The Real Palin Problem
I wouldn’t (yet) question the shrewdness of the pick — it might well be brilliant politics, as Reihan explains, though we won’t know that right away.
But regardless of whether or not the pick was shrewd, it puts McCain’s and his party’s political interest squarely ahead of the national interest. As an understudy for the Presidency, she doesn’t pass the straight face test. How much occasion has Governor Palin, and before that Mayor Palin, and before that self-described hockey mom Palin, had to become familiar with the facts of, let alone develop a consistent overall approach to, foreign affairs? She may be thoughtful, she may be an accomplished manager and executive, and she may be a quick study. The decision to put her on the ticket would imply that close scrutiny confirms her to be each of these things. But how long has she spent getting ready for this? Readers, do we know how long the vetting process ran? Do we know if Palin prepared herself for this possibility even before being vetted? Given how unlikely the choice was, it seems that Palin would have had scant incentive to study up for the contingency of being made a vice-Presidential candidate.
Comparisons of life-long experience are interesting, but what most worries me is the difference in preparation between Palin and less startling choices. National political figures who have formally sought the Presidency, or even seriously considered so doing, have had to prepare. They have been extensively briefed. They have recruited and gotten to know advisors. They have thought about, and variously developed, and variously expressed, views on the wide range of subjects a President is required to confront. Even if McCain, Obama, and Biden had each literally fallen off the apple cart following the 2004 election, each has spent a substantial fraction of the last few years in serious, full-on preparation for the Presidency. Palin has not. Each of them has been poked and prodded, tested and parsed, stressed and analyzed. Palin has not.
This means that with McCain, Obama, or Biden, we can at least be confident that we have a competent potential President. With Palin, we cannot.
Whether Palin is ready or not isn’t nearly as important as the fact that McCain chose her. That’s the issue we should be examining. What IS the vice presidency in his eyes? What does this say about how he intends to govern?
— CHART · Aug 31, 05:07 AM · #
“As an understudy for the Presidency, she doesn’t pass the straight face test.” And that’s all there is to it.
— Anonymous · Aug 31, 05:38 AM · #
Nonsense. Obama has been notorious for his lack of substance. The news media haven’t asked him any hard questions. It’s a little late to be worried about lack of a vetting process at this point, when he’s already been nominated.
— The Reticulator · Aug 31, 05:54 AM · #
I’ve made that point elsewhere and I’ll make it again. If anything the Palin pick has accomplished, it will be to finally get rid of the politics of experience. Who cares if she’s inexperienced!
Barack Obama’s leadership of the most successful political campaign/movement in recent history, in my view, shows that he is eminently qualified for the Oval Office. But for him to be able to build that campaign in the first place people had to look beyond his lack of substantive experience into his character and judgement, which are (to use an uncharged word) impressive.
If the story of Silicon Valley and entrepreneurship over the past decades has shown anything, it’s that character and judgement matter much more than experience in accomplishing anything. The greatest companies in recent memories, Apple, Microsoft, Sun, Google, were founded by unqualified dropouts with no relevant previous experience. Ha! Steve Jobs dropped out of some liberal arts college where he studied caligraphy! He sold encyclopedias door to door! He’ll never amount to anything!
It’s not just true about business, it’s true about politics. Political “experience” is often little more than a history of paper-pushing and self-contradiction that has little to do with the travails of actual political leadership. If anything political experience might be a BAD thing for a potential president, because in many cases (like the Senate) it teaches you that you can get away with lying and obfuscating instead of taking principled stands.
To take examples from my country’s history, Charles de Gaulle was a mere two-star general with a few months in a sub-cabinet post when he became leader of the Free French and pulled his country up from the abyss of defeat to earn a seat at the victors’ tables. Meanwhile François Mitterrand was probably the most “experienced” president in French history. He had “experience” with the collaboration and the Resistance. He held some type of cabinet office in practically every government of the Fourth Republic and was the leader of the Socialist Party through most of the Fifth. None of this “experience” taught him how to run an economy (nationalize all the banks! That’ll create jobs!), or foreign policy (he opposed German reunification, showing a shocking amount of cynicism and a stupendous lack of understanding of the winds of history). It did, however teach him that the best way to outmanoeuver your political opponents was to have their phones illegally tapped, and even to shoot a few people in the head.
And of course, how many years of legislative experience did Lincoln and Kennedy have?
Some people are shocked that McCain only met Palin once before deciding on her. So what? People tell the story of how the founders of Google met Andy Bechtolsheim and he cut them a check of $100,000 on the spot to a company that didn’t exist. Would you say that guy was prescient, or reckless? Obviously the stakes of investing in a startup and picking a VPOTUS are not the same but how many meetings do you think it takes to be convinced of a person’s character?
— PEG · Aug 31, 08:03 AM · #
I’m gonna throw this out there: Maybe being the President isn’t all that difficult. Maybe we have all been led astray thinking it is a tough job.
So maybe the Palin pick isn’t that big a deal.
If we believe Michael Moore, the President can spend most of his first term on vacation, and the world won’t fall apart (only some buildings). Or if we believe libertarians, the President has little to no impact on the economy (unless to make it less efficient). Or if we believe Wikipedia, the Chief of Staff is actually the guy that runs things. Plus, wasn’t Reagan half-senile his last years in office?
Maybe I am too optimistic, but I think Palin could probably do a decent job.
— Ricky · Aug 31, 10:41 AM · #
“This means that with McCain, Obama, or Biden, we can at least be confident that we have a competent potential Presient. With Palin, we cannot.”
Well I will say that this post is probably the worst one I have read sor far about this topic. So because she is not a national figure, has never been on Meet the Press, and does not bloviate to the media about her thoughts on foreign policy issues….she’s potentially incompetent?
McCain has put his party’s political interest ahead of the nation’s? Do you have your finger on the pulse of the nation’s interest? Maybe…just maybe, the nation is interested in seing politicians like Sarah Palin and others run for office and not those who use national positions (ahem, the Senate) as stepping stones to the White House.
I have a question for every Obama supporter on the planet. Was Senator Obama actually a decent Senator? I mean, what did he do with his time in the Senate, where everyone seems to agree that he acquired his national political cred? Have we even stopped to think about that?
In fact, that question doesn’t need to be answered, because I could care less if Obama was in the Senate or in Iceland for the past 4 years. It is his Constitutional right to run for President, and if people believe he has the skills and/or ability to accomplish things in office then they will voter for him.
I don’t care that McCain picked someone who hasn’t talked about the Russia/Georgia conflict to Tom Brokaw, or wrote Op-Eds for the NY Times. Here’s what I want in a politician: independent mindset, faith to the oath of office, judgement in delegation, risk management capability, ethics, skepticism, and a respect of their constituents.
You keep your Beltway careerists…I’ll take my (hope of) representative government and independence.
— mattc · Aug 31, 11:44 AM · #
“John McCain for all his white hair who represents the risky choice, while it is Barack Obama who offers cautious, steady, predictable governance.
Here’s I fear the worst harm that may be done by this selection. The McCain campaign’s slogan is “country first.” It’s a good slogan, and it aptly describes John McCain, one of the most self-sacrificing, gallant, and honorable men ever to seek the presidency.
But question: If it were your decision, and you were putting your country first, would you put an untested small-town mayor a heartbeat away from the presidency? David Frum
By McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin, he has put his Country last!
— Angellight · Aug 31, 11:46 AM · #
Reticulator: I’ll agree that Obama has gotten a very soft treatment by the press all things considered. But if you think he hasn’t been asked “any hard questions,” then we do disagree. He’s been asked many questions of every type, easy and hard, relevant and irrelevant, sympathetic and adversarial, over the course of the campaign, and so (in varying fractions) has every other Presidential candidate.
PEG, I hope it’s clear from my post that I’m not urging a criterion of experience, only one of having devoted a significant number of months, at least, to preparing for the job.
