I gather from reading right-wing commentators that the McCain campaign legitimately believes Sarah Palin is more qualified to be commander-in-chief than Barack Obama. The campaign packages her experience as “executive” as if that designation alone trumps all other considerations. If they intend to bait Obama into an argument about experience, their incredulity is almost delusional.
Palin is a governor, true, but she’s only held that office about as long as Barack Obama has been running for President. When McCain, Clinton, and the whole pack were preparing for this long slog to the White House, Palin was the mayor of a town the size of a small liberal arts college. Barack Obama was elected to represent a district in Illinois 27 times that size. And that was in 1996.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Ms. Palin’s pedigree belies any ability to cope with the demands of the nation’s second highest office. While Senator Obama is a magna cum laude graduate of the most prestigious law school in the nation, she holds a B.S. in communications from a state school in Moscow, Idaho. If this consideration makes me elitist, so be it, but what in Ms. Palin’s background makes anyone think she has any understanding of the intracacies of domestic and foreign issues, much less the procedural quagmire that must be navigated on capitol hill? Charlie Black, John McCain’s chief advisor shrugged off these concerns saying, “she's going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years,” but who will teach her if the unthinkable happens and she has to take the helm in a time of crisis?
Whatever one thinks about Obama’s experience, he has spent a considerate amount of time under national scrutiny and has articulated a critical understanding of every major issue. He taught at a university with an international reputation for producing policy expertise of the highest order. He has held national office for four years now, and has stellar executive experience running the most unlikely campaign in modern American history. His most important executive role ultimately defeated the most vaunted political machine in the Democratic party. Does anyone think Ms. Palin could have achieved that?
But rather than attack Palin for being inexperienced, the Obama campaign might best be served by allowing the media to do the vetting and pointing out how such a disastrous decision reflects on John McCain’s judgment. After all, John McCain just offered the keys to the White House to someone after having only met with her once! This is a person who just three weeks ago told a Times reporter that she wasn’t sure what the “job” of the Vice-President is, exactly. Just let that play out in the press, and sit back and ask, “Is this what putting country first really looks likes?”