Sarah Palin!

[boloboffin]

Why didn't they choose Huckabee?

The fact that they ignored Romney shows alot about their religious "tolerance", but why not Huckabee?

Because John McCain is a POW 10 years old and he does what he wants, he'll do what he want!

 

[gdnp]

Can I see this political experience conversion chart you're using? Cause I want to know how many years of lower level legislative experience qualify you to be President as compared to how many years of a governing a state make you a legit VP candidate?

edit to add:



So having a bigger constituency makes you more qualified for a job? By that logic Arnold Schwarzenegger would be the best president because of his 36 million constituents.

Well, he's not eligible, but yes, successfully managing a large, ethnically diverse, complex state with budget problems like California is a much better test of one's ability to handle the complexities of the US presidency than less than 2 years running a small state overflowing with oil money. This does not mean that Schwarzenegger would make a better president than Palin, only that he has been tested and she has not. She has never had to face tough budget choices.

It would be interesting to see what would happen to her popularity if oil prices fell and suddenly Alaska was facing billion dollar deficits.

When calling up a player from the minors, do you choose the guy who bats .310 in AAA or the guy who hits .370 in the rookie league? I can't tell you which one is better, but I can tell you which one has been better tested.

 

[not_so_new]

And I'd argue that legislative experience doesn't equal executive experience thus rendering most of Mr. Obama's credentials up for debate.

"Most"?

Also I see that you didn't quote the other areas of experience and background that I pointed out.

She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism with a minor in political science from University of Idaho. While journalism is unfortunately an important part of public office it isn't my most important educational qualification. Yes she has a minor in what I would deem important, political science but shouldn't she know something about law as she would preside as President of the Senate and I would assume also brief McCain on Supreme Court nominations?

Obama graduated with a BA in Political Science and with a specialization in international relations from Columbia University. He also graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Juris Doctor law degree from the Harvard Law School. Isn't that what a POUS needs, political understanding / education, studies in international relations and a strong understanding of U.S. law?

Also, experience is a life long process in my eyes. My experiences earlier in my life greatly effects how I do my job now, I think this is true of most folks.

Her non-political background is as a TV sports reporter, hunter and beauty contestant.

Obama taught law and was the director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago before entering politics.

I see a pretty glaring difference between the two.

I'll agree that Mrs. Palin is inexperienced, maybe so much so as to be deemed unqualified for the position. Personally, I'd like to see a little more of her before I make that judgment. I'd also say that I think Obama is more qualified than her in many ways. Yet, he may also be too inexperienced for the job.

Again, I point to this article on past presidential experience. Once reaching a given bar "experience" for a president is NOT a deciding factor on the quality of a president. I personally believe Obama has met that experience bar with his public and private life. I don't believe Palin has.

We can agree to disagree there.

That said, I see Brainster's point. If we're questioning Mrs. Palin's thin experience with good reason, shouldn't the same be done to Mr. Obama's, a person who also has credentials that are arguably thin? And, seeing how he is striving for the more powerful position, shouldn't we scrutinize him even more closely?

No, I think they should be judged equally. She would be the VP for the oldest sitting president (one with some pretty serious medical conditions) I think it is safe to consider that Palin could very likely ascend to the presidency during McCain's term.

 

[chipmunk stew]

Experience is not important for the president, but it is for the vice president? And all that gooey stuff about "base level of experience" is your basic "a miracle occurs" step.

Former town mayor? Meet former state senator. Oh, Barack's an actual US senator now? And Palin's a governor, and they've had a similar amount of experience in those positions (Obama had two years as a senator before he became a full-time presidential candidate).

But please, feel free to expound on the need for experience. Or the lack of need for experience, depending on whether you're talking about Palin or Obama.

The whole experience thing boils down to this: the less you have, the more difficult it is to pass the "job interview".

Obama has had his relative lack of experience challenged for over a year and a half of hard campaigning, and most people have made up their minds as to whether his experience clears the threshold or disqualifies him, in the context of the total "job interview".

Palin has just begun the "job interview". Hers is arguably a much higher hurdle to clear than Obama's, and she has much less time to make her case. She has to show that she has what it takes to step in as president.

This pick makes McCain's age and health fair game.

 

[Malerin]

By virtue of running a national campaign, Mccain, Obama, and Clinton all have executive experience we can evaluate:

Mccain's campaign nearly crashed-and-burned in August, reduced to almost a bus and a candidate, but props must be given to him for defeating all other Republicans and staying tight in the polls with Obama. Clinton ran a spotty campaign, misjudging the mood of the electorate (change vs. experience), failing to organize in caucus states, and hamstringing herself with a staff consumed with petty infighting. It was only near the end that she seemed to connect with voters. Obama's campaign has shattered fundraising records, defeated the Clinton "machine", and has yet to hit a low spot even remotely similar to Mccain's August meltdown. When it comes to running large organizations, Obama has done the best so far.

