Recently there has been a lot of buzz about Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, Republican Vice Presidential candidate. Specifically, there have been questions about her experience level and more specifically her lack. Then the talk, somehow, on the web and in conversations turns to explaining how Obama clearly has more experience. The conversations go something like this:
(This is a fictional account compiled by a number of conversations both with friends and in my head! I will leave you to figure out which is which!)
Conservative:
Well, experience matters.
Liberal:
Yep. Obama has more. 7 years in the state government, as a senator, 3.5 years in the federal government, as a senator, and seven years of prior legal experience, for a total of 10.5 years of government experience and seven years of dealing with the law.
Conservative:
Well, Palin has 10 years in local government, as a managing major and committee membership, 1.5 years as a state governor. That is 11.5 years, which is actually more government experience, but not as a senator, but a person with daily responsibilities over the administration of a states government.
Liberal:
Yeah but we are talking about ALASKA here. A Huge barren state with less people than Chicago!
Conservative:
True. Alaska is large mostly barren state. In fact, it is larger than 18 sovereign nations on the planet. There is a lot of responsibility there. Mind you, SENATOR Obama never GOVERNED Illinois.
Liberal:
Well, all Alaska is, is just large, that is all. Large doesn’t mean complicated! The other day Obama said that the town Palin was mayor over, Wassilla, had only 50 government employees in it. Obamas campaign has 2,500 EMPLOYEES in it! He said Wassilla had a budget of maybe 12 million dollars and Obamas campaign goes through THREE TIMES THAT in just one month!! Obama said, “Our ability to manage large systems and to execute, I think, has been made clear over the past couple of years and certainly in terms of the legislation I’ve passed in the past couple of years, post-Katrina.”
Conservative:
Well, a lot of people, Republicans and Democrats, we in favor of that legislation, for example, to make it a priority to get elderly and disabled people out of the path of a Hurricane. I think claiming that as his personal success is a little bit reaching.
And while all of that is true about Wassilla, she was NOT only a major in Alaska. She was the GOVERNOR. Being a governor of a state is like a microcosm of being a President of a country. Yes Chicago has more people, and Alaska has only a bit over 600,000 people in it. But the state manages a lot of natural resources and that works out to being a state with a 12 billion dollar budget (the size of a small country.) Even so, when she began the governor she kept her promise and sold the state jet saving the state tax payers millions of dollars. As well, as GOVERNOR she cut her own paycheck, as she promised she would.
Obama may have 2,500 employed in his campaign, but Palin heads a state government with 25,000 EMPLOYEES. In fact, to add a little perspective, Alaska has the SEVENTH LARGEST STATE ECONOMY IN THE US!
Obama was hand picking statistic that don’t seem to encapsulate the reality of her experience.
Liberal:
OK, ok, ok. BUT with McCain getting up in years, would you really want someone with only 11.5 years of government experience and who has only managed a budget of 12 billion dollars ...when the US federal budget is 3 trillion dollars... running the country!?
Conservative:
Well, Sarah Palin is running for Vice President… VICE PRESIDENT, not President.
And while she has as much of a chance to “take over” as any other Vice President if the President dies… mind you, she would have VP experience by then as well… you are talking about voting for Obama for PRESIDENT, and he ONLY has 10.5 years of government experience.
The closest he has ever come to looking at a billion dollars is when after seven years in the senate he has tried to pork-barrel over a billion dollars of federal money back into HIS states economy by amending unrelated spending to bills that didn’t get passed!
(silence)
Liberal:
Hey, why are we comparing Obama, a Presidential candidate, to Palin, a Vice Presidential candidate anyway!? Apples to oranges man, apples to oranges!
Conservative:
That would likely be because Obama has a better chance, if not a failing one, to try and say that he is more qualified than SOMEONE on the Republican ticket. Basically, if we were to agree at this point that he has more experience than Palin, all we would be saying is that he would make a slightly more qualified Vice President. But it seems that the raw numbers hold Palin as more experienced here. The Republican VP candidate is more experienced than the Democrat Presidential candidate.
Liberal:
You are right. I never took the time to run the numbers. Even so, there is a good chance I will continue to keep saying stuff like “ALASKA is a big barren state!” and “There are more people in Chicago” rather that consider her years of experience, the budget she manages, or the economy of her state, even if those numbers are larger than anything Obama has personally managed. Don’t confuse me with the facts. Obama still has a social and health care program I am excited about and so I will vote for him because that is important to me!!!
