Posted by
Always To The Right on Tuesday, September 02, 2008 8:00:06 AM
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
Even if they did, it gives him no experience at managing disasters. Governors and mayors have to manage
disasters, and when they succeed, they save lives. When they fail, as
we saw in Katrina, it costs lives. Legislators have no role in
disaster management itself, although honestly, disaster management
isn’t usually a resumé point when voting for mayor, governor, or
President. Whatever impulse exists now to make it one stems from the
irrational blame heaped on George Bush for the failures of Ray Nagin
and Kathleen Blanco in Katrina, although FEMA certainly had its
failures as well.
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.