Posted by
Cary Wesberry on Tuesday, September 02, 2008 8:59:33 PM
From Ed Morrissey at Hot Air:
Anderson Cooper asked Barack Obama last night to answer the claim that Sarah Palin has more applicable experience than he does. In response, he completely ignores Palin’s status as governor, and then makes the claim that a campaign counts as executive experience:
AC: Some Republican critics say, you don’t have the experience to handle a situation like this [Hurricane Gustav]. They’ve in fact said that Governor Palin has more executive experience as mayor of a small town and as governor of a big state like Alaska. What’s your response?
BO: Well, you know, my understanding is that, uh, Governor Palin’s town of Wasilly [sic] has, uh, 50 employees, uh, uh, we’ve got 2500, uh, in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. Uh, uh, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. Uh, so I think that, uh, our ability to manage large systems, uh, and to, uh, execute, uh, I think has been made clear over the last couple of years. Uh, and certainly, in terms of, uh, the legislation that I’ve passed just dealing with this issue post-Katrina, uh, of how we handle emergency management. The fact that, uh, many of my recommendations were adopted and are being put in place, uh, as we speak indicates to extent to which we can provide the kinds of support and good service that the American people expect.
[...]
But the main point here is that Obama didn’t really answer the question, and he set up a straw man argument in response to Cooper. Governor Palin is, well, governor, and not currently the mayor of Wasila. As Governor, Palin operates a $9 billion budget, and manages $13 billion in revenue. Furthermore, she runs a government that employs 25,000 people.
Obama blithely pretends that she’s still the mayor of “Wasilly” in order to boost himself. However, running for office isn’t executive experience, for one good reason: Obama isn’t the campaign manager. He has a CEO actually running the campaign, handling the budget, and managing the people while Obama makes the speeches.
Read the entire report from Ed Morrissey by hitting the link above. Obama claims his experience campaigning for President is his qualification to be President? No, it's not a joke. He said it, and he meant it. Governor Sarah Palin has been running the state of Alaska while Barack Obama, himself admitting, has done nothing but campaign for President and work as a community agitator. Oh yes I forgot, he was also busy missing the majority of votes in the Senate. The one thing he was elected Senator to do, and Obama was absent for most of it so he could campaign in order to gain what he believes is the experience needed to be President.
Mitt Romney said this morning that not only has Barack Obama never run a city or a state, Barack Obama hasn't even run a corner drugstore! The Obama campaign has zero executive experience. The only experience that matters and Team Obama doesn't have it. This is not just me being my usual subjectively conservative right-wing freakish self folks. Name me one thing Barack Obama has that can be considered executive experience. One thing! It is so much worse than the jab Romney made this morning on the Laura Ingraham Show. Barack Obama has never been a leader in any position he has ever held, whether that be head of his family or in his professional life. He wasn't even captain of his basketball team in high school.
Regardless of how Obama responded to Andrea Cooper on CNN, experience campaigning for President does not make you fit to be President or in any way qualify you for the position. In fact, it qualifies Barack Obama for no position whatsoever because the man does not even run his own campaign. There is no there there!
We can point to John McCain and at least see a list of votes during his time in the Senate, we don't even have that with Obama because he was never there to vote. John McCain led a fighter squadron in Vietnam and then spent six years in a Communist prison camp making sure that other Americans were released before him. John McCain was undeniably the man leading the demand for a Surge in Iraq which has brought America victory where others failed. Sarah Palin has led a city as Mayor for six years and has been Governor of Alaska for two years and is commands the Alaskan National Guard. She is at the forefront of the domestic drilling issue attempting to lower fuel costs for all Americans. All this is executive material. Neither Obama or Biden have a drop of it. Again, executive experience is nowhere to be found on the Democrat ticket. On top of that, only one of two Democrat candidates has any experience other than lawyer and community agitator and that's Joe Biden. His experience is solely comprised of being a Senator for 30 years ranking number three behind Barack Obama as the most liberal member of the Senate, and Biden is in the VP slot. If you can read then you can see that Sarah Palin is in fact the only person out of all four candidates who has any real executive experience.
Don't even start on foreign policy. She runs the only state in the Union bordering Russia, while Barack Obama has a speech he gave in Germany a few weeks ago standing in front of a Nazi monument to Germany's conquering of Europe. If we are going to measure foreign visits between Obama and Palin, that's fine too. Governor Palin was in Kuwait years before Obama. No, Obama taking time to visit his brother's hut in Kenya then leaving him in destitution doesn't count.
As will always be the case until the Democrat Party returns from their lives in a hysterical socialist fantasy land, the experience factor will backfire on their candidates. Except for maybe Hillary Clinton, but Obama threw her under the bus with his grandmother and lifelong pastor some time ago. As I've stated time and again since John McCain named Governor Sarah Palin as his running-mate, I am ready and eager to have this debate anytime.
Speaking of debates; here is video of Sarah Palin debating in the race for Governor of Alaska in 2006 courtesy of Hot Air: