Mark Schmitt at The American Prospect grades various theories of how the election turned out. Less numerical than our evaluation.
I think there are some verbal miscues in my previous posting, but I think I'm just gonna leave 'em alone.
Showing posts with label presidential politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presidential politics. Show all posts
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
2008 State by State Electoral Predictions Compared
The 2008 election is over and Obama solidly trounced McCain. Several sites kept a running total of polling results by state, including pollster.com and RealClearPolitics. Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com went a step further, analyzing the polling data and explicitly making predictions of the voting totals by state. I also found RJ Elliot who gives a state by state prediction of the voting percentages for Obama and McCain. There are no doubt other sites with predictions. I found one, but they wanted money to view their predictions, so they are omitted from this comparison.
I took the final estimates from these four sites to compare to the actual vote totals. A caveat should be kept in mind: Silver was making an explicit prediction about the election, while RealClearPolitics and pollster.com are aggregating and summarizing polling data, though presumably with the purpose of predicting the election. RJ Elliot also was making predictions, though I didn't see any explanation of his methodology. For actual results, I took data from Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. I didn't try other sources, this was the first that I found.
Final cavil: I collected fivethirtyeight.com and RealClearPolitics' predictions on the day after the election. The pollster.com and RJ Elliot predictions were collected later, on Thanksgiving or the day after. While I don't think have any suggestion that any of these predictions were changed after the election, there certainly is the possibility of that happening.
Results
Herewith the results. I took the predictions for Obama and McCain's state by state percentage, subtracted from the actual percentage, squared the difference, averaged across states, and took the square root. This gives a root mean square error (RMSE) of prediction difference from truth for both the Obama side and the McCain side of the estimates. The results are in the image. Hopefully the image shows up in the right place.
For each site there are two results, for Obama and for McCain. For each row there are two numbers. It turns out that RealClearPolitics (RCP) only predicted results for 38 states out of the 50 states plus DC. The others predicted for all 51. The first column (starts 3.0, 2.9) includes all 51 states plus DC plus the national vote treated as a 52nd state. The second column is the predictions only on the 38 states where RCP made predictions. So the first column you can compare 538, pollster and Elliot. In the second column you can compare all 4 sites.
The states where RCP did not make predictions were the very partisan and small states where the winner was very clear throughout the entire election (think Utah and DC) and where there were very few polls. Both 538 and pollster do much better in the accuracy of their predictions for the subset where RCP was making predictions. On the 38 states where RCP made predictions, we see that 538 had the smallest RMSE followed by pollster then Elliot with RCP having the worst predictions.
Across the 52 predictions (50 states + DC + national), Elliot edges 538 perhaps barely, both of which definitely beats pollster. The RCP result in the first column is not comparable to the other numbers. I inspected the individual residuals (differences prediction minus reality) in the states where RCP did not make predictions. These residuals were often very large. The largest residuals for 538 were from the states (Alaska, Arkansas, DC, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, Vermont, Wyoming), defined as being in error by more than 4% on either Obama's or McCain's vote total. DC, Hawaii, Louisiana Vermont and Wyoming were not predicted by RCP.
I took the final estimates from these four sites to compare to the actual vote totals. A caveat should be kept in mind: Silver was making an explicit prediction about the election, while RealClearPolitics and pollster.com are aggregating and summarizing polling data, though presumably with the purpose of predicting the election. RJ Elliot also was making predictions, though I didn't see any explanation of his methodology. For actual results, I took data from Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. I didn't try other sources, this was the first that I found.
Final cavil: I collected fivethirtyeight.com and RealClearPolitics' predictions on the day after the election. The pollster.com and RJ Elliot predictions were collected later, on Thanksgiving or the day after. While I don't think have any suggestion that any of these predictions were changed after the election, there certainly is the possibility of that happening.
Results
Herewith the results. I took the predictions for Obama and McCain's state by state percentage, subtracted from the actual percentage, squared the difference, averaged across states, and took the square root. This gives a root mean square error (RMSE) of prediction difference from truth for both the Obama side and the McCain side of the estimates. The results are in the image. Hopefully the image shows up in the right place.
