lunch with a near 30-year veteran of a major metropolitan newspaper who retired a little over a year ago. She's a Barack Obama supporter and I'm a Democratic fence-sitter. Since my top three candidates are gone, baby, gone, I now will choose between the top three finishers in Iowa and New Hampshire.

But how - how will I choose? What criteria do I find to be most relevant? Which criteria are the most relevant?

My lunch date said that she prefers Obama to Clinton or John Edwards because she believes that this country needs someone who will listen and integrate multiple perspectives into a single solution, whatever issue is under the microscope.

I played devil's advocate by bringing up the experience question - what's he got to show, versus someone like Hillary Clinton or John Edwards? (I'm dispensing with the arguments that Clinton's time has all been on the watch as a wife and Edwards as a trial lawyer; I don't believe the former characterization to be accurate or fair and if being a trial lawyer doesn't involve finding solutions, albeit through our justice system, I don't know what profession does).

And her response, not surprisingly, was that Clinton's experience is overshadowed by her entrenchment as a result of that experience.

That's when I told her about looping.

If you have a child in elementary or middle school, you might know about looping. I know about it firsthand because one of my kids is a beneficiary of it.

Looping, in education, is when a teacher sticks with a class for more than one grade. The class, when it heads into its second year, is said to be "looping" with that teacher.

What's the benefit of looping?

Again, if you've got kids, you can just imagine: how many weeks at the beginning of the year are spent by a classroom teacher assessing, assessing, and, you know, assessing? In my school district, anywhere from three to six weeks or more. Especially with the pressures on schools to implement inclusion, so that any one classroom has kids who function along a lengthy continuum of abilities, that assessment period - and then analysis of the results and implementation based on that analysis - can take literally months.

But, ah - with looping? That assessment period, that analysis time, that getting to implementation? Dramatically shortened.

Now, I told my friend, I understand her concern about Hillary Clinton's entrenchment with certain people, groups and influencers that comes as a result of her experience. I feel the same concern - it is real. No question.

But imagine the opposite. Remember the class without looping, the class with brand new everyone - new classmates, new room, new teacher.

As we chatted, it became clear that the conundrum pits the benefits of looping against the detriments of entrenchment. This conundrum, when applied to making a choice between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton (or John Edwards), makes us face the following question:

Which is the greater enemy of achieving the more or less similar goals shared by the Democratic front-runners (getting out of Iraq, re-establishing a positive global reputation for the US, keeping social security safe, reforming health care, improving education, addressing illegal immigration):

Ceding the time it will take Obama to put together a team - across the entire White House administration including all its cabinets, and then create, develop and build relationships with and between all those individuals - because we know he is bright and has a vision, when time is not something most Democrats want to have more of before change takes place;

Or risking the possibility that Clinton will be unable to disregard or otherwise dilute decades-long ties inside the Beltway and therefore be unable to answer to the American people, as a citizenry?

That choice is why I'm on the fence, although the looping analogy has me leaning toward experience.

How about you?

Cross-posted at Writes Like She Talks and RedBlueAmerica.

Submitted by Jill (view blog) on Fri, 01/11/2008 - 16:12

Comments

 

Great analysis, Jill!

It is a very good way of looking at the question of experience. It is one of the reasons that I've been looking carefully at the advisers the candidates have in their campaign. The don't go off by themselves and come up with their policy positions and white papers on their own. Who they choose to help them gives an idea of the type of people who would populate their cabinet and that, as we have seen with Bush, is a major factor in how they will govern.

PopConsumer
Beyond Help

Submitted by Maria Niles on Fri, 01/11/2008 - 17:41
 

Agree re: looking at the advisors

This morning, I think it was on CSPAN, a caller called in to say, change? What change? All the candidates seem to have some seriously old political hands.

And the entrenchment issue is real, I know that. It should raise red flags.

How do we really weigh what we learn? With this election, sometimes, I feel overwhelmed by everything I turn up - I ask questions and get answers, but I'm still not sure what I want to do with the answers! lol I bet I'm not alone, but I really wish it was clearer for me, the way it obviously is for others.

I suppose I need to listen to my own advice which is to inventory what's important to me, what I'd like to see happen with those priorities and then figure out who is going in the same direction in a way I can support.

Or something. :)

Thanks.