Conservative:
Well, McCain and Palin have a plan too! If that's what you want, you should read about that before you assume Obama has cornered the market on caring for Americans. Go to his website and read about it. But... remind me again... how was Obama going to pay for his social programs and healthcare plan?
Liberal:
OBAMA RULES!
Conservative:
That’s what I thought.
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9 comments:
This is the best blog I've read in a long time.
Wow, man. It's really easy to win arguments when you argue with yourself, isn't it? Congratulations! You beat yourself at thumb wrestling. Have a cookie.
It would appear you've caught on to the part that was pretty much in my head. While the numbers involved here are genuine to my knowledge, the approach was meant to be silly. But I will have a cookie anyways! If you have other stats or perspectives, feel free to leave comments (let's just not bash candidates rudely, please. Either way one of these two will sit in the Whitehouse.)
This entire argument is a red herring, for a lot of different reasons. The primary one is this: Republicans like Palin (and liked Bush) because of her 'outsider' status -- exactly because she has a complete lack of experience inside the beltway. They then criticize Obama for having not enough experience -- while simultaneously padding Palin's resume to make it appear she has more experience than she has. The right-wing bobbleheads clearly don't care about the experience / no experience issue. Their ticket has a candidate with way too much experience and a running mate with nearly none. The Democratic ticket is stacked similarly, but upside-down. None of this talk of 'experience' is meaningful. What actually matters is the agenda of each party. McCain's agenda is Bush's agenda, regardless how many words to the contrary come out of his mouth. We've seen his pandering to the religious right, we've seen him abandon campaign finance reform, support Bush's tax cuts, support an endless occupation of Iraq, reverse his opposition to torture (to appease the Imperial President) and support every other meaningful thing the Bush Administration has done and wanted to do. We've seen the results of the radical Republican agenda. What sane person could want more of the same? And what rational argument with any substance can be made that McCain's agenda is not the Bush/Cheney agenda?
Tallying up Palin's experience or lack thereof is like counting the pennies in your change jar while your house burns down.
Dave - now THAT's what I am talking about! Nice response. But not all of the facts are right.
I agree that platform means a whole lot. I don't agree that experience doesn't mean anything. That is also a bit of a redherring. In the rest of our lives, we would all like to have a crack at certain opportunities and typically have to show some experience to get selected for the job. To say it means nothing is just a huge overstatement at best (likely because Obama lacks experience, so the point requires downplaying.) I hope you would agree that the president should be held to the same general expectations of experience as do all Americans applying for nearly any other job which has expert level qualifications.
I think it takes far less experience to become a Vice President, mostly because if the VP taking over at the death of a president is possible, then the VP nearly always has on-thejob time to ramp up that experience as they work next to the roll itself.
I agree about the reversal between the issue of experience in the Republican and Democrat parties. I think we would all feel better if all involved had a better ballence of experience. I think you are creating another strawman and imagining that McCain has "too much." Too much would imply overqualified, as if he were applying for a position beneith him and we should be concerned that his overly experienced life will leave him wanting or something. the roll of President is a challenge to anyone who sits in that seat.
The issues you pick on in the differences of the platform are good ones. If you believe in your candidates platform, hopefully their platform is a good reflection of your values. But here is where some (not all) of your facts are a bit off. Obama has a nearly identical plan for Iraq as compared to McCain. Obama says he won't be bringing troops home for 18 months from the moment he comes into office. But more importantly he said he would re-examine that once in office (if he becomes the president) and if the on-the-ground advisors said we should make that timeframe longer, he is open to that. McCain and Obama are actually reading from nearly the same playbook here. Obama just seems to stroke heartstring a bit more when he says "Bring the troops home" even though his plan isn't very different from McCain.
We've seen Obama pander to the religious right after he was caught pandering to California folks when he claimed people clinge to their faith and guns. That is clearly pandering, but in both directions. Some of the other issues, like tax cuts might be a good reason for some to support Obama. Maybe they don't want those tax cuts. McCain also supported setting asside federal gas taxes during these currently high prices, and Obama said that he didn't support those tax cuts either because it only amounted to a couple hundred dollars per tax payer over the course of the summer. Hey, ever little bit of my money back in my pocket is fine with me. But then again, Republicans are going to traditionally favor killing taxes. I am fine with that. If someone isn't fine with it, then they have a reason to not side with a Republican perspective. That's fine with me.
The trouble for me (and the end point in the blog entry) is that Obama is neck and neck with Palin on experience. So... if tallying up Palin's experience or lack thereof is like counting the pennies in your change jar while your house burns down... then the same can be said of Obama and what he brings to the table.
