Unscientific - but of 50,262 respondents thus far to the MSNBC straw poll, 64% have responded that McCain should have picked someone else.
 

Two quick comments: (1) Have any of you ever been to Wasilla, AK? I have, and let me say that viewing the mayorship of this little suburban burg as "executive" experience qualifying one for the presidency is like viewing service as the leader of the local pee wee football league as qualifying one for the commissioner of the NFL. (2) I, for one, will be extremely interested in hearing from Ms. Palin, in her own words, why shes believes that she is qualified to be the President of the United States of America.
 

mourad said...

Unscientific - but of 50,262 respondents thus far to the MSNBC straw poll, 64% have responded that McCain should have picked someone else.

Given that MSNBC is notorious for its obsequious support of Obama and its consequent popularity among Obama partisans, I am completely unsurprised that 64% of these partisans dearly wish McCain would have picked someone else besides Palin.

While the GOP and most of America greeted the selection of Joe Biden with a collective yawn, there is real public interest in Palin and thus a rather hysterical response among Dem bloggers.
 

Bart,

The reason there isn't much public interest in Biden is because he is the kind of person one would expect Obama to choose and is qualified to be President. The lack of buzz doesn't indicate that he was a bad choice; it indicates that the choice was not surprising.

Palin has aroused interest for three reasons, none of which have much to do with her qualifications to be President. One is that she is a woman, which is a novelty. The second is that she is unknown, so people want to know about her, even if they are unlikely to vote for her. The third is that she makes the social conservatives happy. Of course, none of them were going to vote for Obama anyhow, so their excitement means little for the election except that it may increase Republican turnout a little.
 

Sandy:

1) Obama is in no way "even" with McCain on the executive or legislative sides of the coin. McCain has military command experience running an Navy squadron and has shown extensive leadership in the Senate drafting legislation and assembling bipartisan majorities. Obama has run nothing in his life and never bothered to hold a single hearing in his subcommittee.

2) Palin's ten years as a small town mayor is far more useful experience to assume the Presidency than Obama's time in the Illinois Legislature. Palin has drafted a budget and delivered services under a budget. In contrast, state senator Obama could not even manage to make up his mind how to vote with a stunningly high number of present votes or abstentions.

3) Any length of service as a state governor is far better training for the Presidency than Obama's largely absentee time as a nominal US Senator. Obama accomplished nothing in the handful of months before he began this presidential run. In contrast, Palin not only had to hit the ground running performing the normal executive duties of a governor, but also had to deal with a corruption crisis in her own party.

4) Perhaps the weakest argument that Obama is qualified to be President is that he toured the country and gave speeches over the past year and a half. Sean Hannity has been doing that for nearly a decade and that hardly makes him presidential timber.

5) Actually, I was wrong about the Obama campaign being the weakest competence argument. The question about the last five books Palin read has to be by far the weakest argument. Once again, I suggest that you search for Sarah Palin on youtube and watch her substantively dominate the reporters who interview her.

6) The difference between Palin and Obama is that Palin as VP can learn on the job to gain competence to become President in say 2012 when McCain leaves office. If McCain should pass away earlier, Palin will be surrounded with an Administration made up of experienced hands from the GOP domination of the presidency for the past generation.

In contrast, Obama will have to command immediately and is completely unprepared to do so. His advisors and likely Administration have little successful executive experience, so they will all be learning on the run during wartime and facing a badly out of balance budget.

One does not have to be a professional to recognize the insanity of that latter scenario.
 

Sandy, are you saying that if Palin had decided a year ago that she wanted to be president, and had put together a staff to instruct her on the issues as Obama has, then she'd be qualified? I read your post as a defense of the absurd running-for-president-qualifies-one-for-the-office position. You don't think that Obama knew Mississippi before his campaign do you? So why does it matter if he first traveled there in March rather than in August? This kind of hairsplitting--two years isn't enough, but slightly more clearly is, two months isn't enough, a year clearly is--is so transparently ad hoc that I can't help but wonder about your good faith. I mean, yes, of course you're in the tank for Obama, but haven't you any self-respect, or respect for your readers?

You are back at the definitional games again; now you put pressure on "foreseeable." Apparently the time spent running a campaign for president is enough to qualify one for the office, but an equivalent amount of time into the future (or less, since Palin wouldn't need to fundraise or to hold hands with folks in Iowa and New Hampshire) isn't "foreseeable." I guess I don't know what the word could mean then.

It isn't sexist to hold Palin to high standards. But your standards, well, that's obviously another story. I don't know whether it's ugly partisanship, sexism, or class that leads you out on your ledge, or maybe a mix of all of them. It's such shoddy thinking that it is fair for your readers to wonder what's causing it.

