Around the blogosphere you will see many left-wing writers criticizing Palin for lack of experience. Maybe this criticism is correct, but these commentators are falling into The Trap. Most American voters do not themselves know much detail about foreign affairs and their vision of an experienced leader does not require such knowledge. Was it demanded from Reagan? Doesn’t everyone agree that Cheney and Rumsfeld knew plenty? Rightly or wrongly, many American voters will view Palin’s stint as mayor of small town, her background in sports, her role in a beauty contest (yes), her trials raising teenage children, and her decision to stick with her priinciples and have a Downs Syndrome baby as all very valuable and relevant forms of experience. The more the word "experience" is repeated, no matter what the context, the more it will hurt Obama. Palin needs to appear confident and capable on TV and in the debates, but her ticket is not going to lose votes if she cannot properly spell Kyrgyzstan or for that matter place it on a map.
Addendum: Here is early response over at The Clinton Forum.
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Again, I ask, what is McCain’s great executive experience? Why is he any more qualified than Obama in terms of experience? More years in the Senate?
Palin is just attractive bait. If the Obama camp is disciplined enough to hold their line on the election being about Obama vs. Bush-McCain, they win.
The best part about this thread is definitely the comments. It is amazing how smart people (I assume most of you are) are mostly incapable of making a dispassionate observation or any comment without their own political biases coming to the forefront. I guess that is better, I don’t have to work very hard to figure out where the loyalties lie so it is easy to read the comments with a grain of salt. GL is a particularly bad offender, do you even think, or just react?
I find this inability for unbiased thought really fascinating, is there a way to make an experiment out of this?
For the record, I agree that attacking Palin’s lack of experience won’t be very effective, but neither will attacking Obama’s. The rationale that I see for having her on the ticket (I think most will agree) is exclusively to steal votes from the dems that might have gone towards Hillary. For me the most interesting question left is whether they can do this (move towards the center and grab those independents/conservative democrats who like Clinton) without alienating Republicans who absolutely loathe Hillary Clinton.
Aaron Fix,
I disagree. While trying to pull in some independent women who leaned to Hillary was probably a motive, the more serious impact appears to be on the social-cultural conservatives who were unhappy with McCain and might have stayed home on Nov. 4 and sat on their wallets, but are now enthusiastically for the GOP ticket. Some of the comments here are a pretty good sign of that effect.
Same applies to republicans who comment on Obama’s experience…Whats your point Tyler?
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