7 DAYS PANEL w/ ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, BOB SHRUM, JAMIE GALBRAITH & MARK GREEN, September 27, 2008

MARK GREEN: Bob, you speak often about Obama having to pass the JFK "commander in chief" test. What do you mean and did he do it Friday night?

BOB SHRUM: Nixon ran on the slogan "Experience Counts". People watched the debate and then said, well, Nixon has more experience, but Kennedy has enough, I can vote for him. Commander of Chief threshold questions are not binary questions when these pollsters go out and say who would be a better as Commander of Chief. McCain can have a lead. The real question is -- can Obama be a Commander of Chief? After last night, I do not think there is much doubt.

GREEN: How do you measure that? Or you just know it when you see it?

SHRUM: Look, the whole thesis on the McCain campaign on Commander in Chief basically has been that McCain is so much stronger, more knowledgeable and so much better prepared to do this job. But people who watched the debate saw that Obama was as least as knowledgeable. I think more knowledgeable. And he had a calmness and a presidential quality that I think enable him to pass that test and he was going to pass the test unless he made some big mistake. That is why questions like experience don't work as an argument in presidential debates. In fact the last three times we had a candidate accused of being inexperience compared to their opponent -- in 1960 with John Kennedy, 1976 with Jimmy Carter, 1980 with Ron Reagan -- the so-called inexperienced candidate has won.

GREEN: Most analysis have said that, isolating national security aspects, McCain won on points because he seemed relatively more comfortable then on the economic issues. Arianna, do you agree with that?

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