4 ms·

What qualifications does he have or experiences that will make him good at statesmanship?

• euyyn 10y ago
  haha this was a super legitimate concern before November.
• burkaman 10y ago
  I don't know anything about this guy, but from Wikipedia I see he has founded a nonprofit and done some public advocacy work, so he has experience organizing and communicating. Those are some of the most important skills, and his interview answers make it sound like he's willing and able to delegate and seek help when he doesn't know what he's doing, which is also very important. He's not running for an executive office, so it's more important that he be a good representative than a good leader.
• mindcrime 10y ago
  Why do you think he needs qualifications or experience to serve in the Senate? Doesn't that just foster the idea of the "career politician" as opposed to the idea that our government was meant to be a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people"?
  • evgen 10y ago
    While it is probably a pleasant thought to repeat the mythical stories of yeoman farmers serving the legislative office in the distant past, these stories are nothing more than myth. A 'career politician' is someone who has dedicated themselves to a profession that you may denigrate, but which is just as complicated and demanding as any other high-profile job. It is quite possible that a 'career academic' like Dr. Eisen could succeed at the job since the role of most PIs in a top lab is bureaucratic paperwork and academic politics, but in most cases when you throw unqualified outsiders into these sort of political positions what you end up with is a government run by the unelected senior staff of the political figureheads that people are voting for.
    • mindcrime 10y ago
      Regardless of what happened in the past, I consider career politicians to be bad idea in general. And in either case, I disagree with the premise that one most be an experienced politician to serve in a meaningful way in the Senate. IIRC, both Rand Paul and Elizabeth Warren joined the Senate without having held elected office before. And there have certainly been others. Anyway, if the most recent election proved anything, it's that the people are willing to vote for "outsiders", so Eisen may just have a shot. What would happen if he's elected is, of course, hard to predict.
      • evgen 10y ago
        As a lawyer and law professor Elizabeth Warren had some idea how the legal process worked and has been reasonably effective at crafting law and regulatory policy. As an ophthalmologist who happened to have a relatively famous political father Rand Paul had no idea how to craft effective law and it shows. TBH you would have been better going with Al Franken as an 'outsider' with no effective experience who seems to be getting some things done.
        • mindcrime 10y ago
          By and large I don't want Senators (or House reps, etc.) who "get things done". The more they do, the worse off we are in general. I want more Ron Paul types who vote "no" on everything. It's just too bad that Rand isn't as principled as his father.
• rflrob 10y ago
  He's actually spent a fair amount of time on the Hill advocating for the NIH public access policy[0], which lets taxpayers access the research they've paid for. More broadly, though, science as practiced today consists of significant amounts of synthesizing diverse data of varying qualities and advocating for projects in the face of hostile audiences. Mike has been hugely successful in a cutthroat field, all while sticking to core principles of data access that others have argued would torpedo his tenure, his grants, and the careers of his trainees (none of which have been demonstrably true). Those sound like extremely valuable skills for a public servant. conflict statement: I did my PhD in the Eisen Lab and graduated in 2015. You can bet your butt I'll be voting for him in 2018. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIH_Public_Access_Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIH_Public_Access_Policy