As has been pointed out, Palin was mayor of a small town, and governor of a state so awash in oil money, it GIVES its residents $1600 checks every year. She has no experience at the national level whatsoever, and her only experience as a legislator was being a member of a small town city council.

Her college background is also mediocre. George Bush, for all his buffoonery, holds an MBA from an ivy-leage college. Bill Clinton was a Rhode's Scholar with a law degree from Yale. Bush Sr. didn't have an advanced degree, but DID have an impressive resume- WW2 aviator, CIA director, House of Rep member, VP for 8 years. Reagan's college degree is unremarkable, but he was governor of California for 8 years and had previously run for president (twice).
Carter graduated from Annapolis, Ford held a law degree from Yale, Nixon had a law degree from Duke.

Americans like their presidents to have degrees from pretty prestigious universities or military academies. Failing that (in the case of Bush and Reagan), they want to see a pretty impressive resume.

Mccain, Obama, and Biden all fit into this narrative. Mccain graduated from Annapolis in 1958 and has been in the Senate forever. Obama has a law degree from Harvard (but a pretty thin resume), and Biden has a BA in history and political science and a law degree from Syracuse (and also has been in the Senate forever).

Sarah Palin stands out in this crowd and not in a good way. Her journalism degree from the University of Idaho is completely unremarkable. Her resume is compltely lacking in any foreign policy experience or ANY experience at the national level. She is unknown to the vast majority of Americans. And this at a time when we are engaged on three fronts- Iraq, Afghanistan, and radical Islam.

I think a lot of people are going to look at her background, look at McCain's age, and ask themselves, "What the hell was he thinking?".

One last point: 8 of the 42 presdients we've had have died in office:

1 William Henry Harrison April 4, 1841 Natural Causes
2 Zachary Taylor July 9, 1850 Natural Causes
3 Abraham Lincoln April 14, 1865 Assassinated
4 James A. Garfield September 19, 1881 Assassinated July 2, 1881
5 William McKinley September 14, 1901 Assassinated September 6, 1901
6 Warren Harding August 2, 1923 Natural Causes
7 Franklin D. Roosevelt April 12, 1945 Natural Causes
8 John F. Kennedy November 22, 1963 Assassinated

Statistically, there is a 19% chance Ms. Palin could become CIC. Factoring in McCaine's advanced age and history of cancer, the percentage is even higher. And to top it all off, she sounds like Francis Mcdormand in the movie Fargo. "Now I told Iran they gotta stop enriching that uranium, ya know?"

 

[boloboffin]

The person who's hurting on the experience argument now is McCain. His own officials agree:

“I think we’re going to have to examine our tag line, ‘dangerously inexperienced,’” a top McCain official said wryly.

Calling Palin more experienced than Obama, Biden, or McCain combined is absurd. Is there anyone here that truly believes this? It's not experience that matters, it's judgment. When it came to the first real decision of any presidential candidate, Obama picked one of the Democratic Party's top foreign policy experts and McCain picked a Janice-come-lately with troubling ties to Christian Dominionism, an ongoing ethics investigation, and a talent for getting oil companies the projects they want.

McCain's choice of music to play Palin off the stage? Van Halen's "Drill Right Now." Red meat for the religious right and the oil companies.

PS: And here's a little bit of "experience" that Palin's responsible for in Wasilla, the town she was mayor of two years ago.

 

[not_so_new]

Absolutely. I see no problem with it.

I guess my comments were directed towards people who seemed appalled at the mere notion of questioning Mr. Obama's credentials.

I hope you are not speaking about me here?



Because I have already looked into Obamas credentials and strongly encourage others to do so as well.

As long as others (not pointing this directly at you senorpogo) are doing so with real data not made up fluff from an opposing political party and scrutinizing all the candidates with the same criteria, I am fine with questioning any of the candidates credentials including Obama's.

 

[senorpogo]

When calling up a player from the minors, do you choose the guy who bats .310 in AAA or the guy who hits .370 in the rookie league? I can't tell you which one is better, but I can tell you which one has been better tested.

Batting average tells you something while gross numbers of constituents does not. BA tells you how a person performed. Number of constituents does not. It doesn't tell you what they did, how they did it, and how effective they were at their jobs. Now, we can argue those things if you want, but just pointing at numbers is a crude and pointless line of reasoning.

