Wells College hit the academic year running on Friday night by hosting Time magazine's Mark Halperin.
In a presentation sprinkled with T-shirt giveaways and interactive trivia and mostly non-polemic questions, the magazine's senior political analyst gave a cautionary view of not only election 2008, but what it will take to be the next commander-in-chief - his analysis is worth noting.
He arrived in Aurora the day after covering the GOP convention and two weeks immersed in pure political spin.
While his hour-plus talk was chock full of vignettes and nuggets of information, he covered two important topics, at least as far as campaign 2008 is concerned: the candidates' attributes and the geography of November.
First the good news.
He was quick to point out that both Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama are well-intentioned.
They are running for the presidency for the right reasons - not self aggrandizement, but to make the country better. He was very clear that he felt both of them, as centrists, were sincere in what they wanted to accomplish.
How they would govern would be another matter, but when it came to trying to do the right thing, Halperin had no qualms.
With neither man at the top of the ticket having any executive experience (four of the five last presidents have been governors), such an absence of that experience can be a problem.
For example, John McCain has not been known, especially during this campaign, as a good manager - the word “horrible” was tossed out at least once.
The way that his running mate, Alaska's Sarah Palin, was vetted was just the latest in a long list of concerns. Halperin also raised the issue of “temperament,” something that has surfaced regularly when it comes to McCain.
By the way, he didn't give Obama a free pass on the temperament issues.
While questions about his have been raised, they have been harder to pin down in his much shorter political career.
What concerned Halperin more was that he felt that Illinois' junior senator had a steep learning curve for being president on Jan. 20.
He pointed out that when an administration starts off with a rough start, or what he called “turbulence,” that trouble keeps coming and you often don't get back on track.
Both candidates, in his mind, will be heading for a bumpy start.
Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be contacted at cozguytho@aol.com
He arrived in Aurora the day after covering the GOP convention and two weeks immersed in pure political spin.
While his hour-plus talk was chock full of vignettes and nuggets of information, he covered two important topics, at least as far as campaign 2008 is concerned: the candidates' attributes and the geography of November.
First the good news.
He was quick to point out that both Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama are well-intentioned.
They are running for the presidency for the right reasons - not self aggrandizement, but to make the country better. He was very clear that he felt both of them, as centrists, were sincere in what they wanted to accomplish.
How they would govern would be another matter, but when it came to trying to do the right thing, Halperin had no qualms.
With neither man at the top of the ticket having any executive experience (four of the five last presidents have been governors), such an absence of that experience can be a problem.
For example, John McCain has not been known, especially during this campaign, as a good manager - the word “horrible” was tossed out at least once.
The way that his running mate, Alaska's Sarah Palin, was vetted was just the latest in a long list of concerns. Halperin also raised the issue of “temperament,” something that has surfaced regularly when it comes to McCain.
By the way, he didn't give Obama a free pass on the temperament issues.
While questions about his have been raised, they have been harder to pin down in his much shorter political career.
What concerned Halperin more was that he felt that Illinois' junior senator had a steep learning curve for being president on Jan. 20.
He pointed out that when an administration starts off with a rough start, or what he called “turbulence,” that trouble keeps coming and you often don't get back on track.
Both candidates, in his mind, will be heading for a bumpy start.
Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be contacted at cozguytho@aol.com
