Barack Obama vs Sarah Palin: the experience argument
Finding yourself slightly flummoxed by right-wingers who defend Sarah Palin’s executive experience? Utterly convinced, somewhere in your gut, that surely Barack Obama must have more experience than her? Well, the good news is that you don’t have to rely on truthiness. Obama does indeed have more experience than her. Vastly more. And over on ireport.com, one blogger has summed it up very nicely:
“As far as Obama’s experience v. Palin’s:
Obama graduated with honors in law from Harvard, Obama choose to work in Chicago’s Southside to help the poor and middle class who had lost their jobs or had fallen on hard times. He also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago (as president he does take an oath to uphold the US Constitution so understanding it is very important). He went into the state legislature and eventually became US Senator. He has traveled all over the world and met with world leaders and has their respect. His judgment on Iraq was truly right (he believed we should have gone after the people who attacked us in Afghanistan, rather than divert our attention to someone who had no part in the terrorist attacks). While in elected office Obama has worked on a multitude of bills and has sat on various committees. In the legislature he sponsored bill a giving tax credits to low income workers, supported ethics and healthcare reform. Obama supported the Republican’s predatory mortgage lending regulations which were aimed at averting home foreclosures. He was re-elected two times. Obama was chairman of the Illinois Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee.
In the US Senate, Obama was on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works and Veterans’ Affairs. He also became Chairman of the Senate’s subcommittee on European Affairs. Obama is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. He co-sponsored legislation on nuclear safety, conventional arms (among others).
Palin, on the other hand, has a bachelors in Journalism from the University of Idaho, was mayor of a small town and has been governor of Alaska (with fewer people than Austin TX) for less than two years. Her legislation is good ethics reform, promoting oil drilling, and doing away with many pork-barrel projects, as well as lowering taxes.
So for those of you who believe that Obama does not have any experience or that Palin’s experience is better than his, I ask you to look at their records. I’ll take Obama’s vast and far broader experience over Palin’s thin experience (and she might be a new governor but there are many cities in the US with larger populations than her state) any day. “
Since he posted this, it has of course been revealed that Palin a) hired a Washington lobbyist when she was mayor of Wasilla to ensure she got such pork-barrel* money, and got similar ear-marked money as governor of Alaska; and b) attended 5 colleges in 6 years before getting that journalism degree. Obama, on the other hand, a) has not been discovered (in a matter of days, Sarah - tsk!) to have done the very things his campaign claims to stand against; and b) graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Not that the Obama vs Palin experience argument is about academic experience - but as Norah Ephron points out in this article on the Huffington Post:
“Does anyone think that executive experience trumps wisdom and intellect?”
Unfortunately, if the Republicans keep trumpeting on about it, the American people just might. So help spread the word, folks! (This Cindy McCain video might help to do the trick - notice her helpful use of pointing to show us where Alaska is in relation to Russia - as might this Karl Rove U-turn, brilliantly highlighted last week by Jon Stewart. And if you’re still in doubt of the facts, just read the Wikipedia entry on Barack Obama for more details of bills and laws he worked on in the Senate and as a state legislator. As well as all his other non-executive experience in life).
*$27 million of it for 6,000 residents, to be precise. And later a big chunk for that ‘bridge to nowhere’ which did, indeed, lead to nowhere as it never, erm, materialised. Note for us Brits: here’s an explanation of pork barrel money.
Tags: experience, huffington post, jon stewart, karl rove, Sarah Palin
September 10th, 2008 at 1:38 am
Hello.
I would like to put a link to your site on my blog roll if you want to do the same for mine. It would be a good way to build up both of our readerships.
thank you.
September 12th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I’m so glad Huffpost linked to your article. I’ve been wondering what the world reaction to her nomination has been; it’s important you (by this I mean the rest of the world) to let the people of the United States know what you think of her — and McCain. Thank you for this.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
Good to know. I might be able to use that on my emigration form should this election go to McPalin.
Q. “Why do you want to emigrate to our country?”
A. “Have you seen our latest election results?”
September 13th, 2008 at 12:43 am
Sage - thanks for your comment. there’s definitely something of a lovefest for Obama over here in Britain; but then that’s to be expected from a country which a) is really very liberal; and b) thought that George W was a joke right from the start. so in short: you can generally expect the British attitude to Palin to be rather frightened - partly because, compared to the millions of conservative Americans, there are really very few people over here who can relate to someone who has a gun/believes in creationism/is completely anti-abortion and pro-death penalty/thinks that abstinence is a sensible birth control policy. oh, and is a ‘hockey mom’ - now, if she was only a ‘cricket mum’…
John - come to Britain! we have lovely tea. weather’s a bit rubbish, though.