I am not certain what "while your house burns down" means really, however. That just sounds like an emotional statement about not liking republicans or something, I suppose (pretending to be facts, I guess.)
I didn't say anything about party platforms. I said 'agenda'. Totally different. Party platforms are as meaningless these days as an oath of office. Neither party pays any attention to their official platforms except when they're crafting them for political reasons at their conventions.
You say, "I hope you would agree that the president should be held to the same general expectations of experience as do all Americans applying for nearly any other job which has expert level qualifications." Are we talking about the reality of US elections, or are we talking about 'normal' people seeking jobs in the private sector? What I think is ideal has no bearing on the way people vote. If experience mattered in elections, George W. Bush would never have been 'elected.'
Saying Obama and McCain's plans for Iraq are nearly identical is like saying they both represent Change. Just because the McCain campaign co-opts the more popular aspects and rhetoric of Obama's campaign doesn't make it sincere or believable. We can look at McCain's record and see that he's been wrong in his observations and predictions time after time. The same is not true of Obama, who was against the invasion before it happened.
And no, you haven't seen Obama pander to the Religious Right. You may have seen him addressing "people of faith" but there are many Christians who are not right-wing kooks.
When I say McCain has too much experience, what I'm saying is he's been in Washington since 1982. He should've gotten out long ago. Anybody who spends that much time in that cesspool is corrupt. He's been in DC so long that he's been corrupted, did pennance for his corruption, then got corrupted again.
Comparing Obama's and Palin's experience in government is a total apples-to-oranges comparison. One year as mayor of Wasilla, AK is in no way equivalent to one year as an IL state Senator, nor is a year of experience as AK Gov equivalent to a year as a US Senator. Even if it were, it's irrelevant because voters don't give a shit. Palin supporters care more about her hairstyle and her glasses than they do about her govt experience and policy positions.
As a Bush apologist, it's no surprise to me that you didn't not comprehend my 'counting pennies in the change jar while the house burns down' analogy. The Bush Administration has nearly completely ruined the country, by which I mean we have historic budget deficits, a staggering 12 TRILLION dollar national debt (at least), a broken military (in the opinion of high-ranking military officials), a completely sullied reputation on the global stage, govt agencies overrun by incompetent cronies chosen only for their loyalty to the Chimperor, etc. etc. That's the house burning down. McCain represents nothing more than the team that wants to finish the job. And yet many are satisfied to sit around and talk about whether Sarah Palin is qualified for the position of VP. It's absurd. Her team and their agenda, which is the Bush/Cheney agenda, the primary focus of which is winning elections and nothing more, is the issue. Not the pathetic woman's crazy cult church, not her love of fishing, not her love of shooting things, not even her blowjob lips.
For the record, I have no problem with actual Conservatives. I think some Conservative values would be a most welcome addition to the debate. The trouble is, true Conservatives are almost all gone. Ron Paul is one. So is former Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neil. That's why Ron Paul is an outsider in the Republican Party, and it's why O'Neil got shoved out of the Bush Administration. There's nothing 'conservative' about the Republican agenda.
Dave,
Thanks for you thoughts. Most of what you said here is commentary. What I shared in the original post were facts about conversations and lengths of time in service as a government representative. Devaluing certain type of service or valuing another is everyone's right to speculate about. But I still don't believe you have rendering any new facts here.
The facts is Obama itemized his campaign experience as more (in years and dollars) than Palins experience when asked the question. Flat out, he didn't say it didn't matter. He was the one who attempted to spin his own perspective which is simply being examined equally by both sides.
So, frankly your desire to blow that off as irrelevant seems opportunistic to me. It is convenient for you to say it doesn't matter for various reasons. But clearly for Obama to say what he did say, means the Obama camp is busy thinking about this stuff and knows it needs to debate it.
Now, you might not care, and we are all fine with that, I am sure. But if Republicans think it matters and Obamas advisors think it matters enough to have formulated an opinion on the topic, then you are simply in the minority opinion.
I considered discussing you other talking points but so much of this would just flow into an opinion fest on common factless rhetoric (from either side) that I don't have it in me.
If you have a question, want to raise a specific fact to examine, I am up for it. But simply poorly representing your side by saying stuff like "Bush would never have been elected" or "Neither party pays any attention to their official platforms" or generalizations like "Anybody who spends that much time in that cesspool is corrupt" or "Just because the McCain campaign co-opts the more popular aspects and rhetoric of Obama's campaign"... these aren't talking points because they don't have stories or facts behind them. Comments like "blowjob lips" are just unnecessary and I know plenty of good democrats that are willing to talk about this stuff without stooping.
