Why Barack Obama has the right experience and Sarah Palin doesn’t

With the selection of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate there was a short-lived feeling among Democrats that Palin was vulnerable on her lack of experience. Sensing an opportunity, Obama spokesman Bill Burton quickly released a statement mocking Palin’s short resume. He noted that only two years ago, before her current tenure as Alaska’s governor, Palin’s biggest political credential was being mayor of an Alaskan town of 8,500 people called Wasilla. But the statement was soon retracted. The reason, no doubt, was fear of falling into McCain’s so-called “brilliant trap”. This trap, by inducing the Obama campaign to criticize Palin for her lack of experience, would highlight Obama’s own limited experience. It would also draw him into a shouting match with the bottom half of the Republican ticket, not the most flattering role for the Democratic standard-bearer.

At risk of falling into this trap ourselves, let’s give some thought to the experience question. How does experience qualify one for the presidency? What are the most important experiences? Does Palin have them? Does Obama have them?

To start, not all experiences are created equal. Certainly being the governor of California is a more impressive experience than being the governor of Alaska. California, after all, has more than thirty-six million citizens while Alaska has only 683,000. But let’s not stop there. Would it be reasonable to say that the mayors of Austin, TX, Columbus, OH, and Jacksonville, FL have equally impressive resumes as Sarah Palin? Probably, since Austin, Columbus, and Jacksonville each have larger populations than the entire state of Alaska. But no one’s called John Peyton, Michael Coleman, or Will Wynn to tell them they were on the short list for a VP nomination. And for good reason: they’re not particularly qualified. Of course that’s only to say that Sarah Palin’s meager resume is no qualification for the vice presidency of the United States. Although one Fox News analyst believes that Alaska’s proximity to Russia gives Palin some sort of foreign policy expertise. Huh?

But what about Barack Obama’s supposed lack of experience? Can Bill Burton still criticize Palin’s resume and avoid hypocrisy in supporting Obama?

The answer is yes, Palin can (and should) be criticized for her lack of experience, even by Obama supporters. This is because Barack Obama does have the experience to be president. Put aside, for a moment, his eight years as an Illinois Senator and four years as a US Senator. These qualifications are already impressive, but I agree with critics who worry that twelve years of legislative experience are not enough. Fortunately Obama has another qualification on his resume: Nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States of America. In a campaign that lasted for twenty months, spanned all fifty states, Puerto Rico, and Guam, witnessed twenty-six debates, and faced relentless 24/7 media coverage, Obama came out ahead. His personal management of the campaign is testament to his outstanding leadership ability. Even when Obama trailed both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton in the polls, and Clinton appeared to be the inevitable nominee, Obama never gave up. Instead, his record-breaking fundraising in early 2008 set the stage for his shocking upset of Clinton, concluding with his nomination at the DNC last week.

Obama’s experience running his national campaign is the right kind of experience to qualify him for the presidency. This is most true today, in a media driven age, when the presidency is more about management and judgment than it is about technical expertise. Obama has demonstrated both qualities; we know this because otherwise he wouldn’t be the nominee. Sarah Palin, however, has demonstrated neither quality. Yes, she has been successful in Alaska, but the stakes in Alaska are about as high as they are in, well, Jacksonville, FL. When it comes to the national stage she’s untested and grossly under-qualified.

Obama supporters fear not, you can criticize Palin’s inexperience and not worry about undercutting Obama. He’s plenty experienced and the voters agree.

UPDATE 8/31:

Now Cindy McCain’s claiming that Palin has “national security” experience because Alaska is close to Russia. Also check out Michael Kinsley’s analysis of Republican hypocrisy and John Podhoretz’s feeble defense of Palin’s candidacy (which proves Kinsley’s point).

John Bolton’s farcical “realism”

Republicans have always laid claim to some sort of realism in foreign policy. Meet force with force, they say, because that’s the only way to deal with bullies. Usually Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler is mentioned, as well as John Kennedy’s disastrous meeting with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev the year before the Cuban Missile Crisis. For reference take a look at John Bolton’s June 5 opinion in the LA Times.

The public has bought in to Republican “realism”. John McCain, for example, believes he would make a better commander in chief than Barack Obama and polls exist to show that the public agrees. Democrats, like Obama and John Kerry before him, are easily stereotyped by media pundits as wishy-washy pansies who think we can all just get along.

Nowhere has this depiction of Republicans and Democrats been made more clearly, or unfairly, than in John Bolton’s most recent opinion, again in the LA Times. Bolton not only claims that Barack Obama’s vision of the world is “radical”, “naive”, and “dangerous”, but also that Obama’s so far from the mainstream that he’s “on another planet”.

The crux of Bolton’s argument comes towards the middle of the article in a discussion of the Berlin Wall:

But beyond the incoherence [of Obama's foreign policy], there is a deeper problem, namely that “walls” exist not simply because of a lack of understanding about who is on the other side but because there are true differences in values and interests that lead to human conflict. The Berlin Wall itself was not built because of a failure of communication but because of the implacable hostility of communism toward freedom. The wall was a reflection of that reality, not an unfortunate mistake.

The distinction Bolton seems to be making is between realism and idealism. But Bolton, perhaps unknowingly, aligns himself with the idealist position. How so? Realism holds that conflict in international relations is owed to either the quest for power or the quest for security. For a realist, then, the Berlin Wall was either the consequence of two states struggling for power (irrespective of ideology), or of a failure of communication that spiraled out of control into the infamous security dilemma (often recognizable as an arms race or, in this case, as the building and militarizing of the Berlin Wall). But Bolton is not a realist.

Bolton’s position is deceptively idealist. He sees the Berlin Wall, and no doubt the Cold War, as a confrontation between two ideologies: communism and liberalism (although Bolton prefers the term freedom, which isn’t associated with effete senators from Massachusetts). He even anthropomorphizes communism, assigning it qualities like “hostility” and perhaps ‘evil’. In Bolton’s vision of the world ideas drive interests, not the other way around.

That said, let’s drop the semantics game and address the more practical implications of Bolton’s so-called “realism”. Should we agree with him that conflict between countries is best described as a titanic collision of competing and intractable ideologies, or might it be more realistic to acknowledge that cooperation is possible on the basis of shared interests? Is the Homo sapiens species really so different in France or Germany or Iraq or Iran that there isn’t any profit in confronting some challenges together? Bolton facetiously claims that Obama’s from another planet, but I’m more inclined to believe that Bolton’s from another planet. His “realism” is a farce; it can’t be realism if it has little or no basis in reality.

Any chance McCain or Obama shares the ticket with the other party?

First it was Democrat Joe Lieberman endorsing Republican John McCain for President. Then we found out that former GOP Secretary of State Colin Powell is considering voting for Obama in November. Finally, long time Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has even accompanied Obama on his week long campaign visit to the Middle East and Western Europe. Of course this sort of crossing the aisle is nothing new: everyone remembers Democratic Senator Zell Miller’s bizarre appearance as the keynote speaker at the 2004 Republican convention, for example. But what makes this year unique is the persistent speculation that Lieberman might join the McCain ticket or Hagel might join the Obama ticket. Does this make sense for either candidate?

Probably not for McCain. McCain does need a bold pick (Jindal or Palin would do), but picking Lieberman exposes one of his biggest weaknesses: the wavering support of the religious right. Aside from foreign policy, Lieberman’s relatively liberal. If McCain adds a pro-choice semi-Democrat to the ticket, the religious right might very well stay home. Plus Lieberman has alienated so many Democrats with his defeat of Ned Lamont in 2006 and his premature criticism of Obama that it remains to be seen just how many new votes he would carry as a vice-presidential candidate. McCain would probably do better to shore up his base with a more conservative pick, or broaden his appeal with a like-minded moderate Republican.

Hagel makes more sense for the Obama ticket than Lieberman does for the McCain ticket. If Obama picked the Nebraska Republican he might be able to reclaim some of his early bipartisan credentials that were overwhelmed by “most liberal senator in the Senate” accusations. Plus Hagel would add a strong military and foreign policy resume to a ticket mostly bereft of any international experience. And Hagel’s even more popular among Nebraska Democrats than Republicans, at least according to one poll.

Obama with Senator Hagel and General Petraeus in Iraq.

Still, Hagel’s right of center (although in a libertarian sort of way) and would no doubt ruffle a few feathers amongst Obama’s far left coterie (that’s already angry about shifts to the center on Iraq, campaign finance, and trade). My guess is that Hagel lands a Cabinet level position in the Obama administration, most likely Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense. But he wouldn’t make a half-bad veep pick either. Obama clearly likes Hagel enough to invite him on his overseas trip and that’s critical in the selection process.

Will Democrats and Republicans share the White House next year? I doubt it, but an Obama-Hagel ticket might make sense. Thoughts?

Obama brings campaign to Western Wall

Is that really an Obama campaign banner in front of the Western Wall? (And it’s in Hebrew?)

Before Obama arrived at the Western Wall today in Jerusalem

Consider that just earlier today, in a column at The Huffington Post, Obama supporter and Florida Democrat Robert Wexler called McCain’s criticism of Obama’s comments at Yad Vashem “shameful” and “unconscionable”. I’d like to agree with Wexler that it’s inappropriate to use “Senator Obama’s somber visit to Israel’s Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem as a backdrop to score cheap political points”, but it’s difficult to do so when Obama uses a separate visit to Judaism’s holiest site the Western Wall as a campaign photo op.

Politics is supposed to stop at the water’s edge. It certainly doesn’t belong at Yad Vashem or the Western Wall. Apparently the Obama and McCain campaigns just don’t care.

UPDATE 7/24:

It’s been reported that the Obama banners were distributed by the campaign itself. And Jerusalem Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld says this is not typical practice for political visits to the Western Wall.