Your question about "intellectual curiousity" is a good example. You ask if there's any evidence that Palin has the quality. One might as well ask if there's any evidence she doesn't, since she's not particularly well known. And yet your automatic assumption works one way. What causes that? Her party? Her vagina? That her husband works with his hands?

(Though it's a bit late to bother to correct the record, the idea that Bush is "totally devoid of curiousity" isn't supported by facts. See, e.g., http://www.abdn.ac.uk/socsci/news_items/full_story.php?id=136 ). )

Finally, who besides Caligula's horse has "fine breeding" and "runs fast"? Is this how you're summing up Palin? Please tell me I'm not reading this right.
 

Interesting post, Professor Levinson. But, it seems to me to miss the point in a manner similar to Professor Balkin’s. It assumes certain principles true when they are manifestly false. Experience does not determine mind. Thus, to assume some minimal set of experiences is necessary to enable one to be capable of governing is false. There is no such set. You also assume the "game" being played is well defined. It is, necessarily, not well defined. That is, I think, one of the more interesting, and least understood, aspects of human society.

Obama is a champion of the Democrats, after beating Hillary Clinton by exploiting the weaknesses of the strategies jointly shared by all of the other players in the game. And, like the Philistine champion Goliath, he jeered and taunted and humiliated his opponents.

The Obama camp is now preparing to employ strategic thinking it took from the Republican playbook to vanquish their opponents. They do so under the assumption McCain made his selection based on the guidance of the same playbook they understand so well.

But, if this were McCain’s plan, he would know that such a move would fail.

I suspect that McCain, like Saul, thinks he sees in Sarah an individual who knows something. David’s slingshot was not in the Philistine playbook. I imagine Sarah in possession of an analogous talent. Perhaps, "Cuda has a killer slapshot.
 

A thing I've often wondered: does military command experience, where the underlings are required upon pain of courts martial (or summary execution, in combat) to obey their chain of command, really count as "executive experience?"

My own experience with ex-military officers is that they make lousy managers at least as often as the kind that are hired on the basis of inflated resumes and the recommendations of people who wanted to get rid of them.

One of the worst managers I ever worked for a retired LTC. He routinely lied to the customer, expected absolute, cheerful obedience from his workers, no matter what idiocy he ordered, and couldn't perform the simplest tasks.

So I'd count military command experience as, at best, a neutral. I'd want to hear encomiums from somebody who worked for the officer.

Just for the record, I've also worked with, and for, officers and ex-officers who were among the finest people, and the best managers. I'm just saying there's no positive correlation, and some negative correlation in my experience.
 

c2h50h said...

A thing I've often wondered: does military command experience, where the underlings are required upon pain of courts martial (or summary execution, in combat) to obey their chain of command, really count as "executive experience?"

The US Army is not the Russian Army. Our troops generally have to be convinced there is a good reason for the orders they receive.

In any case, military service as an officer does not mean that one is automatically a good leader or manager, only that one has the opportunity to prove oneself in these roles at an earlier age and position than in comparable civilian fields.

By all accounts, Mr. McCain demonstrated leadership and management skill.
 

Sorry, but Obama's 3 years as Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago, overseeing a staff of 13 and budget of $400k as well as his term as President of the Harvard Law Review, overseeing the editing of the Review and its staff of 80, running several near-flawless political campaigns including a landslide victory in his Senate bid, and front-page dismantling of widely-regarded unbeatable Clinton machine is FAR more "executive" experience than PTA member, small town mayor, and Governor of one of the least populous states for all of several months.

As the President of the Alaskan Senate, member of Palin's own party, Palin's own state Senator, and resident of Palin's own town has now be extensively be quoted: "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?"

Most voters -- pro or anti-Obama -- have LONG since decided that Obama's OBVIOUS ability to discuss with nuance and detail ANY issue put before him more than "qualifies" him to become President. While I personally find Obama flat-wrong on many issues, I, like most Americans, have long since put the "qualified?" issue to bed.

(And let's not even start on the key Presidential qualification of Judgment, for which McCain has just underscored his shocking deficiency.)

The only persons pushing some spin that Obama and Palin are equally unexperienced -- let alone(!) that Palin is more experienced -- are the types used to answering their own rhetorical questions in some rightwing radio echo chamber. Sorry, but NO ONE is convinced.
 

"Our troops generally have to be convinced there is a good reason for the orders they receive."

They've changed the UCMJ in the last thirty years, then. One of the things you learned in basic training was that you had to obey the verbal command of an officer.

"By all accounts, Mr. McCain demonstrated leadership and management skill."

This is false by a simple google search. In fact, if McCain displayed, while in the Navy, presidential-quality management and leadership ability, he almost certainly wouldn't have left the service when he did.

I think we have to judge McCain on the management ability he's shown since he left the Navy.
 

