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Ages ago, at the 2016 Democratic Convention, in Philadelphia, President Barack Obama made the case for electing Hillary Clinton by setting out her experience. Hillary, he said, was someone who had been ‘in the room,’ on more than one occasion and in more than one capacity. The President continued by pointing out how one can not really be prepared for the job. You think that you can, by reading and by study, but really, one cannot. A barely detectable ruefulness at his own, earlier, naivete is present in his speech alongside the less than subtle jab at Donald Trump. Now, as we begin the 2020 race in earnest — and with over 20 Democratic candidates — and the continuing dumpster fire that is the Trump Administration, we should revisit these questions.
Only a day or two after Barack Obama spoke, Hillary Clinton, in her own speech accepting the nomination, made the equally remarkable distinction that running for the office and actually being ready to do the job, are entirely separate things. In saying, ``Donald Trump can’t even handle the rough-and-tumble of a presidential campaign,’’ Clinton underlined Obama’s distinctions and, just as with Obama, a subtle hint of rebuke might have been had in regards to her husband, the President who implemented the ‘permanent campaign.’
All of this was italicized, rather tragi-comically, when Donald Trump, a hundred or so days into the job, admitted as much when he told Reuters News ``I though it would be…