Why is Obama's limited "experience" considered better than Palin's???

Why is Obama's limited "experience" considered better than Palin's???

Seriously, no Obama supporter has been able to answer this for me. Last weekend, my sister was railing against Palin's inexperience and unreadiness, yet totally failed to see how her argument also worked against Obama, and also failed to see how in fact, it is worse in his case since he's at the TOP of the Democratic ticket, and not in the second slot.

So please answer this for me, Obama supporters. He's got, what...two terms as a State Senator, plus 2ish years as a US Senator, right? Whereas Palin has a couple terms as a small-town mayor, plus 2ish years as a Governor. Seems pretty even in that regard to me, even disregarding the difference between Legislators and Executives.

So what makes Obama's experience so much better than Palin's? Is it that his past 2 years have been in Washington DC (when he's not been campaigning)? Is THAT the difference?

If not, then what is it? Why do your criticisms of Palin's inexperience apply, in your minds, to your own Presidential Candidate? 'cause I just don't get the double-standard and the total lack of acknowledgement of it by the Obama supporters. So please, clue me in.

He's written papers on foreign policy. Obviously that makes him more qualified to deal with a crisis than Palin.

On a more serious note, expect Pardot, Mewa, Garamet or Cass to show up and completely sidetrack this thread.

Guess you started it, then.

He's a great motivational speaker like Tony Robbins. That makes him qualified.

Might as well.

Back to the thread.....Palin DOES have more executive experience than any of the other 3 guys running, but that happens to be overlooked 90% of the time too.

Can the non-Obama-supporters please hush and allow the others to provide an actual answer/opinion? Please?

Senate: learns the ins and outs of politics, probably gets a sense of what's going on in the world.

Governor of Alaska: has less people to govern than a medium sized town, main job is to distribute money among her citizens (I wonder why none of the right wing psychos has mentioned that... it is, after all, as socialist as it gets )

I'm not saying that Obama is super-prepared or something, I just think he has been closer to the power in the past few years - not only because he was in DC but also due to his connections within the party. Palin has been in her frozen land up there doing nothing, seeing nothing and ignoring the planet beyond her own borders.

Because Obama is educated and intelligent. Palin is not.

Well, Obama comes across as much better informed than Palin. Otherwise, it's just spin.

I've had backaches that lasted longer than the time Obama has worked in the Senate before he took off to campaign.

By the way, guys...

The Presidential candidates are:

Senator John McCain (R)
Senator Barack Obama (D)

Hope that helps.

Nah, I don't think she's actually stupid. She's just the product of never seeing anything beyond her own little world. From a president or VP, even the most fervent fans of any given ideology should expect more.

Compare her to Condi Rice, for example. I abhor the politics of both, but that won't stop me from believing that Rice just might be one of the smartest people alive

In three years, two of which have been campaigning for President? You must think that Obama is a quick study than considering the rather limited time he has been in Washington. By your criteria, McCain is an expert given the decades he has served in the US Senate huh Martok?

Who has Obama or McCain governed Martok? Let's keep in mind this is the criteria you are establishing. Do you have the fortitude to actually back up your own criteria, or will we simply be entertained further by your circle jerk responses to legitimate questions?

Palin isn't running for President though Martok. Using your criteria, McCain is far more qualified to be President of the United States than Barrack is.

Should I sit back and await further name calling and accusations from you once again Martok since I've had the nerve to call bullshit on your rhetoric.

Do we get to be entertained with your one liners, and Democratic party talking points on McCain as well? Come on, Martok enlighten us with your vast knowledge of US politics.

Because, over the course of his limited experience, he has demonstrated a broad knowledge and understanding of issues relevant to running the Federal government, as well as a judgment that's considerably more sound than that of his opponent. Experience matters to the extent that more experience leads to a more reliable evaluation of a candidate's knowledge, understanding, judgment, and capabilities--Obama would definitely be a better, safer candidate with more experience--but that's the extent to which experience matters. Experience is not valuable in-and-of-itself, nor is it even a particularly good proxy for good knowledge, judgment, understanding, or capability.

