Opinion: Start building those CVs early

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Hillary Clinton, perhaps still smarting after Barack Obama trumped her (played) gender card with an (unplayed) race card, tried a new way to get at him — through his Indonesian years.

Clinton naturally avoided the more personal attacks that some anti-Obama types have waged, worrying about where Obama’s sympathies lie since he spent four years amid the world’s largest Muslim population. (In fact, Obama is not and has never been a Communist. Er, Muslim.) Instead, Clinton went the upstanding route by saying he’s too green when it comes to foreign affairs. Four years abroad as a kid doesn’t cut it, even if Obama said it was his most valuable foreign policy-related experience.

It’s debatable what matters more — scores of official visits, or residency at a formative age; excessive formality or excessive sentamentality — when it comes to making foreign policy. And it opens up an interesting line of inquiry, that of youthful personal experience, and whether it’s worth mining for campaign points or demerits. What about John McCain’s hopping from school to school as a Navy brat? Mitt Romney’s missionary work in France? Dennis Kucinich’s time living in a car? Clinton’s brief fling with Republicanism (can she get inside the enemy’s mind)?