Honestly? Military experience may be poor executive experience, but I'd put it light years ahead of being chairman of a committee you never call into session. THAT I found rather amazing. Though perhaps understandable; Most of Obama's Senate tenure has been spent running for President, rather than being a Senator.
 

The conservatives here are ignoring Prof. Levinson's central point, which is about intellectual engagement with the world.

If one listens to Barack Obama, and looks at his career, you see it and hear it. I can fully understand a conservative saying that Obama is wrong, or even dangerous, but it's absolutely silly to call him in over his head-- if he were, we would have 150 or 200 instances of it already.

In contrast, Palin's resume and her public statements don't show any instance in which she was particularly intellectually engaged with or interested in the major issues that developed nations face or the philosophical debates that animate them.

Put simply, if you ask Obama about the undercurrents that drive the tensions between Turkey and Iraqi Kurds and the precarious position that the US government is in with respect to that issue, he'd be able to give you a very intelligent answer.

If you ask Palin about it, I bet you anything you either get a short talking point or a blank look.

THAT's what we mean when we say she's in over her head. Talking points about "executive experience" don't change this.
 

"Palin's ten years as a small town mayor".

That's six years, Bart (1996-2002).
 

Brett,

Thank you for pointing out another example of Obama's intelligence. Had he wasted his time trying to pry information out of the Bush administration, he'd have been stone-walled and almost certainly have nothing to show for it.

As it is, he's run a hugely successful primary campaign, and has a very good chance of becoming the first non-white president of these United States.
 

Dilan's point is reinforced by the fact that Palin wasn't out on the Talking Head programs this morning.
 

Anyone who think that the Bush administration's and the US military's handling of this phony global war on everything and nothing displays executive or military competence is a fool. From start to festering quagmire, it's has been complete waste of time and resources. We would be better off disbanding the military than to continue with this idiocy. They have done nothing but make a bad situation worse, while simulataneously weakening the military.
 

Obama was an academic before he was a politician. This is a blog composed of academics, every one of whom I would bet is a registered Democrat, or someone who has not voted for a GOP president since at least Jerry Ford, if not in their lifetime. Does anyone really expect some sort of objective analysis of Obama's experience on this blog? Birds of a feather, and all that.

Palin has the experience we have come to expect in a president: at the helm of a state and a city. She has appointed cabinet members and judges, proposed, signed and stuck to a budget, used the bully pulpit to set her state's agenda, negotiated with legislators and used a veto, and outside of foreign affairs and the military, done everything a president does, even if for only two years (plus 10 as a mayor). None of these tasks depend on the population of Alaska or Wasilla. Virtually every president who did not come from the VP job or the military has been a governor. (And for what it is worth, virtually all of our terrible presidents have come from Congress: e.g., Buchanan, Harding, Pierce, Fillmore, A. Johnson).

Obama has the experience of participating in a debating society. He may be familiar with more federal issues, but he has never run anything except his mouth. Analogizing running a successful nomination campaign to running a government is silly: it confuses political skill with governing skill. Just because you are good at interviewing for a job does not mean you are good at doing it.

Furthermore, the comparison between Obama and Palin misses the point: Palin may or may not become president if McCain wins, but Obama will surely become president if Obama wins. She is running for VP, not president. For Dems to raise an inexperience argument against Palin in a year when they are running Obama as their presidential candidate is just funny. Bring it on!
 

Obama's 3 years as Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago, overseeing a staff of 13 and budget of $400k as well as his term as President of the Harvard Law Review, overseeing the editing of the Review and its staff of 80, running several near-flawless political campaigns including a landslide victory in his Senate bid, and front-page dismantling of widely-regarded unbeatable Clinton machine is FAR more "executive" experience than PTA member, small town mayor, and Governor of one of the least populous states for all of several months.

This is even funnier than Obama questioning Palin's experience.

Supervising 13 people and a budget of $400K is more executive experience than running a state government for 2 years? Seriously?

Serving as president of a law review -- largely equivalent to getting elected senior class president in high school -- is more experience than being a small town mayor?

You can argue that his decade of experience debating federal issues is more relevant than her decade of experience running things on a city and state level, but to argue that he has executive experience superior to hers is just asinine.

Maybe you should re-read your posts before you hit publish. Remember the adage that 'tis better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
 

Speaking of removing all doubt -- being elected president of the Harvard Law Review "equivalent" to being elected class president of a high school? Really?

McCain's selection of Palin has been likened to a "hail Mary" pass. I would suggest that it's not merely that, but also an "end run" around the media, around the opposition, and around the deliberative process itself.

