One of the big initial complaints about Palin is her lack of experience. I find this curious coming from Obama’s supporters, as their favored candidate for the #1 slot is similarly inexperienced.
Sarah Palin is in her second year of office as Governor of Alaska. Before that, she was mayor of the small town of Wasilla for eight years, and a member of Wasilla’s city council for four years.
Barack Obama is in his fourth year as US Senator from Illinois. Before that, he was a member of the Illinois State Senate for eight years, and a community organizer for five years.
Weighing the two resumes is tricky, as at each stage you could make a good argument for either’s experience being more valuable. “Community organizer” could mean any number of things, but without knowing the details of Obama’s career as an organizer, I’m inclined to suspect it’s roughly equivilent to serving in the city council of a small town. Either is a solid start to a political career and an excellent way for a non-politician to get involved in democracy, but neither by itself is a strong qualifier for high office.
A state senator in Illinois represents a lot more people than a small-town mayor, but the mayor has much more day-to-day responsibility, as she holds an executive position rather than being a back-bench member of a legislature. Likewise for Governor of Alaska vs. US Senator from Illinois — the Senator represents more people, but holds much less day-to-day responsibility.
It also should be noted that Obama has been a US Senator for two years longer than Palin has been Alaska’s Governor. How much to weigh the portion of that time Obama spent mostly absent from the Senate in order to run for higher office is a difficult question (n.b. Senators Clinton, McCain, and Biden have been similarly absent from the Senate during their campaigns this election cycle, so Obama’s absenteeism isn’t a departure from widespread practice).
Interestingly enough, Biden and McCain are both very experienced in very similar ways — long, influential tenures in the US Senate with significant focuses on foreign policy. All together, it seems both campaigns have similar total levels of experience on the ticket. The difference is that Republicans put the elder statesman at the top of the ticket and made the young, charismatic politician with identity politics appeal the running mate, while the Democrats did the opposite.
[Side note: I voted for Fred Thompson in the Republican primaries, which goes to show that experience is pretty far down my own list of priorities when chosing a presidential candidate]
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"Community Organizer" is code for "makes noise and gets on TV but doesn’t really do anything productive."Â See Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nadar, Al Sharpton, etc.
Actually I don’t think Obama supporters care about her inexperience so much as they love the irony of a person with a small amount of experience being picked for his V.P. when experience has been a chief complaint of his.
At any rate by personal experience I can tell you that experience has no real weight on the leadership of people at all. The republicans need to criticize him for other things or their attacks will be weak at best.
Experience does matter, and in the sort of experience you need to be President, Palin actually has Obama beat. Any political junkie will tell you that being Governor is the closest thing politically to being President. Being in the Senate doesn’t compare. It’s all about being an executive and running a huge organization where the buck stops at your desk. There’s a reason Americans tend to vote for ex-Governors. It’s because it’s the job training that makes the most sense for the job.
On top of that, it is perfectly reasonable for me or anyone else to criticize the PRESIDENTIAL nominee for lack of experience while not criticizing the VICE PRESIDENTIAL nominee for the same level of experience. That’s because of the rather obvious fact that being Veep DOES allow for on-the-job training, while being the Prez does not.
So I will continue to whack away at empty-suit Obama’s lack of experience with no fear of hypocrisy whatsoever. Reverse the Democratic ticket, put Biden on top, and I’ll stop whacking the Dems for the experience issue.
Deal?
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama vs. Palin, political death match:
Seeing as how there are some devout christians on this site, is it a concern that a women who very recently gave birth to a baby is now going off on the campaign trail and possibly taking on the job that will have her travelling extensively?
Actually Senate is where Harry S Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson got their experience. Having people in the senate you know is useful too. 15 of our US presidents have been Senators (16, after this election), 16 have been governors. So senators get elected as often as Governors. Jimmy Carter was a former Governor, so was Bill Clinton, two people which conservatives dispise and blame for ruining the country. Bush was a governor too and he is going to be documented as one of the most disliked presidents in history. If you want to count her Mayoral experience then I recommend to Republicans to select Marion Barry as your next candidate! He was mayor of DC!
redux46: I’m not a devout Christian, but I don’t think this represents any sort of problem. The kid’s so little that he can tag along without any worries. And the kid has a family of built-in babysitters of the highest caliber: older sisters.
If you’re suggesting that a Down’s child needs a 24/7 mother, you’d be mistaken. Until that child gets older than his mental age, there’s nothing particularly difficult about raising him.
Even conservative, devout Christians are pretty much okay with the concept ‘working mother’ these days…
John_B’s last blog post..Review of Arabian Knight
Jrogge, you might want to re-read my post. You’re responding to things I didn’t say or mean.
I said that long-serving, influential Senators like McCain and Biden are highly experienced and that half a term as a back-bench Senator is arguably comperable to half a term as a small state Governor, not that Governor experience is golden and Senate experience is worthless.