For each site there are two results, for Obama and for McCain. For each row there are two numbers. It turns out that RealClearPolitics (RCP) only predicted results for 38 states out of the 50 states plus DC. The others predicted for all 51. The first column (starts 3.0, 2.9) includes all 51 states plus DC plus the national vote treated as a 52nd state. The second column is the predictions only on the 38 states where RCP made predictions. So the first column you can compare 538, pollster and Elliot. In the second column you can compare all 4 sites. The states where RCP did not make predictions were the very partisan and small states where the winner was very clear throughout the entire election (think Utah and DC) and where there were very few polls. Both 538 and pollster do much better in the accuracy of their predictions for the subset where RCP was making predictions. On the 38 states where RCP made predictions, we see that 538 had the smallest RMSE followed by pollster then Elliot with RCP having the worst predictions.
Across the 52 predictions (50 states + DC + national), Elliot edges 538 perhaps barely, both of which definitely beats pollster. The RCP result in the first column is not comparable to the other numbers. I inspected the individual residuals (differences prediction minus reality) in the states where RCP did not make predictions. These residuals were often very large. The largest residuals for 538 were from the states (Alaska, Arkansas, DC, Hawaii, Louisiana, Nevada, Vermont, Wyoming), defined as being in error by more than 4% on either Obama's or McCain's vote total. DC, Hawaii, Louisiana Vermont and Wyoming were not predicted by RCP.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Bill Kristol and the underendowed
Neo-conservative Bill Kristol, former chief of staff to Dan Quayle, was quite taken with Sarah Palin and was an early promoter of hers. He seems to have an affection for under-intellectualized politicians.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Cindy McCain federal tax rate is around 27 to 29%
Cindy McCain released her taxes yesterday, Friday Oct 18, 2008. In 2007, she paid 1,138,189 in taxes on 4,197,028 in income. In 2006, she paid 1,746,445 in taxes on 6,066,431 in income. That's all US Dollars.
She made more than I do both years. In fact, in 2006 she made more than I will likely make in my lifetime.
Not adjusted for inflation, natch.
Her marginal tax rates were 27.1% and 28.8% in 2007 and 2006 respectively.
Her marginal tax rates are lower than her husband's, which according to his press release were 32.6% and 33.8% respectively. Here's the direct quote about his taxes:
She made more than I do both years. In fact, in 2006 she made more than I will likely make in my lifetime.
Not adjusted for inflation, natch.
Her marginal tax rates were 27.1% and 28.8% in 2007 and 2006 respectively.
Her marginal tax rates are lower than her husband's, which according to his press release were 32.6% and 33.8% respectively. Here's the direct quote about his taxes:
For 2006, Senator McCain paid $72,771 in federal income, alternative minimum, and self-employment taxes (LINES 57 and 58) on taxable income of $215,304 (LINE 43), which is a 33.8% tax rate.
For 2007, Senator McCain paid $84,460 in federal income, alternative minimum, and self-employment taxes (LINES 57 and 58) on taxable income of $258,800 (LINE 43), which is a 32.6% tax rate.
It's kind of crazy that John pays taxes at a higher rate than his wife.
What do you suppose will happen to Cindy's taxes under John McCain's tax plan? She'll pay even less taxes than she's paying now. John might pay more or less taxes under Obama's plan, depending on the year.
I couldn't find the exact figures for McCain's tax plan, but I did find this link suggesting that Cindy will get a 4.4% decrease in taxes under John's plan, while she will see a 11.5% increase under Obama's.
Friday, October 3, 2008
How do we know if the average pollster is unbiased?
There is a discussion going on at fivethirtyeight.com about whether Realclearpolitics is cherry picking the polls going into their averages.
Now, a comparison site is pollster.com, which uses all polls.
There is a problem with any of these models:
How do we know if the average pollster is unbiased?
A key parameter in 538's (or anyone's) election modeling has to be the grand mean across all polls.
Speaking in rough terms, the grand mean is estimated as the average across all pollsters, and the grand mean is our best estimate of who is winning. But we don't have that large a universe of pollsters. It's entirely possible the actual sample of pollsters is biased on average. How would we know if they were or were not?
For example, Daily Kos (DK) (Research 2000) recently started a tracking poll. DK appears to have the strongest pro-Obama lean of all tracking polls at the moment. They may be right, they may be wrong, I can't tell. BUT, suppose that prior to DK starting up, we actually had an unbiased set of currently active pollsters. Then, when DK starts up, suddenly the average pollster will lean towards Obama.