— David Robinson · Aug 31, 01:45 PM · #
I think if you look to political executives to have specialized expertise (bar in one or two areas), you are bound to be disappointed. You look to the political executive to be able in delegating authority, to understand how much and in which realms to trust her subordinates, to assess options presented by people who <i>are</i> specialists, to allocate resources between competing claimants, and to be able to incorporate the factor of salability in the consideration of policy options. Now consider who among our recent vice-presidential candidates had the experience of presiding over and apparatus and making decisions of this nature:</p>
<p>Hubert Humphrey (as Mayor of Minneapolis) </p>
<p>Spiro Agnew (as Baltimore County Executive and Governor of Maryland)</p>
<p>Edumund Muskie (as Governor of Maine)</p>
<p>Curtis LeMay (in the Air Force)</p>
<p>Sargent Shriver (as federal bureau chief & family business manager)</p>
<p>Walter Mondale (as Attorney-General of Minnesota)</p>
<p>George Bush – pere (as federal bureau chief and in business)</p>
<p>Patrick Lucey (as Governor of Wisconsin)</p>
<p>Lloyd Bentsen (in business)</p>
<p>James Stockdale (in the Navy)</p>
<p>Jack Kemp (as a cabinet secretary)</p>
<p>Pat Choate</p> (as state and federal bureau chief)
<p>Richard Cheney (as a cabinet secretary, chief of staff, and in business)</p>
<p>Sarah Palin (as Mayor of Wasilla and Governor of Alaska)</p>
<p> The remaining candidates have been Joseph Biden, John Edwards, Joseph Lieberman, Albert Gore, Dan Quayle, Geraldine Ferraro, Robert Dole, and William Miller, whose experience was limited to supervising an office staff (quite ineptly, in Dole’s case). I would suggest that puts Gov. Palin at above the 40th percentile of her peer group as regards the most salient measure of preparation (Adm. Stockdale having been famously uninformed outside of his professional specialization and it being unclear just how large was the financial concern Lloyd Bentsen ran).</p>
— Art Deco · Aug 31, 02:30 PM · #
It seems awfully clear to me that Palin didn’t devote any amount of significant time preparing for the job, and based on all of her comments to the media prior to her nomination, probably no time at all. Based on Palin’s own testimony, she clearly has an opinions, but no understanding. And I’m sorry to say, having opinions is not the same thing as having a broad and deep understanding of issues. We ALL have opinions, after all. That’s why McCain choosing to put her in the VP office is so shocking and, unfortunately, says so much about who he is and how he’ll govern.
— CHART · Aug 31, 02:42 PM · #
And… she may have been scrutinized, but it seems that it was a fairly cursory examination. McCain, himself, admits to meeting her once, and Palin admits to a couple brief phone calls. That’s not much. I’ve now watched her both accept the nomination and meet yesterday with supporters on the campaign trail, and have heard excerpts of radio interviews she’s given. Maybe I just can’t see it, but she doesn’t strike me as someone with any exceptional abilities other than political. I’d feel sorry for her and the overwhelming task in front of her, the real possibilities she’ll make multiple gaffes, the debate she’ll face and all the prep she has to do, but she seems to think she can do it all, and apparently so do many of her supporters… I have no idea what that conclusion could possibly be based on. What I don’t see from her is the recognition that the VP position may historically have the reputation of being a do-nothing job, and as she says, she may not have a clue what a VP does, but McCain is 72 years old, gets confused sometimes when he’s tired, and has long had the habit of taking weekends off. Frankly, I’d feel a lot better about her if she let people know that she’s studying for the job every waking moment in between politicking. She’s going to have to be his Lieberman, I think.
— CHART · Aug 31, 03:09 PM · #
“the VP position may historically have the reputation of being a do-nothing job, and as she says, she may not have a clue what a VP does,”
The Vice President has one constitutionally mandated duty, and that is a largely ceremonial one of being President of the Senate. Each occupant of the Presidency in recent years has used the Vice President for different purposes, most frequently as a general advisor or as an advisor on domestic policy. She does not have a clue because the office’s duties have no stable definition.
