Red-Herring #1: The continual experience argument is a clear red herring in the current election season. The fact is that we don’t know how McCain will respond as a president all that well either. Reagan was a governor as were Clinton and Bush II. Gore would have more experience than any of them going into the election but we did not vote for him either. Kerry had more experience than Bush II with Washington politics but we did not vote for him (and he used appeal to authority fallacies consistently to the detriment of his campaign).

We don’t know what acceptable criteria are for “presidential experience”. Not sure this is the best strategy for McCain and I am not sure he will push it which is good for his campaign. He will take a different angle on this issue applauding Obama’s idealism, but then saying that it will be impossible for him to do what he says and even dangerous. Although he will be hard pressed to produce evidence to substantiate that claim. But voters don’t care about evidence right? Voters care about the product they can “trust”.

The experience card is thus a fallacious argument.

Red-Herring #2: The other fallacy is that Obama will somehow be weak with terrorists or governments like Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, etc. This is the tough guy talk that somehow Obama will be “weak” with other countries. Again, what does this mean? James Baker, who to me is brilliant and still the example and standard of what Secretary of State means, was clear in stating that diplomacy must take place with even our enemies. This includes Syria and Iran. As stated in the Iraq Study Group Report, “Given the ability of Iran and Syria to influence events within Iraq and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage them constructively” (p. 7).

So what does this “weakness” actually mean? Again, without any legitimate criteria to measure this claim, it is a claim rooted in lack of any evidence and so, it too is a red herring and a fallacy.

However you look at it, these arguments are marketing strategies in order for campaigns, parties, and benefactors to sell us an image of a candidate mixed with a little cross-examination to “discredit the witness” as it were. By the way, the latter is called an ad hominem approach which again does not focus on the issues or “facts”, but actually distracts you from them by getting you to focus on the person.

Both McCain and Obama have already used language to “expose” the other’s marketing tactics. Why? They are appealing to a much more media savvy audience of 18-35 year olds who understand a lot of the nuance of media more so than other voting blocs in previous generations! It’s a way for them to form a relationship with a marketing cluster and none of it is accidental.