I said that being a small town mayor was arguably comperable experience (i.e. not very much) to being a back-bench state legislator, not that every former mayor is Presidential material.
I also specifically said that I don’t vote primarily on experience, and that in this year’s primary I supported a one-term Senator over a long-serving, influential Senator (McCain) and two two-term Governors (Romney and Huckabee).
I’d just like to remind all those folks beworrying themselves about Governor Palin’s qualification to be first in the POTUS order of succession that Nancy Pelosi is already second.
Correcting myself — Romney was only Governor for one term.
Oh no I agree Maniakes that was more of a response to CosmicConservatives statement of how experience is paramount (that and how being a Governor provides better experience when in reality it’s split about 1/3 Gov 1/3 Senate and 1/3 Nil). I don’t believe it is. Correct me if I am wrong but Abraham Lincoln had little to none and so did 12 other presidents.
Ah, in that case I apologize for falsely accusing you of bad reading comprehension.
I should point out, though, that most of the "no prior political experience" Presidents were retired Generals (Washington, Eisenhower, Grant, Jackson, Taylor, Garfield, Pierce) or cabinet secretaries (Taft, Coolidge, Madison, Van Buren, John Quincy Adams). You are correct, though, that Lincoln had virtually none.
I do partially agree with CosmicConservative, in that I think executive experience is more valuable than legislative experience, although I do think legislative experience is valuable, and I think that it’s possible (if a bit harder) for a less experienced President to be successful.
jrogge:
I did not say that experience was required, or that the most experienced candidates made the best Presidents. I said the American PEOPLE look at a state governorship as the best job training for the position of President. ESPECIALLY in the past fifty years or so. And I think that’s a rational position to have.
It is completely possible to be a stellar President with no more experience than Obama or Palin. Sure it is. In fact the race may not go to the fastest, nor the match to the strongest….
But that’s usually the way to bet.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Obama vs. Palin, political death match:
It’s the hypocrisy angle that matters more than the experience one. Â Virtually everything the McCain campaign has been saying makes Obama unqualified to lead is true, if not moreso, with Palin. Â It simply shows how full of it these criticisms of Obama have been: and how people willing to parrot them will do a 180 on what used to be "very important principles" when the party ID changes.It wasn’t even a week ago that Karl Rove was on Tv telling people that a choice like Tim Kaine would be a highly political but shallow and unserious pick for VP that would demonstrate Obama’s lack of interest in governance because Kaine had only been a governor for three years, and before that only the "mayor" of Richmond (forgetting, I guess, his stint as LG). Â Well, Kaine’s resume is way longer than Palin’s. Â But somehow I don’t think Rove or anyone that nodded along with him will apply the same principles to Palin.The "principles" are made up on the spot, and change as political needs warrant. Â The joke, I guess, is on the people that take them seriously.One more reason, I guess, that people who claim to be cynics about politicians are just as silly as the politicians they are cynical about.
Bad’s last blog post..Palin the Coy Creationist?
Maybe the McCain campaign should start advertising that they’re going to lay off ‘experience’ as a theme.
Instead, they can promote a meme that says Obama and Palin are equally qualified to be Vice President.
‘Experience’ and ‘resume’ are terms that can be contorted out of all common meaning. Something that can be more clearly pointed to, though, is ‘achievement’.
Granted that Palin has only be in her chair for 18 months or so, she’s still got a whole lot more ‘achievement’ to point to than Obama.
John_B’s last blog post..Review of Arabian Knight
I personally don’t recall the McCain campaign ever really harping on experience. (Doing that just highlights John’s age, after all.) The campaign itself has focused on Obama’s judgment.
Bad:
Your comment equating McCain’s statements about Obama’s experience and Palin’s would make sense if they were RUNNING FOR THE SAME OFFICE!
They are not. You seem to be unable to recognize the distinction between PRESIDENT and VICE PRESIDENT.
If the Democrat ticket were reversed, you would not hear a lot of complaints about Obama’s lack of experience. The expectation is that a Vice President is mostly a symbolic position and that the person in that role is in training to become President. I’m fine with Obama in that role, and I’m fine with Palin in it too.
To call it hypocrisy to say that Obama is unqualified to be President while putting Palin on the ticket as VP is equivalent to saying that every assistant coach in the NFL MUST be qualified to be a head coach first.
Which is absurd.
Not to mention asinine.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Begala makes the case against Obama
Naaan-cy Pe-loooooooo-siiiii. . .
. . .boooooooogy boogy boogy boogy boogy boogy boogy! Booooooogy boogy boogy boogy boogy boogy!
"She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" said Green, a Republican from Palin’s hometown of Wasilla. "Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?"
From http://www.adn.com/news/politics/story/510249.html
I think everyone who is not blinded by partisanship can agree that Sarah Palin is far from the best qualified person or woman that McCain could have selected as his VP candidate.