Since the RNC has now been scaled back -- "due to Gustav" -- the vetting of Sarah Palin by the media and the public will be significantly lengthened. It may, in fact, be that many voters won't even know that she's a dogmatic pro-lifer, that she's an AGW denier, that she supports teaching creationism in school science classes by the time they are called upon to vote.

And here's the damning thing: these people don't want to know. They revel in their ignorance, they find it comforting, and they distrust or even fear intelligence and knowledge.

In short, they're Republicans.
 

Sorry, but Obama's 3 years as Director of the Developing Communities Project in Chicago, overseeing a staff of 13 and budget of $400k..

To put it kindly, this is an Obama campaign embellishment of his record with the DCP. Obama was an employee "community organizer." He was not the head of the tiny organization and did not raise the $400K budget.

The only thing of note Baby Face Barry accomplished is to start a public housing tenant protest of asbestos that he did not see through, choosing instead to go to law school. As his job hopping demonstrates, long term grunt work was not for Mr. Obama.
 

And for what it is worth, virtually all of our terrible presidents have come from Congress: e.g., Buchanan, Harding, Pierce, Fillmore, A. Johnson.

These are peculiar examples of your point. Aside from the fact that your most recent example comes from 88 years ago, Andrew Johnson "came from" being Lincoln's VP. Before that, he was the military governor of TN; Buchanan "came from" being Sec'y of State and Ambassador to the UK; Fillmore "came from" being VP and before that the NY State Comptroller; Pierce "came from" being a general; and Harding actually did "come from" the Senate.

Just curious, though: where do you think John McCain "comss from"?

Palin has the experience we have come to expect in a president

Notwithstanding all the defence Palin's "experience" is getting in the blogosphere, I don't see the campaign itself doing much defending on that ground. In today's LA Times, Charles Black took the Rovian line that "experience" was never one of their primary issues.
 

I am amazed at the partisanship and condescention shown by Republicans in the choice of Palin. If the candidates were switched, and Obama/Biden was Republican and McCain/Plain Democrat, the GOP's attacks on and ridicule of Palin likely would have gone to levels not yet seen by the Democrats. Let's look at some of the Republican defenses of Palin so far.

Her executive experience: Because she is a first term governor and had been a mayor of a small town previously, she has executive experience and this improves her candidacy. Does this mean every single first term governor is qualified to be president/VP? What about someone who is mayor of a city that with a larger population than Alaska -- does a first term mayor of Columbus, Ohio (who perhaps was on City Council before being mayor) automatically have the qualifications to be the leader of the free world? Her "executive experience" in a town of 9,000 people also is largely irrelevant -- there are numerous small towns with people who have been mayors for 20+ years. Does their experience qualify them to be president? If they weren't yet nominated by the GOP, no Republican would say yes.

She is just as experienced as Obama: Obama has served on a national stage and worked on numerous bipartisan provisions in the Senate. But to argue his experience is extensive would not be correct. His experience on national and international issues is probably larger than Bush or Clinton before taking office, but even that argument is limited by his short term in the Senate.

On the other hand, Palin has no experience whatsoever. Somehow because Alaska borders Canada and Russia, she is knowledgeable on these areas? I do not remember any Alaskan senators being consulted for inside information on Russia or Canada, but let's assume this point is true. Should every Governor (including those just elected) from Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Maine (I am may be missing some here) be consulted on every Canadian question -- they obviously are quite fluent in international issues with Canada. Also if we have any issues with Latin America, it is good that we have had Bush and will have McCain as presidents, because their work in Texas and Arizona makes them imminently qualified for such interaction. Also Hawai'i is much closer to Asia, so we should bring the island's Governor into any negotiations with Japan or China. This point is ridiculous.

Her lack of public interest in the Iraq war or any other national/international issue is telling. Obama spoke out against the Iraq war when he was a state representative, but Republicans mock this as his position was meaningless (he had no control or vote at the time). What it does represent is awareness of the issue and this awareness and understanding has been shown in many different areas. Palin has demonstrated no such knowledge or intellectual curiousity. Many issues arising in the world have extensive intricate complexities and cannot legitimately be broken down into black and white answers but must be assuaged and reviewed from many different directions with plusses and minueses reviewed for numerous different options. Yet the current Republican stance shows disdain towards the concept that we need someone who will (and previously has) closely review different ideas and plans before making a decision. Palin shows no experience and inclination in this area.

Interestingly, if this were a race between Bobby Jindal, for example, and Palin (as a Democrat), the GOP would mock anyone comparing their national and international experience. But now they are claiming she is ready to lead the free world if McCain were to pass. Nothing but partisan banter with no basis in fact.

I could go on -- her Troopergate scandal, the trumpeting of her having a baby with Down's Syndrome (shouldn't anyone who is pro-life have made that decision -- being pro-life doesn't have the Down's Syndrome exception) or the implicit argument that as she is a woman, Hillary supporters should vote for her. But the Palin selection, and the Republican's arguments supporting it, insult my intelligence.