One thought: 538 does have some background data on pollster quality from the primaries. Under the assumption that pollster quality carries over to the general election, then it could be possible to estimate the average bias of a set of pollsters. However, the incentives, (really, the utilities) of the many various pollsters are different in the primaries and the general election. Whether you have a democratic or republican bias, you really don't have much preference between primary candidates, (unless you are employed by a particular candidate). In contrast, in the general election, you will have a preference between the two candidates and thus may be inclined to tilt your polling.
If Sean's/Nate's discussions of the Obama ground game are correct, DK could come closest to estimating the final result correctly. And if public predictions in other areas of policy (oil prices for example) are symptomatic, its entirely possible that all pollsters could end up on the same side of the actual result. This usually doesn't happen in the political sphere, but do remember New Hampshire.
I posted a version of this over at fivethirtyeight.com as well.
Now, a comparison site is pollster.com, which uses all polls.
There is a problem with any of these models:
How do we know if the average pollster is unbiased?
A key parameter in 538's (or anyone's) election modeling has to be the grand mean across all polls.
Speaking in rough terms, the grand mean is estimated as the average across all pollsters, and the grand mean is our best estimate of who is winning. But we don't have that large a universe of pollsters. It's entirely possible the actual sample of pollsters is biased on average. How would we know if they were or were not?
For example, Daily Kos (DK) (Research 2000) recently started a tracking poll. DK appears to have the strongest pro-Obama lean of all tracking polls at the moment. They may be right, they may be wrong, I can't tell. BUT, suppose that prior to DK starting up, we actually had an unbiased set of currently active pollsters. Then, when DK starts up, suddenly the average pollster will lean towards Obama.
One thought: 538 does have some background data on pollster quality from the primaries. Under the assumption that pollster quality carries over to the general election, then it could be possible to estimate the average bias of a set of pollsters. However, the incentives, (really, the utilities) of the many various pollsters are different in the primaries and the general election. Whether you have a democratic or republican bias, you really don't have much preference between primary candidates, (unless you are employed by a particular candidate). In contrast, in the general election, you will have a preference between the two candidates and thus may be inclined to tilt your polling.
If Sean's/Nate's discussions of the Obama ground game are correct, DK could come closest to estimating the final result correctly. And if public predictions in other areas of policy (oil prices for example) are symptomatic, its entirely possible that all pollsters could end up on the same side of the actual result. This usually doesn't happen in the political sphere, but do remember New Hampshire.
I posted a version of this over at fivethirtyeight.com as well.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Why McCain is dangling Pro-Choice Ridge & Lieberman
Why is McCain dangling pro-choice veep prospects Ridge and Lieberman in front of the hard right anti-choice crowd? Mark Halperin on CNN was saying that he thought McCain was softening up the wing-nuts to more easily accept Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty or former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Romney was pro-choice until he switched to run for president as a Republican.
Whether this is true or not, I propose a second benefit from this major dangle: it speaks to the uncommitted electorate McCain is a `maverick' and `independent' in that he could support a pro-choice running mate. It makes a play for voters for whom being anti-choice is a deal breaker. I believe that McCain's anti-choice position is not widely known. Even during his interview with Warren at the Saddleback church, people could overlook what his beliefs on choice will do to abortion availability in this country.
This is all about politics. It is a play for voters, and not a true tell on his feelings about abortion.
Whether this is true or not, I propose a second benefit from this major dangle: it speaks to the uncommitted electorate McCain is a `maverick' and `independent' in that he could support a pro-choice running mate. It makes a play for voters for whom being anti-choice is a deal breaker. I believe that McCain's anti-choice position is not widely known. Even during his interview with Warren at the Saddleback church, people could overlook what his beliefs on choice will do to abortion availability in this country.
This is all about politics. It is a play for voters, and not a true tell on his feelings about abortion.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Leaking His Lead Away: Obama Versus McCain
I imagine the Republican party, while not happy about the state of Senatorial, Gubernatorial, Congressional etc races, can't be unhappy in the slightest about the presidential race.
McCain has kept it close against Obama. Obama has had a modest lead for some time since he clinched the nomination, but the lead has slowly been leaking away. Pollster.com has Obama at +2% or so at the moment over McCain. Suppose we have a continued leakage away.
Coming up, we can expect the conventions to lead to a slight McCain bounce. There is usually a bounce for each candidate after the conventions, but the Republicans always hold their convention second so as to squash the Democratic bounce. I predict that will happen again.