She has run a business, kept a marriage together for twenty years, borne and partially raised five children while holding down demanding jobs, and made time for an avocational life as well. What share of people in your circle of acquaintances are productive dynamos like this?
— Art Deco · Aug 31, 03:33 PM · #
Your software has conflated two distinct posts of mine into one rather more obscure post. That last paragraph was in response to “CHART”‘s question,
“Maybe I just can’t see it, but she doesn’t strike me as someone with any exceptional abilities other than political.”
Of course, ‘CHART’‘s objection would fairly apply to the top and bottom of this year’s Democratic ticket, to John Kerry, to Robert Dole, to Bill Clinton, and (one might argue) to Albert Gore and Gerald Ford as well.
— Art Deco · Aug 31, 03:41 PM · #
Quality of experience matters as much as quantity of experience. Not only has Palin only been a governor for 20 months, she is governor of a state with 600,000 people, which has a legislative session that runs all of 3 months.
You can make a very good case that Obama’s experience as a state Senator is significantly more relevant than Palin’s experience as governor.
— Freddie · Aug 31, 03:54 PM · #
In my mind, it’s not about “inexperience” — it’s about George W. Bush part two. Foreign policy is the area where the president has the most power, and Palin is a complete blank slate on it just like George W. Bush was. I am sure she is smart and capable — but Bush has shown us that “common sense” judgment just isn’t good enough in foreign policy. We need someone who’s had a history of thinking about these issues. We need to use their worldview to evaluate how they’d act in foreign policy as president. The past 8 years have shown us that we can’t just put a “regular guy” or girl in and stumble along!
I am astonished that conservatives would fall in line behind her despite having no idea of her foreign policy views.
— JimmyM · Aug 31, 03:57 PM · #
Hey, everybody. For argument’s sake, let’s say that Obama’s qualifications to be president are roughly equal to Palin’s to be vice president. Since starting out with those spare qualifications, Obama has proven himself to be a very capable leader and organizer. Brilliant, even. The point is, he was given an opportunity to do so, and now pretty much everyone takes him seriously. Well, why not give Gov. Palin the same opportunity? I don’t know what the chances are that she’ll come through so brilliantly, but she’s got several months to show herself to be a quick study on foreign policy or whatever. Certainly, to justify her nomination, she’ll have to pull off something pretty impressive. But Obama shows it’s possible. People gave him more than a weekend before laughing him off the stage.
— Chris Floyd · Aug 31, 04:07 PM · #
JimmyM, based on my reading, a lot of conservatives aren’t falling in line, but instead are quietly (and not so quietly) freaking out. The far right, particularly evangelicals and some of the NRO crowd, are falling all over themselves, but some of them are not. Read Rick Brookhiser, for example.
Art Deco – I agree that she seems great. But re your question about how many I know that like her can do their job, stay married, have kids, and have an outside life, my answer is: a lot. In fairness, though, she’s only had the “big job” — governor of AK — for a couple years, so it’s not quite fair to compare her with people I know of who’ve been struggling to do all that for multiple years. It’s hard, and many people can’t keep that up for long without sacrificing in some areas, or cutting back on their efforts.
Re: my comment about only seeing that Palin demonstrates exceptional ability… I’m talking about intellectual abilities. I don’t understand the reverse snobbery that seems to be at play in every election, the “they’re someone I think I’d like to have as a friend” argument. Why is it not okay to want a leader who is intellectually astute, who can write a grammatically correct sentence, pronounce words correctly, and who can present clearly reasoned arguments for their opinions? As for me, I want someone who is a LOT smarter, more thoughtful, and more informed than I am.
What I’d like to hear is more about this “proven reform record.” I’ve read about only a few things, and when I’ve looked into them, I haven’t found much substance. There must be more, so if someone could point the way to the “hows, whys, and results,” I’d appreciate it.
