Sarah Palin: "Experience" & "Ready To Lead" Arguments Are Off The Table

John McCain announced his very political choice for VP today: 44 year old Sarah Palin who has been Gov. of a state with less than 700,000 people for only a year and a half.

First of all this calls into great question McCain's judgment. The #1 priority for choosing a VP (particularly when you are 72 years old with serious health problems) is whether or not that VP is ready to be President at any moment. It's clear that McCain didn't make this choice for governing reasons but for political reasons.

It's a crass attempt to attract disgruntled former Hillary Clinton supporters to his side. The problem? Sarah Palin stands in stark contrast to Clinton on every single issue (she's very conservative, anti gay, and anti choice, & she believes creationism should be taught in school.) McCain's assumption that women will vote against their own issues just to vote for a woman VP is incredibly patronizing.

But even more importantly, this bizarre "hail mary" selection takes McCain's biggest arguments again Obama (that he lacks "experience" and is not "ready to lead") off the table entirely. How in the hell could he possibly make that argument when he's chosen a VP with a resume as thin as Palin's? It's clear that Palin is not ready to lead and that she is ridiculously inexperienced. Americans will not vote for a ticket that has this person a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

An "out of the box" move by McCain? No. More like "out of his mind." This shows an incredible lack of judgment by John McCain. Sure he just accomplished his short term goal: taking attention away from the Democrat's incredibly successful convention and Obama's spellbinding very Presidential speech last night - but in the long term this pick will backfire on McCain in a big way.

McCain showed that he puts politics (a crass attempt at winning this election) over governing by choosing this incredibly inexperienced and unqualified person as his VP.

 

I still think it is a brilliant choice. She is qualified based on her executive position that she is currently holding. This speaks differently than any of Obama's experience which contains nothing in his resume from an executive point of view.

She has done an amazing job as governor of Alaska. Sure, it is a different choice. But I can just take a glance at it and realize what he is doing with it. I think that she helps him more than hurts him. There is nothing wrong with having a younger, refreshing, and eager VP on a ticket with someone like McCain who seemed pretty stale up until this point. I think you'll find that he will hurt Obama more by taking some of those Clinton supporters who were sitting on the fence.

 

She's been Gov. of Alaska for _18_ months. _ALASKA_ a state that has fewer people than many many many cities in this country. In fact I read somewhere recently (I'll try to find the link) that Obama represented more people as a state senator in Illinois (for 8 years) than Palin has represented as Gov. of Alaska!

There has never been a person with a resume as thin as Palin's on a national ticket. EVER. This coming from the campaign that has relentlessly harped on "experience" and "ready to lead"??? It's insane! That's their entire argument and now it's gone.

There's no way in hell that McCain is going to win on the issues - so what does he have left now that he can't attack Obama on experience?

And I think it's ridiculous to think that any large number of HRC supporters will cross party to vote for this anti-gay anti-choice former beauty queen. She's everything that real feminists despise.

 

As I stated already, there is a big difference between the two still from an experience point of view. There is no executive experience at all from Obama. Palin has already proven that she is a great candidate for any executive position.

 

I'd agree with your assessments, Zibblu, although she can argue she is the only chief executive on both tickets. I do think he did it as a very amateur move, to attempt to peel Clinton's supporters off - but as discussed in the other thread, women voted for Clinton for reasons far beyond her gender alone. The analogy would be if, in the event Obama lost the nomination, McCain picked Alan Keyes to do the same thing. Inept, in my opinion.

The creationism viewpoint blows my mind, and if it comes forward, will be a strong notch against the ticket.

Just a note - but you might want to request these threads be merged....

 

Just remember the last time a young and inexperienced VP had to step up to the plate. Even if Gov Palin was President today, she wouldn't be the youngest president.

 

He was Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Governor of New York. I am not sure where you get the inexperienced aspect of your post.

 

Oh yeah - that and the Teddy Bears too.

 

Sarah Palin is the hope and change that is needed. Her economic plans are far better than obama or McCain and she has tried to get real solutions to the energy crisis that obama has done nothing to improve and McCain has only made suggestions on while they were in DC. "Experience" & "Ready To Lead" is what she brings to the table that obama lacks. Palin is a leader and she gives America Hope.

 

I agree. I have been reading all the comments from people across the U.S. message boards and they keep repeating that she has NO experience.

