Many claims of the right wing these days are based more on fantasy than grounded in reality.
After attacking Obama for having less experience, Senator McCain, a 73-year old multiple cancer survivor who has a one third chance of dying in office according to actuarial tables, then picked a VP candidate with far less experience than Obama. Now the right-wing claims that Palin is more experienced than Obama.
As this Diary shows, the right wing's charges about Senator Obama's experience fall squarely on the fantasy end of the spectrum and are easily debunked by brief reference to readily available facts. For example, for every vote Palin has won in her career, Obama has won over 20 more.
It is disappointing to see the media still lends credence to the right-wing's prevarication on this and other key issues with a "he said she said" approach, instead of rejecting patently false arguments by citing contrary facts.
The right wing keeps trying to belittle Obama's career, both as a community organizer and politician.
Here are the facts:
After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer for three years from June 1985 to May 1988 as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side.[13][15] During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from 1 to 13 and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[16]
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Seems pretty good to me - this is exactly the kind of faith-based work that the right praises except when the left does it. Obama stopped organizing because he got the chance to go to the most prestigious law school in America, after which he went back to helping people and into politics. Again, seems pretty good to me.
As for Obama's supposed inexperience as a politician, again here are the facts. As the clear underdog, he won a hard fought primary with over 17.5 million votes against one of the preeminent politicians of our time. Obama won his Senate election in Illinois, our 5th largest state - where he again started as an underdog - in a landslide with over 3.5 million votes. That's over 21 million votes, not to mention all his other votes in his substantial career in the state legislature.
For example, compare this description of Obama's roughly seven year term in the Illinois Senate with Palin's experience of mayor of a town of 10,000:
With the assistance of Senator Jones, Mr. Obama helped deliver what is said to have been the first significant campaign finance reform law in Illinois in 25 years. He brought law enforcement groups around to back legislation requiring that homicide interrogations be taped and helped bring about passage of the state’s first racial-profiling law. He was a chief sponsor of a law enhancing tax credits for the working poor, played a central role in negotiations over welfare reform and successfully pushed for increasing child care subsidies.
“I learned that if you’re willing to listen to people, it’s possible to bridge a lot of the differences that dominate the national political debate,” Mr. Obama said in an interview on Friday. “I pretty quickly got to form relationships with Republicans, with individuals from rural parts of the state, and we had a lot in common.”
http://www.nytimes.com/...
As a Senator, even though he was in the minority for the portion of his career when he was not running for President, Obama reached across the aisle to engineer much needed ethics reform. He passed legislation to increase transparency in government, passed laws to track down loose nuclear materials, and put the spotlight on Walter Reed and deficient care for veterans. In the midst of his Presidential run when every story about him could tip the balance against him, Obama bravely stood up against an effort by the Republican Executive to promulgate rules to enable even more media consolidation.
Now the right-wing is trying to diminish Obama's experience comparing him to Palin. True to form, the right wing has tried to turn Palin's obvious weakness to its advantage by distorting reality. Palin has received well under a million votes her entire career, the vast majority of which consists of a run as mayor of a tiny town followed by a short term as governor of one of our smallest states. For every vote Palin has received during her career, Obama has received over 20 more.