We have the usual Republican right-wingnut parade of ridiculous charges against Obama. We'll see if that has any effect on the race. It seems to me that the best the democrats can hope for is for no effect. I don't see how this can be a positive effect for Obama. Obama has been fighting this quite strongly, but who knows if it can be strong enough. There are a 1-2% (at least) of voters likely to be swayed by all this.
We have the possibility (probability?) of racial effects on voting versus preference. This has variously been called the Bradley effect among other things in American politics. This will be unmeasureable even after the election, though it may get blamed for any Obama loss.
This analysis implies that Obama needs something to lead a move back towards himself. The democrats will do fine at all lower levels of the voting.
Team Obama is investing heavily in GOTV (get out the vote) efforts, more so than in all previous elections. That should match the Republicans in their GOTV, but the Repubs have a lot more experience. This is one of the key blessings of Obama's background as a community organizer, the realization that individual actions can be put together to create a large movement.
There will be the debates. Obama was never seen as doing as well as Hillary, but McCain is a verbally skillful fellow and will quite possibly more than hold his own in the debates. Obama likes to be nuanced - McCain will be blunt. And blunt often sells well in politics, even idiotic bluntness.
Other possible game changers: seems unlikely. Any verbal gaff by Obama will be leaped on by the Repubs. In contrast, McCain gaffs have been routinely ignored by the media. I guess team Obama needs to start spreading the McCain news around more -er- liberally.
McCain could have a Dole-type moment showing his age. Recall that Dole fell off a small stage in Chico California. This is possible, but there isn't much time left for this. And you can't plan for it.
Money-wise, McCain may seem to be raising less money than Obama, but the Republican party will be spending most of their cash hoard to support McCain, and money-wise the race currently seems about even. Even if Obama manages to edge ahead by 70million or so, that won't be enough to generate anything close to a land slide. Could it turn in to a substantial edge? I don't know. Small edge? Maybe.
General conclusion: the presidential race is a toss up.
McCain has kept it close against Obama. Obama has had a modest lead for some time since he clinched the nomination, but the lead has slowly been leaking away. Pollster.com has Obama at +2% or so at the moment over McCain. Suppose we have a continued leakage away.
Coming up, we can expect the conventions to lead to a slight McCain bounce. There is usually a bounce for each candidate after the conventions, but the Republicans always hold their convention second so as to squash the Democratic bounce. I predict that will happen again.
We have the usual Republican right-wingnut parade of ridiculous charges against Obama. We'll see if that has any effect on the race. It seems to me that the best the democrats can hope for is for no effect. I don't see how this can be a positive effect for Obama. Obama has been fighting this quite strongly, but who knows if it can be strong enough. There are a 1-2% (at least) of voters likely to be swayed by all this.
We have the possibility (probability?) of racial effects on voting versus preference. This has variously been called the Bradley effect among other things in American politics. This will be unmeasureable even after the election, though it may get blamed for any Obama loss.
This analysis implies that Obama needs something to lead a move back towards himself. The democrats will do fine at all lower levels of the voting.
Team Obama is investing heavily in GOTV (get out the vote) efforts, more so than in all previous elections. That should match the Republicans in their GOTV, but the Repubs have a lot more experience. This is one of the key blessings of Obama's background as a community organizer, the realization that individual actions can be put together to create a large movement.
There will be the debates. Obama was never seen as doing as well as Hillary, but McCain is a verbally skillful fellow and will quite possibly more than hold his own in the debates. Obama likes to be nuanced - McCain will be blunt. And blunt often sells well in politics, even idiotic bluntness.
Other possible game changers: seems unlikely. Any verbal gaff by Obama will be leaped on by the Repubs. In contrast, McCain gaffs have been routinely ignored by the media. I guess team Obama needs to start spreading the McCain news around more -er- liberally.
McCain could have a Dole-type moment showing his age. Recall that Dole fell off a small stage in Chico California. This is possible, but there isn't much time left for this. And you can't plan for it.
Money-wise, McCain may seem to be raising less money than Obama, but the Republican party will be spending most of their cash hoard to support McCain, and money-wise the race currently seems about even. Even if Obama manages to edge ahead by 70million or so, that won't be enough to generate anything close to a land slide. Could it turn in to a substantial edge? I don't know. Small edge? Maybe.
