The Candidates
After months of deriding Barack Obama’s inexperience, many conservatives are lauding Sarah Palin. This strikes the left (and some on the right) as fundamentally inconsistent. Palin, they insist, knows less about foreign affairs then Obama. They may be right (perhaps Russian and Canadian issues excluded). But, there’s something unsatisfying about this argument; using depth of knowledge as a proxy for broader “experience”. American voters simply do not think this way. Most of us would recoil somewhat at the prospect of the folks from Brookings or AEI running the country. It’s not that depth of knowledge doesn’t matter, but rather that it’s only 1 of the 2 big components in governing. Yes, you ought understand the particulars of an issue, but you should also be able to take that knowledge, execute decisions based on it, and deal with the consequences. This other component is not quite the “judgment” of which Obama speaks, but it’s something very near. Can this person assess information and act accordingly? Can they respond to challenges as they arise? Conservatives are concerned about Barack Obama’s experience precisely because he seems shaky, to say the least, on both counts.
He hasn’t spent long enough digesting the issues, to give us much confidence about his depth of knowledge. And he has never held a job that allows us to assess his ability to make decisions of consequence, sometimes under severe time constraints, and often with serious opposition. Palin is, at least, more comforting then Obama in at least one respect; she has had to make decisions, as an executive (as both a Governor and Mayor), and she’s dealt with the consequences. She’s managed something. She’s been a leader. This isn’t just a vague sort of advantage; it’s the lifeblood of governing. I would be worried about Barack Obama if he’d spent 20 years in the senate, because I have no sense that he’s ever taken anything approaching a political risk, or tackled something that requires follow through. John McCain, despite his career as a legislator, has manifestly done this (CFR, the Surge, Immigration Reform, etc). Voters intuit the difference (they generally chose Governors), and this is why the conservative gushing over Sarah Palin isn’t necessarily hypocrisy. She may not be able to name all of Iraq’s provinces, but if that were the prime qualification for the Presidency, Henry Kissinger would have been President long ago. Instead, she’s accumulated the sort of experience that gives me some confidence that, once she learns about all these provinces, she’ll be willing and able to deal with whatever sort of crises arise. This isn’t everything, but it’s a whole lot. And it’s more then I can say for Barack Obama.
August 31st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I absolutely agree with your assessment of the “experience” issue. I think that Palin should engage the Obama campaign and its surrogates on the issue. I would bring up his only “executive” experience on the board in Chicago he co-chaired with Bill Ayers as well as his courageous “present” votes in the Illinois senate. Maybe those votes were “above his pay grade”. The reason the MSM is trying to say that the “experience” issue is now off the table is because they want it off the table.
August 31st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I will admit Palin probably isn’t experienced or qualified enough to be President. Then again, I don’t think Obama is either. Even Bill Clinton said no one is really prepaerd ot be President.
All Presidents learn on the job. Look at W and his response to that Chinese Spy Plane incident early in his term. Many conservatives were up in arms. And he looked into Putin’s soul. Had that thing where he appeared to scrap the One China Policy on the spur of the moment.
Clinton had his 1st WTC bombing, blunders in Somalia and Haiti.
The chances of McCain dying in office right away are pretty slim so most likely if she is VP she’d have no real effect on nat’l security, as would just about any VP. McCain has his own people he knows and trusts and who have been with him for years to work with him on that. I mean if Pawlenty or Romney was VP, he wouldn’t really listen to them either. Lieberman, Ridge, Graham, Lugar, Petraeus, the AEI, Fred Kagan, they’re the ones who have his ear.
By the dems logic, all Pailn would have to if she became President, would be to pick her own Joe Biden as VP and everything would be ok. Heck, Biden would still chairman of the foreign relations committee and be available to help.
I also think that you’d see a huge coming together of both sides doing their best to help, in that scenario. Maybe I’m naive.
As I read somewhere today, the President would be a little inexperienced if McCain is out of office. But on the dem side the President is inexperienced if he stays in office.
All in all, McCain did sacrifice some of his experience attack. I still think that for the vast majority of voters, if expereience matters to them, McCain is already the choice.
It seems the choice came down to 3, with Lieberman and Pawlenty being the finalists. I can’t say that Pawlenty has all that much more experience, and Lieberman has his own problems.
Clearly McCain and Schmidt and the others weighed this and felt it was the right move. We’ll see.
Besides, if it’s really that bad, and they win, she can always announce sometime early in the term that she realized it’s too much or family commitments or whatever. McCain can appoint her to some cushy post, and he can name Mitt Romney to replace her as VP. Everyone would be happy.
August 31st, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Just an amusing tidbit about the http://www.barackobama.com website. According to its IP address info it is hosted on a server with two other sites. One being a fetish porn site.
http://www.domaintools.com/reverse-ip/?hostname=barackobama.com
August 31st, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Why is Obama now running against Palin?
August 31st, 2008 at 11:18 pm
good point.
also, have you noticed how everyone is just assuming that McCain is going to die right away. I mean, I don;t think anyone thinks Palin doesnt have the experience to be vice president.
Surely she can break a tie in the Senate just as well as Biden can. Stand and clap when McCain gives his SOTU. That’s all vps really do.
And if McCain is out of commission for a few hours because of some surgery or colonoscpy like Bush had, I doubt the house will burn down
When Hillary brought up Obama dying she was roasted by everyone. Now, everyone in the media and the left talks about McCain dying and it’s no big deal.
September 1st, 2008 at 10:15 am
Here is a great article on the Palin pick. Definately worth a read:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/216cd1d2-77bd-11dd-be24-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1
September 1st, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Sarah Palin has more executive experience than Ronald Reagan did when he was elected President.