Jill
Writes Like She Talks

Submitted by Jill on Fri, 01/11/2008 - 19:11
 

Real Life Looping Example

Hi, Jill! So nice to see you posting here on BlogHer. And so nice to chat with you about something other than lice ;)

I have honest to goodness looping experience. My daughter had the same teacher for both kindergarten and first grade (I don't think it was because they were doing true looping, but because they were in desperate need of more first grade teachers). Anyway, we loved this teacher and the teacher loved my daughter. We were happy to have someone who we knew and were comfortable with. However, this teacher knew my daughter so well that about halfway through first grade, I was noticing errors on my daughter's homework that the teacher hadn't marked. When I asked the teacher about it, she said that depending on the lesson, she didn't always mark every error. My daughter started to complain that her work was too easy and that she was bored. I wondered if maybe my daughter was getting a bit of a free ride since her teacher knew her so well.

Now that we're in second grade, my daughter has a relatively inexperienced teacher. However, my daughter has felt much more challenged this year. I'm sure that has some to do with the advancing grade, but I also know it's because she has to prove herself more with her new teacher. Her new teacher expects more of her than her "looping" teacher did.

I think experience can be overrated, especially if that experience is going to cause someone to not challenge status quo (oh, say, like our current political system). Someone with maybe not as much experience, but just enough to know what they're doing, who might challenge people to go beyond the norm, might be a more effective and dynamic leader.

My two cents.

Amy S.
Up With Moms

Submitted by abswyg on Sat, 01/12/2008 - 14:41
 

You are right

And that is an excellent example of the risk of experience and entrenchment. I keep going back, and I'm laughing, because it just sounds so odd! Which is worse? Which will be the least detrimental to getting things done?: no connections, or old connections?

And of course that's not even a fair portrait of Clinton or Obama - he's got some connections and she's got places - I'm sure, really! - where she doesn't have "ins" etc.

I don't know - maybe I'm the desperate one trying to find solace after my top three candidates bowed out!! :)

Hmm - maybe lice chat IS better??

Jill
Writes Like She Talks

Submitted by Jill on Sat, 01/12/2008 - 16:21
 

Interesting question

And it's obviously something many people are choosing to ignore. Personally, I think that all the remaining Dem. candidates have a great amount of experience. The top 3 candidates all have had remarkable careers as lawyers. And both Clinton and Obama have a background in social services. Like Maria, I also look at who they chose to aid the campaign. In fact, one of the (many) things that turned me off Clinton was that her close people have great experience winning campaigns back in the early 90s, but once they got inside (her current campaign adviser does publicity for Blackwater for goodness sakes!), they've been remarkably adept at losing campaigns. I even blogged about how '92 her concession speech in Iowa looked like. While Obama has a lot of solid new people, it disturbs me that he also old-time pros, most of whom are former Clinton advisors who have had fallouts with the Clinton's. Still, even given that, they are open to a new way of running campaigns and we've seen that. Whereas, the Clinton team seems hopeless stuck in the '60s or 70s with their campaign strategies.

My other problem is cronyism...These past 7 years, we've seen how ineffective gov't is run we friends are appointed positions over people with the right background. The Clinton's have a lot of friends and there are a lot of people they will always owe favors to. Do we need more of that? Or should we go with Obama, Kucinich or Edwards, who'd most likely appoint people that are actually able to do the jobs?

It's a poser...I've been in management and have never hired friends based on friendship. If they could do the job, then they could apply like everyone else. I would hope that my president would do the same.

"I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal. I cannot be comprehended except by my permission. I mean...I...can fly like a bird in the sky." Ego Trippin' by Nikki Giovanni
Visit me at faboo mama

Submitted by fabooj on Sat, 01/12/2008 - 21:01
 

More really good thinking points

Thanks for raising them. Hmm.

I guess part of me so stuck on just how vast the U.S. gov't is, and I haven't worked in it since 1983!

But as a college student, I was at the US Dept. of Justice and do you know it has like 28 or 31 agencies under it (I forget now)? Just thousands and thousands of workers, with lots of appointments and trusting others to hire and on and on. I mean, look at what a fiasco we got with Alberto Gonzalez etc.

But, I suppose, in the end - maybe it just boils down to trust, you know? Who do I/we trust the most to be able to keep the government operating as good as it possibly can, in the way we want it to?

LOL - I'm overwhelming myself - I think I should go to bed! :)

Thanks for the thoughts, Faboo Mama.

Jill
Writes Like She Talks

Submitted by Jill on Sat, 01/12/2008 - 21:41