I had never supported any candidate who was not a Republican at a state or national level until Bush beat McCain (I worked extensively on the former McCain's 2000 campaign). I could not find an intellectual stance to support GWB -- I was amazed that the GOP supported him and didn't care about his dismissal of non-partisan review of his economic plans as "fuzzy math", his lack of interest and knowledge in international issues and his inability to grasp complexities, not to mention that he discussed many non-conservative ideas. My Republican foundation was further shaken by 1) Terri Schiavo (small government? personal responsibility? state's rights? or instead a nation run by James Dobson?) 2) ignoring the Constitution and rights of the people (1st Amendment, 4th amendment, 5th Amendment, 6th Amendment, 8th Amendment all appearing optional when needed, deciding to ignore parts of laws passed by Congress whenever he wants), 3) using Nazi style torture methods (leading to Sudan claiming they can do certain actions because we do it -- do we really want to be a leader in this area?), 4) touting WMD as the reason to go to Iraq but then stating it was the correct decision even if no WMD were found -- if that is true, why did you make the WMD argument? The WMD were obviously not the reason to have attacked, 5 (I could go on quite sometime with the non-conservative agenda promoted by Bush).

Now the GOP has done it again. I waffled on Obama (who I disagree with greatly on certain issues, but who I think will be a great leader willing to try novel plans toward difficult issues and, like McCain, start to mend the partisan lines preventing agreement on many issues) and McCain (who has now reversed many of his Straight Talk Express ideas and tied himself to evangelicals, but still retains some great qualities and positions). The lack of concern for the American people shown by choosing Palin, and the party's ridiculous arguments supporting her and mockery of the concept of intellectual curiousity and in-depth review of issues, has demonstrated that the same pattern of rash decisions made for purely partisan reasons will continue under McCain and made my choice to support Obama for president quite easy.

I just want every person supporting Palin to honestly consider their views if she was a Democrat and running for the spot. Would they say she is the equivalent of Bobby Jindal, for example? How about if this was 1996 and she was running against Bill Frist or Lindsey Graham -- both first term Senators elected in 1994. Does Palin match-up? I highly doubt any objective Republican can honestly say yes.

It is fine to support McCain and point out certain good points about Palin. It is ridiculous to compare her glowingly to Obama (or Jindal, Frist or Graham in the examples above) for readiness to perform on an international level. Just another example of the Republican party's low opinion of the American people's intellect.
 

It amazes me that anyone thinks experience even matters. We all have just as much of it as we do, and it's completely obvious that beyond a certain minimum threshold that no amount of experience can predict how well someone will perform in a job like the Presidency -- it's always a dice roll, and what really matters is intelligence, honesty, and sound principles. You pick a registered voter at random and have a better chance of picking a better president than an incompetent fool like George Bush.

Meanwhile, McCain is former POW who experienced the torture and murder of POWs first hand, yet nevertheless is willing to aid and abet the torture and murder of POWs. Equally, we've ALL experienced the Bush administration pointless murderous aggression, yet the idiots in the Republican Party just go right on ignoring every fact and all logic to pretend that it's all just been a great success.

It's all very simple now. The people of the country will either wise up or they won't. Either way, those of us who are honest and decent have to do everything in our power to stand up for what is right.
 

"Bart" DeRNCFlack:

Palin will be surrounded with an Administration made up of experienced hands from the GOP domination of the presidency for the past generation....

Like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Brownie, Libby, Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, Chertoff, Bolton, Rice, Hadley, Bremer, anonanon....

ROFLMAO.... If we ever needed an object lesson as to why this would be a bad thing (electing McSame), this comment of "Bart"'s is front-and-centre. I don't think you could put together a better list of the top f*ckups of all time if that is what you were trying to do. It's pathetic that all you need to do that is give the roll of Dubya maladministration appointments.

Cheers,
 

Zachary:

Palin has the experience we have come to expect in a president...

... and look what that got us. I'd run through the litany (war, debt, drownings, corruption, cronyism, etc.) but anyone who's been paying attention knows it all already....

Sorry, kiddo, but we've had quite enough of Republican "experience"....

Cheers,
 

Zachary:

[V]irtually all of our terrible presidents have come from Congress....

... but the worst one ever was a short-term, weak gub'nuh.

Cheers,
 

I guess if someone is determined not to see a point, there is no getting through to them, but just for kicks I will try again.