The important question in my mind is what does this tell you about McCain’s judgment and the judgment of his closest advisers. McCain knows that his age and health are significant issues. This makes his VP selection a much more important decision. For McCain to pick someone who is so obviously unqualified to be president for what appears to be purely political reasons (appeal to Republican base on social issues and perhaps disgruntled Hillery supporters) raises serious questions about McCain’s judgment. Did McCain really think he was putting the interests of the country first when he made this selection?
This is what Karl Rove had to say on Face The Nation before Obama announced is VP selection:
"I think [Obama's] going to make an intensely political choice, not a governing choice. He’s going to view this through the prism of a candidate, not through the prism of president; that is to say, he’s going to pick somebody that he thinks will on the margin help him in a state like Indiana or Missouri or Virginia. He’s not going to be thinking big and broad about the responsibilities of president."
Rove then singled out Virginia governor Tim Kaine:
"With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he’s been a governor for three years, he’s been able but undistinguished. I don’t think people could really name a big, important thing that he’s done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America."
Panicky screeching
The moonbat flaps through the night
Three posts in a row
Panicky screeching
The moonbat flaps through the night
Three posts in a row
And I have not even mentioned what the real moonbats are talking about, unless you want to argue Karl Rove is a moonbat.
This is so silly, but if you want a laugh you can read this: http://www.halfsigma.com/2008/08/daily-kos-diary-on-sarah-palin-pregnancy-cover-up.html
Made ya flinch!
Mikeca, are you arguing that Obama is sufficiently experienced for the #1 slot while Palin is unquestionably too inexperienced even for the #2 slot, or are you planning on voting for a third party candidate?
Mikeca, are you arguing that Obama is sufficiently experienced for the #1 slot while Palin is unquestionably too inexperienced even for the #2 slot, or are you planning on voting for a third party candidate?
Actually, I think experience is overrated. This is especially true when it is experience at being wrong.
It was the McCain campaign that was making the argument that Obama was not "experienced" enough to be president. For McCain then to pick a VP candidate that is even less experienced than Obama, seems very odd. It really raises questions about McCain’s judgment and seriousness.
Palin, is essentially a complete unknown. As far as I can see, she never thought seriously about being VP. She doesn’t even seem to have a position on many issues. The issues she does have a position on, I don’t like her position. For example, her positions on global warming, creationism and stem cell research. It looks like she is another Republican who believes political ideology trumps science.
And you look like just another liberal that has difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality.
1. Liberals believe the debate on global warming to be closed. Science never closes off debate. And there is anything but the ever popular "consensus."
2. I’m sure Palin doesn’t oppose stem cell research. You are simply unwilling to say what she really opposes – embryonic stem cell research. The only type of research that ends life and, by the way, in all the years of that kind of research has never produced one cure. Wheras adult stem cell and cord blood research has.
3. I can give you a list of thousands upon thousands of scientists that support Creationism. Scientists that aren’t even Christian! Scientists from Ivy League schools, heads of departments, professors, and more. And Palin clairified her statement to mean debate of alternate views. You know, what real science does – not the ideology in a lab coat you want to shovel.
Hey, I know someone you should talk to:
Mikeca, this is Clear Thinking; Clear Thinking, this is Mikeca.
I’ll leave you two to discuss…
Why is anyone bothering to try to debate with Mikeca? When are you going to learn that he isn’t interested in learning? He ALREADY KNOWS EVERYTHING.
CosmicConservative’s last blog post..Funny bumper sticker
"Your comment equating McCain’s statements about Obama’s experience and Palin’s would make sense if they were RUNNING FOR THE SAME OFFICE!"No, it makes sense because those are the arguments the McCain campaign has made about what is required to lead.  The VP is not merely a symbolic slot: it’s the person who has to be ready to lead if the President is incapacitated.  If McCain thinks that it’s fine if Palin leads the country in the event of him being incapacitated, then his campaign’s fears (and by proxy those that parrot them) are de facto full of crap. Not that this should surprise anyone.  These are not principles that people are espousing.  They’re merely poses.  Â
Somewhere recently I heard an official say that senator-ship experience is not as valid for POTUS as mayoral or governership experience. First time I’d heard it, and it makes VERY good sense. Congress passes laws (based on general principles) that have to be implemented somehow, and the executive branch gets to figure it out, with (of course) the U.S. population at large dealing with the consequences. SOAPBOX ASIDE: Once upon a time I did some research (a.k.a reading) about the Code of Federal Regulations, and it is kind of scary how quickly CFR has come to rule our lives from D.C. It would be a good idea if all congressional experience were disregarded in assessing Presidential qualifications (except inasmuch as the record shows beliefs, biases, and character). Being a Congressional representative man does not really qualify anyone to do anything except be a Congressional representative (or lobbyist). By my count, there is only one of the candidates (VP or P) that has governing experience.
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