Experience, BTW, works against McCain, because his extensive experience makes the conclusion that he's overly temperamental and has a very limited understanding of policy issues extremely reliable. In Palin's case she's so inexperienced on matters of Federal importance that any positive conclusions that could possibly be drawn about her are so unreliable as to be useless.

You posted quicker than I did. I'm glad at least one other person noticed that too.

Well, I'm quite certain you've just minimized the Governorship of any number of small states a ridiculous degree, as there are still committees, departments, national guard units, and various other state-level organizational entities that still need to be managed and dealt with. Also, please consider that various former Presidents have been elected without Senate experience--just Governor experience.

Also, 2 years of "learning the ins and outs of politic" should be considered as qualifying experience?

I was actually looking for honest, reasonable answers here, not HS-level remarks. I seriously doubt that Palin is uneducated and stupid. Inexperienced, perhaps, but that's what this whole thread is about.

In other words, in the world of Liet, he is a member of the Democratic party. It takes little else for Liet to support virtually any candidate. Their positions, their experience are secondary, the most important issue for Liet is their political affiliation.

KIRK, what exactly is your obsession with calling people by old usernames? Do you think you're cleverly uncovering our deepest secrets or something?

True, but my thread here is about why Dems utterly fail to realize the inherent double-standard they make when railing against Palin on the experience issue without realizing that it totally reflects back on Obama as well.

Rice is scary smart. Too bad she's such a lapdog.

As for Palin, I'd agree on her intelligence if it weren't for her seeming lapse of judgment in accepting the VP nomination. A smarter person would have known their own limits. This also brings into question McCain's intelligence and that of republicans in general.

Follow-up question: How many years as Governor of Alaska would Palin have to serve before experience wouldn't be an issue for you Obama supporters?
3?
4?
6?
8?
12?
Or is the state simply too remote and sparsely populated to provide enough leadership experience to qualify someone for national office?

My bad. You did tie Palin into this.

That was some garamet/Aurora-grade boilerplate bullshit and I wish I hadn't done that.

That's gotta be one of the most pathetic arguments I've ever seen.

Oh yeah?!!! NEENER!

LOL

So fucking what?!?

You're in the wrong goddamn place if you expect each of a zillion fucking political threads to stay on-topic. You can get the fuck over it, or continue pissing in the wind, but it ain't gonna change just because you bitched and moaned.

Regardless of what you think of Obama's experience, positive or negative there is one sharp distinction between him and Governor Palin. Obama has been in front of the voters for well over a year at this point. He's submitted to many primary elections and been asked just about every policy question relevant to this election. You can judge his answers and understanding however you want from the answers given to those questions.

Governor Palin on the other hand nobody, outside of Alaska and some right wing blogs, had heard of her 2 months ago.(clumsy sentence I know. You get the point. ) With her Republicans are asking for you trust them. The same ones who are associated with George Bush, who is deeply unpopular and almost 80% of the country doesn't trust anymore. She also in limited questioning about relevant issues has given some downright strange answers to some questions or no answer at all to others. The disaster in choosing her was not her lack of experience, but choosing her asked the voters to trust people who have connections to George Bush and that is something the American people are going to shun. It's no wonder she's a pariah on the ticket outside of Republicans right now. They are the only ones left who trust the Bush Republican Party's judgement anymore.

I would say essentially that when it comes to experience, there's not a specific set of criteria that a president needs to have in order to qualify other than what's in the Constitution.

There's a mix of qualities that are desirable in a president that include the following:

-Executive experience.
-Personal achievement.
-Policy knowledge and/or ability to learn.
-General life experience.
-Empathy.
-Honor.
-Comfort with public speaking.
-Background as a negotiator.

So I would say the premise of your question is false. I don't think that Palin's experience is so much at issue or is much less than Obama's. I haven't really seen anyone assert that Obama's so much more experienced than her.

I do think that in selecting her, McCain undercut his argument that these are times that require an experienced hand and you can't trust Obama. You can spin things, but her experience is not substantially more than his.

Further, most of the criticisms of Palin that I've seen and made aren't about her experience. They are about her character. There's a difference.