Republicans are going to compare Palin's experience favorably to Obama's and even Biden's because she has 18 months of "executive" experience. Let's nip this in the bud.
Let's start with two data points that can contextualize what it means to be governor of Alaska for 2 months.
- The population of Alaska, according to the 2007 estimate, is 683,478.
- The state budget of Alaska in 2008 was $2.9 billion
In other words, she governed a population the size of a large suburb and oversaw funds the size of a mid-sized city's budget. That gives an entirely different picture of her accomplishments than we're likely to hear on any news show. So let's do their research for them, and try to get this story out there. Help me comb through the internets to find the most striking examples of mayors who have more executive experience than she does.
I'll start.
Kwame Kilpatrick, the allegedly felonious mayor of Detroit, oversaw 50% more people and two million more dollars than Sarah Palin ever has.
Other examples? And if you can think of even better metrics for putting Palin's experience in context, please chime in.
-----
UPDATES: (Here we go! Keep them coming ...)
From pat208:
* [new] Here's some more perspective: (0+ / 0-)
I just ran a little analysis using 2000 census data.
The US population was 265 million.
One state, Alaska, had 626,932 residents.
Out of the nation's 2944 counties, there are 82 counties that had more people than Alaska. The total population of those 82 counties was over 107 million, or 40% of the country.
That is, almost half the people in the country live in a COUNTY that has more people (and probably a larger budget) than does Alaska.
And Sarah Palin is the best qualified person McCain could find?
Emphasis added.