— CHART · Aug 31, 04:28 PM · #
“Quality of experience matters as much as quantity of experience. Not only has Palin only been a governor for 20 months, she is governor of a state with 600,000 people, which has a legislative session that runs all of 3 months.”
The challenges inherent in municipal government do vary considerably according to the population of the municipality, the characteristics of its local economy, and its demographic composition. With regard to state government, the breadth of functions varies much less. Just about every state has Medicaid, a state police force and attendant crime lab, a National Guard, a prison system, a network of highways, &c. (and the climate in Alaska likely poses some unique challenges in the realm of service delivery). One might suspect that the population of a state is correlated with the degree to which its legislature is willful and refractory, ‘tis true, tho’ it would seem the state’s political culture would matter more.
— Art Deco · Aug 31, 04:33 PM · #
Palin coverage at TAS = shark hop.
— Mike · Aug 31, 04:47 PM · #
“Art Deco – I agree that she seems great. But re your question about how many I know that like her can do their job, stay married, have kids, and have an outside life, my answer is: a lot. In fairness, though, she’s only had the “big job” — governor of AK — for a couple years, so it’s not quite fair to compare her with people I know of who’ve been struggling to do all that for multiple years. It’s hard, and many people can’t keep that up for long without sacrificing in some areas, or cutting back on their efforts.”
CHART, a comfortable majority (about 2/3) of the working population of this country are wage-earners. They have jobs they can leave at the office or on the shop floor. That is true of a certain proportion of salaried employees as well. That is not characteristic of the work of a proprietor or a municipal executive (and to be fair, it is quite uncharacteristic of law practice as well). Only a modest minority in this country ever attempt to earn a living through self-employment; she and her husband did. The mean fertility rate for women in her cohort is two children over the course of a life time; she has five. I am acquainted with families of that size. The majority of them are the result of blending the issue of a minimum of three different marriages (or ‘relationships’). I work in an office with about 70 employees. I believe there is one person with more than three children. The fecund urban married couples of the 1950s typically produced three or four children; about a third of the workforce was female at that time, but married women in non-seasonal salaried positions were unusual. Just remaining married would have put her performance in this realm north of two-fifths of her contemporaries; the number of children she has and the characteristics of her employment render her and her husband exceedingly unusual.
“Re: my comment about only seeing that Palin demonstrates exceptional ability… I’m talking about intellectual abilities. I don’t understand the reverse snobbery that seems to be at play in every election, the “they’re someone I think I’d like to have as a friend” argument. Why is it not okay to want a leader who is intellectually astute, who can write a grammatically correct sentence, pronounce words correctly, and who can present clearly reasoned arguments for their opinions? As for me, I want someone who is a LOT smarter, more thoughtful, and more informed than I am.”
I suspect a psychometrician would tell you that very smart people are thick on the ground in the realm of higher education, which may be the most dysfunctional of our major institutions. It is arguable that the occupants of the Oval Office with the largest quantum of raw intelligence in this century have been Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, and Richard Nixon, in approximately that order. Additional increments of any input are likely to reach a point of diminishing returns (or, in this case, negative returns). We can argue about who the most able men to occupy the White House in that time have been. My suggestions would be Mr. Truman and Gen. Eisenhower, solid but not star performers in the academic realm.
— Art Deco · Aug 31, 05:08 PM · #
“You can make a very good case that Obama’s experience as a state Senator is significantly more relevant than Palin’s experience as governor.”
Freddie, their was from Chicago a member of Congress named John Fary, who occupied his seat from 1976 to 1982. He was notable for spending most of his time in the back of the chamber reading newspapers and voting as he was told. Prior to that, he had a seat in the Illinois legislature, and among the residents of his district was none other than Richard J. Daley. On the night he won the Democratic primary for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976, he had this to say, “I represented Mayor Daley in the legislature for 21 years, and he was always right”. Yes, you can make a ‘good’ case, depending on what your jury has been smokin’.