At heart, these are all subjective evaluations that individuals must make. To say that his experience is better experience simply because he represented more individuals for a slightly longer amount of time is unfair.

 

[gdnp]

PS: And here's a little bit of "experience" that Palin's responsible for in Wasilla, the town she was mayor of two years ago.

Oooh. She uses eminent domain to take private property as a mayor, and then raises taxes on the oil industry as governor. Maybe she is not a typical republican after all.

 

[MattusMaximus]

Complete agreement. She's much more fun to talk about. Plus Obama is a known commodity to a certain degree. Most of us have said everything we have about him.

A side note: McCain is in trouble if his main goal in naming his VP was to win the late August news cycle.

I agree. If the GOP was hoping to use this as a way of stealing attention away from Obama, then they're going to be sorely disappointed. The media is still paying plenty of attention to Obama, and now McCain has a bunch of sticky questions about his judgment a la his VP pick.

And if you think the Republicans were trying to get face-time and media attention during the DNC, you just wait to see what the Democrats have in store for the RNC.

It's going to be really good. Here's a hint.

 

[Brainster]

Timeline of Troopergate from a conservative source. Sounds like the brother-in-law was a criminal, and had no business being a state trooper. This might actually help Palin with women.

 

[Policenaut]

I'm still going to reserve my judgment on her till after the VP debates (unless she says something remarkably smart or stupid from here on out). She isn't experienced. I think that is undeniable but maybe a fresh perspective is her asset.

 

[senorpogo]

I hope you are not speaking about me here?



Because I have already looked into Obamas credentials and strongly encourage others to do so as well.

As long as others (not pointing this directly at you senorpogo) are doing so with real data not made up fluff from an opposing political party and scrutinizing all the candidates with the same criteria, I am fine with questioning any of the candidates credentials including Obama's.

I agree with most of the stuff you said in this and your earlier post. I find Mr. Obama's accomplishments outside of office very impressive, much more so than what I've read about Mrs. Palin's.

I guess I'm just railing against a certain kind of double standard (and this goes both ways but I'll do it from the Democratic pov):

Mrs. Palin seems inexperienced. I looked into it and decided that she is. I will not vote for her. People think Mr. Obama is inexperienced. They looked into it and decided that he is. They now won't vote him. How DARE they! Look at all he's done... blah blah GOP talking points etc etc etc

I'm not saying people here are doing that, but I think some of the comments get somewhat close.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

As someone said earlier in the thread, McCain just shot himself in the foot.

His choice for candidate will prevent him from using the only strong point he had against Obama: experience. This issue will no longer be on the table thanks to Palin, he can't even mention experience anymore.

Obama for the gold.

Can't all future debates simply now go as thus?

McCain: With Georgia and Russia, Pakistan and Al Qeada, Iran and the North Koreans, we need experience..

Obama: I am glad Mr McCain has finally endorsed the view of my voters that wisdom and judgement counts more in these troubled times than experience in Washington, with his selection of Sarah Palin. I applaud the Republican party for following our lead. (Insert Change and Hope here)

McCain: True 'Dat.

 

[not_so_new]

I agree with most of the stuff you said in this and your earlier post. I find Mr. Obama's accomplishments outside of office very impressive, much more so than what I've read about Mrs. Palin's.

I guess I'm just railing against a certain kind of double standard (and this goes both ways but I'll do it from the Democratic pov):


I'm not saying people here are doing that, but I think some of the comments get somewhat close.

I agree. I know it's in vogue to say but I am an independent (for proof I voted for Bush in 2000... yes a mistake that I fess up to now).





As I said, I am ALL for reviewing qualifications as long as we use the same set of criteria for the review ON BOTH sides.

I think we agree, thanks for the clarification.

 

[gdnp]

Batting average tells you something while gross numbers of constituents does not. BA tells you how a person performed. Number of constituents does not. It doesn't tell you what they did, how they did it, and how effective they were are their jobs. Now, we can argue those things if you want, but just pointing at numbers is a crude and pointless line of reasoning.

The number of constituents is an marker of the complexity of the issues that must be faced and the competing interests that must be balanced.

A town of 10,000 probably has a budget in the millions or tens of millions. They deal with schools (or maybe only one school), police protection, fire protection, emergency services, trash pickup (maybe), paving the streets, cleaning up the snow. Maybe a park or two. Wasilla seems to have a municipal airport to boot. Taxes are usually local property taxes.

A state like Illinois has a budget of 50 billion dollars. That's 1000 times larger. They have to deal with many of the same problems that communities deal with, plus health care and hospitals, prisons, welfare, taxation, etc.

The federal budget jumps to 2.7 trillion, 50 times larger than Illinois.