You make some faulty assumptions (like I'm a Democrat, or that having a minority opinion devalues it, or that Democrats are supposed to agree with the Obama campaign), but I'll set that aside, because it's not terribly pertinent.
You claim I didn't add any facts to the discussion in my last post, but I see quite a few of them. For example:
Fact: John McCain was corrupted by Washington. Ever heard of the Keating Five? Search wikipedia. Granted, the Senate Ethics Committee did not find him guilty of a crime, but they so rarely do when investigating their own. Instead, they found he had 'poor judgement'. Also, he condemned the religious right a few years ago, only to now embrace them. That's a corruption of ideals for the sake of power, is it not?
Fact: The McCain campaign coopted aspects of the Obama campaign. I don't know why I should need citations for this -- if you paid any attention to the race over the last year, you'd see quite clearly that McCain only started talking about 'change' after that proved to be a popular message. He also changed (drastically) the way he talked about the 'war' in Iraq, leading some like you to believe that his plan is very similar to Obama's plan. It is not. McCain speaks repeatedly of the need to 'succeed' in Iraq, with no clear definition of success. Therefore, he supports an endless occupation. There are other ways he's coopted elements of Obama's campaign too, but that's good enough to demonstrate that I stated a fact.
Fact: Palin supporters care more about her hairstyle and eyeglasses than they do about her positions. In support, see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7607039.stm
It's hard to imagine that people who don't support her are rushing out to look like her. If those women spent the same effort researching the disconnects between what Palin claims to represent vs. her actual record that they spend getting their hair done like hers or shopping for her eyeglasses, they'd quickly learn that the things Palin says don't quite match up with the things she does. For example, the 'bridge to nowhere', and her stated resistance to and actual support for it.
Fact(s): there's a long list of them in the part about the Bush legacy. There's not enough room to run them all down here. I'm going to assume you can do some googling and find out what the nat'l debt is, as well as a long list of resources in which military commanders are quoted saying that the military is broken or nearly so. It would take even less research to prove that the global reputation of the US has been horribly stained, etc., etc.
Fact: McCain's been in Congress since 1982.
So there was a fairly generous smattering of facts in there, but yeah -- a lot of opinion, too. But that's what blogs are for, isn't it? Surely you've never posted anything here that was short on facts.
Thanks for your thoughts, Dave. Stating an opinion with assumed supporting facts / history and stating facts / history that support your opinion are two different things. One starts with or at the minimum includes some fact / history, and then renders an opinion. The other renders an opinion but doesn't render much more than that. Your thoughts here render both and so thanks for taking the time to outline the facts / history from which you are drawing your conclusions.
Now, I guess folks will have to take a look at the examples you have given and decide if they support the conclusions you (or others or I) would come to based on those facts / history.
I appoligize for assuming you are a Democrat. That might have seemed like I was pigeonholing you or wedging you into a box. That wasn't my intention. Please, accept my appology.
As a side note, here is an observation with regard to the Palin eyeglasses statement. Assuming you are correct that this is what people care about, I really think that at best it is more than likely an "AND" conjunction rather than a "OR" proposition. People care how she looks (for whatever reason) AND they care about what she represents. Both could be true. The fact of one doesn't necessarily disprove the existance of the other. More imporantly the logic being applied to draw these generalizations about her supporters could be applied to Obama. For example, he did a dance on the Elen D. show and soon after a number of videos popped up on youtube, with people singing about "Do the Obama!" Applying similar logic and generalizations I could say, "Obama supports care more about him being a good dancer than about his positions." I am willing to imagine that it is within reason that Obama supporters (1) care that he looks good and can dance (again, for whatever reason), and (2) care about his positions.
Again, thanks for showing us the facts / history that you base your opinions on. It give me a chance to come to your conclusions (or not, depending on how one sees those facts / history.)
Final note: With regard to assumptions... don't assume that I am not aware of the facts/ history on which you are basing your opinions. If I ask, it is because I simply want to know what your influences and frustrations are based on. If I were to assume that ever reader of my blog was ignorant of all of the facts / history I am presenting (which I do not) simply because someone asks me to outline the facts / history that are influencing my opinion, then implying such would just come off as a little condescending. It isn't your job to justify my opinions. Likewise, it isn't the readers job to justify your opinions by searching for support history / facts to support your statements.
Thanks again for letting us into your process.
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