First of all, Obama is running against McCain. This fact seems to have been forgotten in all of the discussion about Palin. Obama's knowledge of foreign policy is not even in the same universe as McCain's. Similarly, Obama's legislative accomplishments are not in the same universe as McCain's. There is no evidence of the post-partisanship or bipartisanship Obama speaks of in his legislative record in the Senate while there is plenty of evidence of such a record with McCain. (Indeed, the reason that so many Republicans hate McCain is that he is seen as too bipartisan and not loyal enough to the party and its positions.) So from the experience, knowledge and accomplishment perspectives, McCain is miles ahead of Obama as a presidential candidate. This bears emphasis because the newfound concern by Obamaphiles about Palin's experience, knowledge and accomplishments sounds like quite a red herring when you remember that these traits favor McCain over Obama and that Obama and Palin are not running for the same job.

Second, the idea that someone would vote for an inexperienced president because of fear of an inexperienced VP on the other ticket makes no sense. The VP has no important duties as VP and their portfolio is only what the president gives them. The president has obviously a much larger portfolio. If inexperience matters on a presidential ticket, it matters exponentially more for the presidential slot than for the VP slot. Speaking of concerns over VP inexperience in the event of succession simply makes no sense when the alternative is presidential inexperience right off the bat.

Third, thinking about issues does not equate with experience making decisions about them. If it did, the most qualified presidential contenders from a foreign policy perspective would be foreign policy pundits or political science professors who study and write about these issues nonstop for decades. Few people think that is the case, but it does not surprise me that on a blog of this nature, where all of the posters are academics from Yale Law, this POV gets a lot of play. Obama has been running for president for 18 months, so he has worked out answers on a lot of the questions people are mentioning, but that does not mean that he has experience dealing with them. He has never negotiated with foreign leaders. He has never sat in the situation room. The number of votes he has cast on these issues in 4 years is quite limited. His experience dealing with foreign policy questions is wildly exaggerated, and his preparation in answering questions about them is of recent vintage. Within months, Palin will be in the same place viz preparation. The whole "preparation" trope suggests that a governor could never be picked for VP because almost no governor has mastered this knowledge unless they were in Congress or the cabinet beforehand. Yet few people outside the punditocracy (which values its own knowledge above all else) would see a governor as unqualified to be selected as VP, even in a time of war.

Fourth, foreign policy is only one area of the president's duties. They also have significant duties picking cabinet members and judges, proposing and sticking to a budget, negotiating and vetoing legislation, managing crises, serving as head of state and formulating policies with respect to lunch-bucket issues that are not related to, or are only barely related to foreign policy. Palin, even with only two years under her belt as governor and 8 or 10 as mayor has more experience on each of these matters than all of the other three people running for president or VP combined. So the argument that Alaska doesn't have a lot of people or that Wasilla is a small town is irrelevant, because the comparison is to the records of the other three candidates and they have never even been mayor of a small town, let alone a small state. If Palin were running against the mayor of Columbus or the governor of New York (pace Bill Springer), you could justifiably ask whose experience was more relevant. But as no one else on either ticket has any real executive experience of any kind, this is a peculiar argument.

For those who are bothered by her first term pedigree, ask yourself if Palin was a second term governor of AK whether your view would change? She would know no more about foreign policy, since governors rarely deal with that. What if she were a first term governor of CA or NY? Would the additional "skill" she had as governor of a more populous state change your view?

The bottom line is that opposition to Palin is not really coming from any lack of experience on her part, because if it was it would also disqualify Obama. It may be because the religious right likes her and that bothers many Dems. It may be because she is shaking up the race in ways that scare the Obamaphiles right at a point where they thought they were pulling ahead. It may be because many politicos just don't know her yet. It may be because her pathbreaking steps on the toes of what was supposed to be a history-making election only for one ticket. It may be for other reasons -- but it is not for a lack of experience.
 

Zachary,

"Experience" is not simply having been around longer, or we'd be scouring the nursing homes, to find the oldest person to become president.

I'm a lot less impressed than you appear to be by experience handling problems that have appeared in the past. Surely old problems have, by now, been amply studied so that, if the president needs to solve them, advice can be had. You seem to imply that the president, sitting alone in the Oval Office, comes to a decision. I doubt that happens all that often. With the current occupant, for example, decisions seem to generally follow a visit from the VP.

I think it's far more important that a president display good decision-making ability.

In the current example, McCain has thrown out a choice that indicates bad decision-making. We, the voters, are expected to make intelligent decisions about who we want to vote for, yet we haven't any assurance that we will have time to evaluate the quality of the experience of Palin. What's dribbling out so far ... isn't promising.

There is no equivalence between the observable experience we get with Obama and that with Palin. Further, I think McCain's history, and especially recent history, of decision-making, is not indicative of high-quality experience.
 

"Experience" is not simply having been around longer, or we'd be scouring the nursing homes, to find the oldest person to become president.

This reminds me of the old line from the 60s: that having one year of experience repeated 40 times doesn't lead to wisdom.
 