General conclusion: the presidential race is a toss up.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Clinton to Fight for Vice President Slot
Talkingpointsmemo.com has a not that Clinton has explicitly authorized an advisor/supporter (the head of BET, Black Entertainment TV) to help her run for the vice presidential spot on the ticket. That is a lot of hubris. Commentators on CNN last night after her non-concession were saying that if she had a 50-50 slot at the veep slot, now it was 80-20 against.
Obama's problem with her joining the ticket is that he doesn't look presidential if she takes the veep slot, rather, she looks like she grabbed it whether he wanted to offer it or not.
Her goal in this is not necessary to have Obama win. It is to have her in the strongest position to run for president next time.
Other news reports suggest that Obama would be willing to have her in his cabinet, and to take the lead on health care legislation. Then if it doesn't go through, its her fault. And if it succeeds, she was a success, and so is he.
Does it appear there is a negotiation going on in the press over her place in the Obama administration? He'll offer cabinet, she'll take vice president.
I guess he's getting his first test on talking to hostile leaders: should he talk to Hillary directly without preconditions?
Obama's problem with her joining the ticket is that he doesn't look presidential if she takes the veep slot, rather, she looks like she grabbed it whether he wanted to offer it or not.
Her goal in this is not necessary to have Obama win. It is to have her in the strongest position to run for president next time.
Other news reports suggest that Obama would be willing to have her in his cabinet, and to take the lead on health care legislation. Then if it doesn't go through, its her fault. And if it succeeds, she was a success, and so is he.
Does it appear there is a negotiation going on in the press over her place in the Obama administration? He'll offer cabinet, she'll take vice president.
I guess he's getting his first test on talking to hostile leaders: should he talk to Hillary directly without preconditions?
Monday, April 21, 2008
Pennsylvania Primary in One Day
Pollster.com has Hillary ahead by 7% with approximately 7% undecided. In the absence of a major shift, 7% undecided are not all going to Obama. And where has his "Yes we can" gone? I haven't heard it in weeks. Since bitter-cling-gaffe in fact.
Before any one was paying attention, she was ahead by 20%. As more attention was paid, the gap naturally narrowed to about 12% and in the last 2 weeks, maybe Obama closed to within 5% of Clinton. But if I can tea-leaf-read the wiggles, that has now expanded again. We'll see if the undecideds again break for Clinton in a big way. I'd guess 10% final margin for her, but I don't really put a lot of stock in my prognostication.
Look to Obama's camp pointing out that this was friendly Clinton territory, and that she was ahead by 20% not long ago. All true.
Look to the Clinton camp to point out that he didn't win by 20% and that he outspent her by 2 or 3 to 1. All true.
The truth is it is a big state. Big states are harder to change people's preferences merely because of their size. And like every state in the country, when the campaign started, she had a sizable advantage. When Obama wins a state, he has overcome, at some point in the distant past, virtually zero percent name recognition, and near complete Clinton domination. (I'm ignoring Edwards in all this discussion. ) So figure that when he wins, he needs to pick up the entire margin of victory during the run up to the primary or caucus. Hillary has merely needed to maintain her edge, which is generally easier, and which she has mostly managed in states where she lives, has lived, neighbor states and states that are large where it is difficult to get Obama's message out.
The networks are playing this as a "Will Obama win? Will Clinton Lose?" But Clinton has won, they just want you to tune in for the exciting finale for 4 hours on their news channel.
I'll be glad when this one is over.
Time to move on to Indiana and North Carolina.
I'll be glad when the primary is all over.
Before any one was paying attention, she was ahead by 20%. As more attention was paid, the gap naturally narrowed to about 12% and in the last 2 weeks, maybe Obama closed to within 5% of Clinton. But if I can tea-leaf-read the wiggles, that has now expanded again. We'll see if the undecideds again break for Clinton in a big way. I'd guess 10% final margin for her, but I don't really put a lot of stock in my prognostication.
Look to Obama's camp pointing out that this was friendly Clinton territory, and that she was ahead by 20% not long ago. All true.
Look to the Clinton camp to point out that he didn't win by 20% and that he outspent her by 2 or 3 to 1. All true.
The truth is it is a big state. Big states are harder to change people's preferences merely because of their size. And like every state in the country, when the campaign started, she had a sizable advantage. When Obama wins a state, he has overcome, at some point in the distant past, virtually zero percent name recognition, and near complete Clinton domination. (I'm ignoring Edwards in all this discussion. ) So figure that when he wins, he needs to pick up the entire margin of victory during the run up to the primary or caucus. Hillary has merely needed to maintain her edge, which is generally easier, and which she has mostly managed in states where she lives, has lived, neighbor states and states that are large where it is difficult to get Obama's message out.
