There are some talking heads out there who are starting to make sense.
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Mark Davis: Beyond the experience question
06:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 10, 2008
There are only two ways the ongoing war over experience can play out in this presidential campaign.
The Obama forces can continue to ridicule Sarah Palin's résumé, which only emboldens John McCain backers to remind Democrats that it is the top of their ticket that is challenged in that regard.
Or, we can stop wasting our time. Everybody get off Barack Obama and Sarah Palin's backs about experience and embrace the realization that experience is being redefined.
The McCain camp defends the Palin pick by saying it is revamping the usual job requirements for the vice presidency.
But it is, in fact, the phenomenon of Barack Obama that has rendered obsolete the old definitions of fitness for the Oval Office. Voters no longer require extensive foreign policy credentials or even a Washington pedigree.
This is not so new. Four of our last five presidents were governors with no foreign policy stripes. With admittedly varying results, Presidents Reagan, Carter, Clinton and George W. Bush came into office with blank international affairs slates and wrote on those slates with their actions and reactions to world events.
As well it should be. A candidate's head and heart portend performance far more than a list of past jobs.
As such, it is of little use for Mr. Obama's critics to hammer him for his short political life. And his supporters are the last people who should suggest Ms. Palin is too thinly accomplished.
Aren't we the country that has long complained about entrenched politicians who make real reform impossible? Well, here come two noteworthy, compelling candidates who have sparked great adulation in their respective parties – and with them a whole new debate over how seasoned one must be to lead the free world.
Quality means more than quantity. Mr. Obama's doubters are on solid ground when they say that he has not exactly brought about large volumes of the change that is his campaign's byword. While Ms. Palin has more of a track record of actually shaking up the establishments, her critics can fairly ask whether her decade at Wasilla City Hall and not quite two years as Alaska governor add up to curriculum vitae for America's second-highest elected office.
Mr. Obama's supporters are well aware that he has not walked the halls of the U.S. Senate for decades, and that is part of why they like him. A newly riveted GOP is gobbling up every crumb of the Sarah Palin story, charmed even more that she is an outsider to the stodgy marble halls of power.
As part of the community of voters thrilled to have Ms. Palin as Mr. McCain's running mate, I have never focused the brunt of my objections on Mr. Obama's newness to national office. In 1996, I was an enthusiastic supporter of Steve Forbes, who had not a shred of elected experience.
I find it far more useful to dwell on the undesirable policies that would accompany an Obama presidency. But for his rapid ascent from state senator to Democratic presidential nominee, I can only say congratulations.
So now let's see Ms. Palin's detractors show her the same respect. I know she has not weathered the months of bare-knuckle campaigning that Mr. Obama has. She's also not at the top of her ticket.
She is the deserving running mate of the Republican nominee in an era when one of the meanings of "change" involves the kind of candidates we welcome into the fold. Good for Barack Obama and Sarah Palin for making the cut in their respective ways.
Let's give them credit for that, shelve the counterproductive "experience" issues and get on with examining what each would do if sworn in next January.
dallasnews.com |
