A Better Critique of McCain/Palin
Writing at The Hill, Democratic Party activist Mark Mellman has finally articulated as seemingly legitimate set of concerns and criticisms about John McCain’s selection of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential nominee. While I do not agree with all of his criticisms or the implications he draws, the piece does succeed in avoiding the kind of in-the-gutter focus on Palin’s husband and children that has until now dominated Democratic partisan reactions (with the notable and indeed laudible exception of the Obama campaign).
The legitimate debate about Palin will come down to the question of qualification — does her few years of experience as governor of Alaska and, before that, her time as a small-town major form a sufficient foundation for the duties of the vice-president? The easy answer for Democrats is, of course, “no”. If they ever get out of the sleaze business, they may argue that Palin’s youth and freshness exacerbates the risk from McCain’s age and health rather than compensating for it. They will proffer the purportedly scary image of little Sarah out of her depth an a domestic and international crisis, should anything happen to a President McCain.
A more nuanced answer might very well run the other way, however. Whatever the risks deriving from Palin’s youth and inexperience are surely less severe in the role of vice-president than president. And Palin’s experience is comparable to Barack Obama’s. Insofar as both tickets include one inexperienced person, isn’t it preferable to have that person in the second chair instead of the first? Furthermore, Palin does have expertise in governing as an executive (something lacking in all three of the other major party nominees) and doing so in a state heavily involved in the critical issue areaof energy policy. It may also be argued quite fairly that Palin would represent an opportunity to return the vice-president position on its appropriately subservient status of “in training” rather than a seperate and potentially competing power center in the White House.
At any rate, that is a fair debate to have. It will be interesting to see if Palin’s critics will have the stomach for such a debate, or whether they will remain fixated on soap opera rumors about her family and nonsense pseudo-scandals pushed by her defeated and often corrupt political opponents in Alaska. The credibility of Palin’s critics is just as much on the line as hers.
Comments like this regarding her inexperience hold no water in my opinion in this particular race: Did McCain know that her state’s largest paper would question the choice, exclaiming, “it’s stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be a heartbeat away from the presidency”; or that the state’s second-largest paper would conclude, “regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for the top job”? This comment implies she is not ready to be vice president because of her lack of experience nationally / internationally. How could he say that when Obama has just as little or rather, much less experience running anything? Palin has worked at the local level as mayor, and moved up into her position as Governor. She has experience. She is running for Vice President, and not President. Perhaps Obama should take it down a notch and run for vice President as well
As much as his assessment holds no water, I do agree with you though that he does avoid the "in the gutter" attacks. Kudos to him in that regard.
Note also the suspicious selectivity of his evidence. He quotes extensively from "the state’s second-largest paper". What did the first-largest paper say, hmmmmmmmmm?????? (insert crickets chirping)
I never bought into any of the soap opera rumors, but I wsan’t convinced she was qualified because I thought her resume was a bit thin. But.. the more I read up on her accomplishments, the more I do like her. Still skeptical, I’m not convinced she was the best choice but I do appreciate HER maverick qualities.
I find it hilarious that Democrats criticize Palin over experience. My God. They have a candidate for president with no experience whatsoever except for a couple of years in the Senate, and criticize a VP candidate who has experience governing.
Insane.
Michael you must remember that Obama had important executive experience as editor at Harvard Law Review.
The Free World can now breathe safely. All of his Presidential memos will have proper punctuation.
"Did McCain know that her state’s largest paper would question the choice, exclaiming, “it’s stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be a heartbeat away from the presidency”"
I also think it silly that the dems are attacking her instead of using her to mitigate the attacks on Obama.
I also find it really selective analysis when people think that 6 years as a mayor of 1100 people and 1.5 years as a governor of 600,000 people is somehow much better than 8 years as a state legislator and 2.5 years as a state senator for a state of 12 million people. You can quibble about if one is more similar to the role of executive, if one knows more about how Washington works, and how much size matters, but basically they are tied. They are both young politicians with moderate experience.
Less inflammatory rhetoric, yes, but still the same patented intellectual dishonesty.
If anybody issuing a critique of Palin or McCain could honestly say, "Well, if he had selected Romney/Pawlenty/Lieberman, etc, I would now be seriously considering voting for McCain".
However, of what import/logic is it to any candidate to attempt to please/placate a voter committed to his rival?????
Kevin, the difference is: one is running for Vice President, the other for President. The one for the second highest office, the assistant to the president basically, and the other for the highest office.
That makes it even more insane.
From a New Mexico progressive,
I never did not feel that Palin’s experience was as big and issue as some democrats have made of it. What surprised me is that so very few have raised the issue of her extreme conservative leaning including, but I’m sure not limited to, her NRA membership, opposition to sex education in schools, doesn’t believe in global warming as human caused(how typical of the Christian Right though as usual completely misguided. They can’t offer a genuine scientific alternative so they resort to attacks of global warming just as they attack evolution with no scientific basis what so ever) I sure as hell don’t want some narrow minded born again Christian as veep and only a heartbeat away from the president.
I have no great adoration for Obama either, but he is a dam sight better then McCain. McCain picked Palin so as to gain support from the Christian Right who didn’t support McCain before Palin nor he them. Obviously McCain will do anything to win including tripping over himself to gain favor with the most narrow minded, manipulative movement in this country. So I’ll be doing my part to get Obama elected. Eight years of Bush who is by far the most corrupt president we have ever had was more then enough. Four years of McCain/Palin could be as bad possibly worse if that is possible.
By the way Palin supported that bridge to no where until it became unpopular. Wonder how much else is misleading about her record.
Probably because she’s conservative, but not extreme. Unless of course you are extreme left.
Umm - wrong on scientific fact - wrong. Unless of course you believe that humans caused previous global warming and ice ages before humans were ever in existence. Now a more thought provoking thought would be to say - She may not believe that humans accelerate global warming.
Probably because she’s conservative, but not extreme.
Umm - wrong on scientific fact - wrong. Unless of course you believe that humans caused previous global warming and ice ages before humans were ever in existence. Now a more thought provoking thought would be to say - She may not believe that humans accelerate global warming.
Really, a born again? news to me on that one. How did you feel about Obama pandering to the religious groups earlier?
bah double pasting crap
QUESTION: IS PALIN QUALIFIED COMPARED TO OBAMA ? ANSWER: http://townhall.com/blog/g/cba8713c-ef73-4ebc-aa5e-bc53e6596e2a&comments=true