"Maybe you should re-read your posts before you hit publish."

Perhaps you could actually argue in the alternative before embarrassing yourself further?

Obama's collective executive experience exceeds Palin's collective executive experience. This is not a tit-for-tat point. Sitting in a chair with a nameplate on the desk is NOT EXPERIENCE. Actual achievement is experience. Obama's got that in spades.
 

c2h50h:

In the current example, McCain has thrown out a choice that indicates bad decision-making. We, the voters, are expected to make intelligent decisions about who we want to vote for, yet we haven't any assurance that we will have time to evaluate the quality of the experience of Palin. What's dribbling out so far ... isn't promising.

Your argument about his decisionmaking is based on her experience. You are saying it was a bad decision because of her alleged inexperience. So this really is an (indirect) argument about her experience. Meanwhile, your alternative to McCain is someone with less executive experience than the person you criticize as being inexperienced.

I don't know what you mean by "observable" experience we get with Obama. If you mean his political campaign, you are confusing skill at being a politician with skill at governing. Interviewing well for a job does not predict that the person will perform well in the job, or vice-versa. It has been long-observed (including on this blog) that folks who tend to get elected are the best politicians, but not necessarily the best governors. Obama is definitely in this vein, because he is a great speaker and showman, but has no accomplishments of any significance to his name. That is simply a fact. You can't whitewash that away, any more than Palin can whitewash away her daughter's pregnancy. The problem with nominating a presidential candidate who is new is that they don't have anything to point to to show that they can do the job.

jamesaust:

Obama's collective executive experience exceeds Palin's collective executive experience. This is not a tit-for-tat point. Sitting in a chair with a nameplate on the desk is NOT EXPERIENCE. Actual achievement is experience. Obama's got that in spades.

This is just flat-out untrue. Obama has no relevant executive experience. None. Palin has run a state government for what will be two years in January, and a city government for several years before that. Obama has never run unit of government as a public official, even a Senate committee, and what is being bandied about here as his executive experience is just laughable. Running a law review is executive experience on par with being president? It's hard to take someone seriously who thinks that running a law review is more impressive (or more relevant executive experience) than being mayor of a small city.

As for the accomplishments claim, that is also untrue on both counts. Obama has no significant accomplishments in the Senate. He has abstained from an unusually high number of votes and spent half his time in the senate running for president. Palin has spearheaded a wide-ranging ethics reform in Alaska, cut nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in spending from Alaska's 7B budget, taken strong steps to induce the creation of an Alaska natural gas pipeline, dramatically increased environmental enforcement, just to name a few things I am aware of. All in less than 2 years. Given the incredible corruption in Alaska, what she has done in a short time is impressive, and far more so than anything that Obama has been responsible for in a period twice as long in the Senate.

As Pat Moynihan once said, you are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.
 

Your argument about his decisionmaking is based on her experience.

C2H50H can speak for him/herself, but the problem I see with McCain's decisionmaking is only partially related to Palin's inexperience. That partial stems from this: the McCain campaign set a standard when it ran ads claiming he is "ready to lead on day 1". Palin, very obviously, is not. Thus, McCain's pick undermines his own strongest issue. That shows bad judgment.

More significantly, though, the choice shows bad judgment because (a) there is substantial evidence that he failed to "vet" her before selecting her; (b) Palin has taken extreme positions on a number of issues (Alaska independence, creationism); and (c) her supposed anti-corruption turns out less than advertised, to the point where she seems to have outright lied about the Bridge to Nowhere and may very well be lying about the firing of Mondegon. McCain's hasty and inadequate due diligence speaks volumes about his judgment.
 

The problem I see with McCain's decisionmaking is only partially related to Palin's inexperience. That partial stems from this: the McCain campaign set a standard when it ran ads claiming he is "ready to lead on day 1". Palin, very obviously, is not. Thus, McCain's pick undermines his own strongest issue. That shows bad judgment.

Well, Obama said he was the change candidate and then picked a VP who is the anthesis of change. Thus, Obama's pick undermines his own strongest issue. That shows bad judgment, by your reasoning.

In truth, they both picked people designed to address perceived political weaknesses. In Obama's case, that was a lack of experience on his part, an inability to connect with blue-collar whites, especially men, and an unwillingness to attack. So he picked someone who does have experience, who allegedly connects with Joe Sixpack and who likes to go on the attack. In McCain's case, it was someone who who could generate enthusiasm, could appeal to parts of his party that he was having trouble reaching, could address the gender gap between parties and could counter Obama's attraction as pathbreaking.

I suppose you can call them both hypocrites based the themes that they originally announced for their campaigns, but they are politicians and hypocrisy comes with the territory. I don't think it has anything to do with judgment though. Each of them altered strategy as it became clear what they were missing.