The networks are playing this as a "Will Obama win? Will Clinton Lose?" But Clinton has won, they just want you to tune in for the exciting finale for 4 hours on their news channel.
I'll be glad when this one is over.
Time to move on to Indiana and North Carolina.
I'll be glad when the primary is all over.
Monday, April 14, 2008
October Surprise:Iran
Someone important thinks that we're in for a Fall, possibly October surprise. Pat Buchanan thinks we're likely to start bombing Iran.
Another possible October surprise: From the LA Times: Finding Bin Laden.
The Bush administration may go for a twofer. Both will substantially help McCain over the Democratic nominee.
Another possible October surprise: From the LA Times: Finding Bin Laden.
The Bush administration may go for a twofer. Both will substantially help McCain over the Democratic nominee.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Hillary's political ads support John McCain's candidacy more than her own!
The link is to one of the latest of Hillary Clinton's political ads trying to argue that she has more experience than Barack Obama and therefore that voters should support her in her candidacy for president.
The argument is that she has much more experience than Barack. He is 46 at this point, and he will have been in the national Senate for 4 years when he is elected. In contrast, she will have been in the Senate for 8 years if she were to be elected.
The problem with this argument about experience is that McCain has been in national office since 1982 and in the US Senate since 1986. Thus he will have 26 years of national experience by the time of the inauguration. He trumps Hillary on the experience issue by a factor of more than 3 times.
It can be argued that Hillary should be allowed to count her years as first lady in her experience. I'm ok with that, she was busy, including trying her hand at policy issues while there. But this is not true in general of first ladies. Would anyone wish to argue that Laura Bush has 8 years of valuable experience such that we should elect her to national office? Barbara Bush? Maybe, maybe not. Nancy Reagan? Rosalynn Carter? Betty Ford? Some of these are very sharp people, and I suspect a number of them would be easy to underestimate if they had ever gotten into an election.
The two years Hillary spent running for Senate, after being first lady, that certainly counts as political experience. But for someone arguing from the anti-Hillary side of this argument, they could argue that that was two years of fallowness for Hillary.
McCain in contrast, before he was in the House of Representatives, he was in the military. McCain is likely to get a free pass from the national media and from voters on whether his military experience counts as valuable experience for the presidency. Thus he will get credit for over 50 years of experience before becoming president.
Hillary will only hurt herself for the national election by having run on the experience card in the primary. She will have dug herself a hole to start from when competing against John McCain, rather than from a level playing field.
Neither Democrat can compete successfully against McCain straight up using experience as an argument.
The argument is that she has much more experience than Barack. He is 46 at this point, and he will have been in the national Senate for 4 years when he is elected. In contrast, she will have been in the Senate for 8 years if she were to be elected.
The problem with this argument about experience is that McCain has been in national office since 1982 and in the US Senate since 1986. Thus he will have 26 years of national experience by the time of the inauguration. He trumps Hillary on the experience issue by a factor of more than 3 times.
It can be argued that Hillary should be allowed to count her years as first lady in her experience. I'm ok with that, she was busy, including trying her hand at policy issues while there. But this is not true in general of first ladies. Would anyone wish to argue that Laura Bush has 8 years of valuable experience such that we should elect her to national office? Barbara Bush? Maybe, maybe not. Nancy Reagan? Rosalynn Carter? Betty Ford? Some of these are very sharp people, and I suspect a number of them would be easy to underestimate if they had ever gotten into an election.
The two years Hillary spent running for Senate, after being first lady, that certainly counts as political experience. But for someone arguing from the anti-Hillary side of this argument, they could argue that that was two years of fallowness for Hillary.
McCain in contrast, before he was in the House of Representatives, he was in the military. McCain is likely to get a free pass from the national media and from voters on whether his military experience counts as valuable experience for the presidency. Thus he will get credit for over 50 years of experience before becoming president.
Hillary will only hurt herself for the national election by having run on the experience card in the primary. She will have dug herself a hole to start from when competing against John McCain, rather than from a level playing field.
Neither Democrat can compete successfully against McCain straight up using experience as an argument.
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