That's a big jump from Wasilla, with only 2 years at the state level and no legal or legislative experience. Remember, she has no federal experience. If she had been vetted through the primary process, at least she would have been forced to come up with positions on national issues. She has not faced that test.

Which does not mean she would necessarily fail. Some players have made the jump from A or AA to the big leagues and done spectacularly. Others have failed miserably either through lack of skill or lack of training. That may be a risk worth taking in a pennant race. But for Vice President?

 

[Pardalis]

Sarah Palin stands out in this crowd and not in a good way. Her journalism degree from the University of Idaho is completely unremarkable. Her resume is compltely lacking in any foreign policy experience or ANY experience at the national level. She is unknown to the vast majority of Americans. And this at a time when we are engaged on three fronts- Iraq, Afghanistan, and radical Islam.

Good point. Biden is known, we've seen him in the debates, we know what he's about, how he is similar and how he differs from Obama. He's been around for a while. He's got ideas of his own, he's got his own angle on things.

Besides looking up her profile on Wikipedia, does anybody know her, and her ideas, besides being a conservative? Looks to me she's more like a blank slate anyone can write anything on.

What an odd choice.

 

[Hokulele]

Experience is not important for the president, but it is for the vice president? And all that gooey stuff about "base level of experience" is your basic "a miracle occurs" step.

Former town mayor? Meet former state senator. Oh, Barack's an actual US senator now? And Palin's a governor, and they've had a similar amount of experience in those positions (Obama had two years as a senator before he became a full-time presidential candidate).

But please, feel free to expound on the need for experience. Or the lack of need for experience, depending on whether you're talking about Palin or Obama.

The reason why many people bring up the issue of Palin's inexperience isn't so much about whether or not experience is a good thing, but because of the sheer hypocrisy in the McCain campaign making Obama's lack of experience a major issue, then turning around and picking someone ... without experience! It is somewhat like having Mother's Against Drunk Driving sign on the town drunk as their PR manager. There may very well be good reasons to sign on the town drunk (he may be billiant at PR), I just haven't seen the reasons for siging on Palin (other than the whole women are gullible aspect or the will support McCain's policies aspect).

I don't believe that a lack of experience is a deal-breaker, especially in a top office. What is more important is which issues does an administration support or reject, what is the likely make up of the cabinet, which advisors will play a role in executive decisions, and so on. I do not doubt that either Obama or Palin can learn on the job perfectly well, but I have seen that Obama does learn on the job. Time may tell with Palin.

 

[senorpogo]

The number of constituents is an marker of the complexity of the issues that must be faced and the competing interests that must be balanced.

Really? I don't know if I buy that. In fact, I don't. Alaska is an odd state with a variety of unique interests (namely oil). So even though it has few people as states go, I don't think it's necessarily a simpler place to govern than, say, Ohio. I don't think a place with 200,000 people is twice as complicated to run as a place with 100,000. Life ain't that simple.

I'll give you that being mayor of a small town is vastly different (and maybe, probably, vastly easier), but - having no real idea what was required of her during that time or how well she did her job - I'm not ready to state that her experience as a mayor is less applicable to the job of VP/POTUS than Obama's legislative experience. Well, that's not true. Personally, I think it is less applicable, but I could understand how people may honestly feel differently.

Also, like I said before, how good was she at her job? You keep making the baseball analogy - what if she was hitting .500 at AA and slugging .750 (heck of an OPS)? If so, then she may very well be ready for that starting spot with the Yanks (or Rays now, I guess).

 

[not_so_new]

I don't believe that a lack of experience is a deal-breaker, especially in a top office. What is more important is which issues does an administration support or reject, what is the likely make up of the cabinet, which advisors will play a role in executive decisions, and so on. I do not doubt that either Obama or Palin can learn on the job perfectly well, but I have seen that Obama does learn on the job. Time may tell with Palin.

I agree 100%... with the caveat that the foundation has to be there before actual on the job learning can take place.

In my example above, I am a computer networking security guy. Lots of training, lots of basic and advanced computer knowledge etc. If a first level tech support person wanted to step in and learn my job it's going to take a lot of training before they become proficient enough to weigh their job performance against mine.

In the end they could be better than me at the same tasks but before we can even begin to make these compassions the first level tech has a ton of things to learn (not patting myself on the back, it just the reality of the situation).

Palin is coming in with a Bachelor of Science degree in journalism with a minor in political science. Obama is coming with BA in Political Science (specialization in international relations) and with a Juris Doctor law degree.

Palin has a lot of catching up to do just in her education before she can even start to do the job that she would then have to learn on the run.