More significantly, though, the choice shows bad judgment because (a) there is substantial evidence that he failed to "vet" her before selecting her; (b) Palin has taken extreme positions on a number of issues (Alaska independence, creationism); and (c) her supposed anti-corruption turns out less than advertised, to the point where she seems to have outright lied about the Bridge to Nowhere and may very well be lying about the firing of Mondegon. McCain's hasty and inadequate due diligence speaks volumes about his judgment.

Most of these accusations have been disabused elsewhere, so I won't waste space dignifying them with a response except to suggest that people look around on more moderate blogs where these have been discussed over the past few days.

But even if you assume arguendo that the accusations are true, the problems with Obama are much worse than the problems with Palin. He still has no executive experience, no legislative accomplishments and a pattern of skipping or abstaining from tough votes that is counter to what most people would want to see in a presidential contender. He still has a history of voting with the most partisan leftists in the Senate (rather than forging compromise with moderate Republicans) that runs counter to what he has said on the stump would be his style of governing. His convention acceptance speech was a liberal's wishlist, not a platform reaching for common ground. There are still several significant issues about Obama -- e.g., Ayers, Rezko, Wright, Farrakhan -- that have never been satisfactorily answered or explained, and that say a lot more about Obama than anything we have learned about Palin or McCain.

For example, I think most people would be far more bothered by Obama's flirtations with Farrakhan than they would be by Palin welcoming a convention of Alaskan separatists to Wasilla. Likewise, I think most people would be far more concerned about Obama's association with a black nationalist church for 20 years or his close association with Wright for that time, than by Palin trying to get her ex-brother in law fired for tasering an 11-year old boy.
 

Well, Obama said he was the change candidate and then picked a VP who is the anthesis of change.

You'll have to explain this; your assertion isn't obvious at all. How is Biden "the antithesis of change"?

an inability to connect with blue-collar whites

According to this report in the Washington Post on August 4, 2008:

"But even among white workers -- a group of voters that has been targeted by both parties as a key to victory in November -- Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47 percent to 37 percent, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate."

I suppose you can call them both hypocrites based the themes that they originally announced for their campaigns

I'm not all that interested when politicians contradict themselves, except on key points. It's at that point I call their judgment into question. McCain's temper and shoot-from-the-hip approach had raised concerns before; his selection of Palin without proper vetting and her extremist policies reinforce those concerns.

Most of these accusations have been disabused elsewhere

Not anywhere reputable they haven't. The lack of proper vetting is big news everywhere and it's becoming increasingly apparent.

the problems with Obama are much worse than the problems with Palin.

I note that you have a bad habit of changing the subject rather than meeting the issue forthrightly. The issue at hand is McCain's judgment. Attacking Obama is simply a diversionary tactic.
 

Palin trying to get her ex-brother in law fired for tasering an 11-year old boy.

This is disingenuous and I think you know it. The accusation is not that she tried to get him fired, and had a good reason for doing so, but that she may very well have lied when said she did NOT try to get him fired.
 

Zachary,

I agree with Mark Field, but on one thing I'll say more:

When you say:

"Your argument about his decisionmaking is based on her experience. You are saying it was a bad decision because of her alleged inexperience. So this really is an (indirect) argument about her experience."

No. His decision making was based on his lack of knowledge about her. That has no direct relationship with her experience or lack of it. So my critique of McCain's decision making has nothing direct to do with Palin's lack of experience.
 

Zachary:

He [Obama] still has a history of voting with the most partisan leftists in the Senate ...

You misspelled "Democrats".

... (rather than forging compromise with moderate Republicans)...

There are (essentially) none.

... that runs counter to what he has said on the stump would be his style of governing.

The Rethuglicans have shown no signs of "bipartisanship". Even the vaunted "maverick" McCain has knuclked under, and Republicans have voted on most major issues in lock-step under strict Dubya/party discipline.

And why would the Democrats vote for Dubya's position?!?!? Despite the lunacy of knuckling under to that consummate eedjit and crook, however, a fair number of Democrats have done just that.

Why you think that a Democrat should be showing more "bipartisanship" is beyond me.

Cheers,
 

Mark Field:

The accusation is not that she tried to get him fired, and had a good reason for doing so, but that she may very well have lied when said she did NOT try to get him fired.

They may be trying to come up with a plausible (and "permissible") rationale for her efforts ... but such meddling in the affairs of the state police in an individual specific case by the gub'nuh would be unusual, to say the least, particularly when it had already been handled by an ethics investigation. Ad on top of that the fact that her sister was involved, and this "tasering" excuse starts to look a bit shabby. Not to mention the fact that people told her not to butt in....

Cheers,
 

Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.
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