— Art Deco · Aug 31, 05:23 PM · #
How many conservatives who are now saying, experience doesn’t matter, were a few days ago saying Obama didn’t have the experience to be president? The majority I believe. The whole McCain campaign for sure. WHo ever does fall into this camp? It’s embarassing to be that intellctually dishonest. It’s the sign of a 6th grade intellect. Here is my advice to them. Pick out some convictions and then stick with them.
— cw · Aug 31, 05:44 PM · #
She will be a candidate for Vice President, not President.
She has executive experience the Democratic presidential nominee and the Vice Presidential nominee lacks.
Bar the sort of part-time and seasonal employment that students have, the Democratic presidental nominee has spent all but one year of his working life in politics of one sort or another (though you could dispute that with regard to his teaching schedule). The Vice Presidential nominee spent four years and change practicing law ca. 1970. Her work history is more variegated, and commercial fishing has vigorous operational measures of competence that ‘community organizing’ lacks.
— Art Deco · Aug 31, 06:08 PM · #
Of course, if you switched the party affiliations of the people in question, you’d be arguing the exact opposite.
— Freddie · Aug 31, 07:02 PM · #
Freddie, read my post above on the work histories of various VP candidates. I think if you sift through it Edmund Muskie, Patrick Lucey, and Richard Cheney had the most to recommend them. I doubt that there is more than a mild correllation between party affiliation and the factor under discussion.
— Art Deco · Aug 31, 07:35 PM · #
The fuss seems to suggest parallels with Harriet Miers.
Apart from that:
It seems symptomatic of the reckless thoughtlessness of the polemics involved that Palin’s seriousness about occupying the post is questioned (and it is certainly a question of substance and suitability) and the obviously unreflecting reflexive response is ‘she has tons of experience’.
By not even observing the question these commenters suggest their evidence is indeed a sham, and that they have no desire, and perhaps ability, to reason their case. (If they have the ability, they implicitly admit to knowing they have no case.)
— felix culpa · Aug 31, 08:39 PM · #
“By not even observing the question these commenters suggest their evidence is indeed a sham, “
To what question are you referring?
— Art Deco · Aug 31, 09:00 PM · #
Palin does not believe in evolution. She does not believe in climate change. No one can say with a straight face that this person should be Vice President of the United States. Case closed.
— Mandy · Aug 31, 09:35 PM · #
Not at all sure what the link is between running a campaign to get elected well and governing well. Presumably one can find brilliant campaigners who are utterly unsuited to the job they win, and terrible campaigners who would have been brilliant at the job they lost. Why not vote for Obama’s Campaign Manager by this standard?
— Tom · Aug 31, 10:42 PM · #
Since McCain has zero chance of winning, did it really matter who he choose. Why not ask how Palin affects the down ticket since the most important result of the 2008 election is whether the Democratic Party gets sixty seats in the Senate this election or has to wait for the next election.
— superdestroyer · Sep 1, 12:54 AM · #
The current position being pushed by the MSM is that Obama has been vetted in the course of this campaign and therefore the exerience issue is no longer on the table with regard to him. Different rules apply. And oh, he’s “run” a campaign. To which I respond:
1.) Sarah Palin’s experience trumps Obama’s. She’s accomplished things. He hasn’t.
2.) Being “vetted” doesn’t take his lack of accomplishment off the table. Not off mine anyway. He can have collected all the support he possibly can from people whose political values I don’t accept in a democrtic primary— he still doesn’t pass the “straight face” test with me.
(Is this some of that Alinsky School logic that the MSM insists on perpetuating? OK for me but not for thee?)
The Palin nomination puts the focus SQUARELY on the experience issue and next to the man wearing the emperor’s new clothes, she looks pretty damn fine… imho
— bud · Sep 1, 03:32 AM · #
Sarah Palin’s experience trumps Obama’s. She’s accomplished things. He hasn’t.
Argument from assertion is fun, and easy! Anyone can do it!
Let me try. Fetuses aren’t people, so abortion isn’t murder.
I just solved the abortion debate. This is fun!
— Freddie · Sep 1, 03:39 AM · #