I'd take actual executive experience any day (even if it's just a year and a half, which it's not, she's been Governor and Mayor) over legislative experience. They are not the same thing. And people just trying to add up years worth of experience vs. the kind of experience is ridiculous....

 

You have to be kidding me.

If Palin were at the top of the ticket she'd have a hard time winning 25% of the vote. She is outrageously under qualified. With McCain being 72 years old with significant health problems this is a big big deal. She is not qualified to be President and thus McCain has shown a serious lack of judgment in selecting her.

Nonsense. That's like saying a Governor should always beat a Senator for President. It's a silly argument. If Obama had chosen a Gov (such as Tim Kaine) would that mean he could trumpet their great "experience." ??? The fact is Palin has absolutely ZERO experience in foreign policy and considering how much McCain has harped and harped on foreign policy and how he's "ready to be commander in chief." Just... wow. Think about that. Think about Sarah Palin as commander in chief. This is a serious problem for the Republicans. They've made a calculated political move but it will backfire in a big way. This woman is not ready to be President. Not even close.

 

Her mayoral experience prepares her for the Presidency how exactly?

Let's hope they kept minutes of the meetings she presided over. I will be most curious to see what the day-to-day job entailed. I work with former mayors, of substantially larger cities, and I do not see that experience as preparing them to be President of the United States.

 

What are Palin's economic plans? Drill here, drill now? I would call it a knee-jerk reaction, something done without understanding of the basics.

Alaska has a population of 7,00,000 people. Thats it. Not even a million. Compare that to a city like Tokyo, which has a population of 33 million. That would mean real management experience IMO.

We will soon find out how Mrs. Palin fares in debates... Time will tell....

 

Sad Zibblu. Not even an ounce of intellectual honesty. Partisan politics will do that to people. Make them blind with allegiance and fanaticism.

Biden is a super drug warrior, he was cheering on Clinton bombing Serbia for 70+ days. He's pro-war, pro-bank, not about change, but Washington as usual.

And you somehow found the gall to attack Palin? You have absolutely no shame.

 

Oh please. Biden's not perfect, no candidate who has a chance in hell of winning is going to agree with me on many issues. This is about going in the right direction. I've already gone over this with you before. Idealism is cute, but it ain't going to get the job done. Someone like Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich just isn't going to win. It's not going to happen. I believe that change (civil liberties & diplomacy/not bombs being the most important changes I want to see) can and will come but it will happen slower than maybe I would like. But the fact is with Obama we can start going down that road. With McCain it's wasting at least another 4 years and perhaps, even worse, actually moving backwards.

Palin is a ridiculous choice as she completely obliterates McCain's entire argument (that Obama isn't "ready to lead" and lacks "experience.") Palin was the mayor of a town with a population of less than 10,000 people just 2 years ago. It's insanely ridiculous that this person could be our commander in chief as soon as January (McCain is very old with serious health issues.) It shows that McCain's entire line of attack against Obama has been a SHAM. It also shows that McCain lacks judgment. McCain himself has shown that he is unfit to be President with this choice, that's how bad it is. Worst VP selection EVER by a major party.

 

who puts politics first now.
does the old man think she can be the president? at time of war?
or he cares more about winning more.
bad decision. he is finished.
i just saw it on pbs. he acts like he just got a new asst.
she is surprised herself.
major mistake.

 

Do you really think that with any stretch of the imagination that Obama has ANY qualifications to be President? He has never accomplished anything other than self-promotion in his equally brief political career. He has zero leadership experience and no accomplishments to boast about.

We will see what happens. I think adding her to the ticket was a brilliant move, which is something that I am not used to seeing from McCain. The only reason that the Dems added Biden to their ticket was to fill in the gross gaps in Obama's experience. But Biden is just more politics as usual. Both McCain and Palin are political mavericks.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself. Honestly, when I heard the news this morning, it was the first time I ever thought of the phrase, "political slam dunk".

I think Obama/Biden fan boys (and girls) are shitting themselves, because it was the most brilliant move of the entire process so far. So unless Obama captures Osama bin Laden next week, I seriously think the election is over.

(Not to mention, every pissed off woman who was on the fence after Hillary now has a female candidate to back,and women make up 52% of the voting population.)

Game. Set. Match.

 

I say she's perfect!! Beats Obama and his false promises of changing a system that is designed to reject change. I kind of want Obama to win just to watch him fail.

The choice is ours
False promise of tomorrow or Realistic solutions today