Sarah vs. the Senators

Experience

What date did Barack Obama become a senator? Don’t look it up. If you don’t know, just guess. Okay, I’ll tell you: January 4, 2005.

January 4, 2005. Whoa. That really doesn’t seem all that long ago…In fact, I think I can actually remember what I was going that day. It was a Wednesday and I was in route home from a wild New Year’s Eve trip to South Florida. Shocking right? Our crew spent most of the weekend on South Beach, but went to Key West for the actual 12/31 party. It was a great trip. And though the trip had many highpoints, Shane took the gold in every category. Among others, he took the high medal for: Most chilled-out dude en la playa. Best night out. Best encounter with a muy buena senorita from Kendall-. Funniest story. Best rendition of a late night encounter. And, most importantly, best awarded namesake: “Shane’s Hole”.

That’s 3 years, 9 months, and 17 days. Not a lot of time as a senator. A lot of times it takes 5 or more years of restaurant experience to be a restaurant manager. So, if someone started waiting tables on the same day that Obama took office, they still would be too inexperienced to run their restaurant on the Inauguration Day of 2009.

Combine the fact that he has been campaigning for over a year of that and he has less than 2 years experience as a senator.

Do I think that this makes Obama too “inexperienced” to be President? No, not at all.

Time in public service is an irrelevant factor in developing one’s ability to be President. You either have the skills and ability to lead or not.

The same applies to Sarah Palin.

What factors do matter?

Not time, but job duties. Governors make executive decisions. Senators do not.

Few senators are elected president—and only 2 have ever gone straight from Senator to President. Why? Because the public prefers an executive. Senators are not executives. They bounce the ball around in committees and make decisions by politicking the consensus. They are not leaders. They have no direct experience being “the boss”. They can easily hide behind their committee or vote. This isn’t an insult to the position, just a fact of the matter.

Governors, on the other hand, are in the position of a leader and perform fully exposed. They are held responsible as the formal decision maker with no committee or other body to defer accountability. As defined in the Constitution, a State is a sovereign entity in matters not specifically assigned to the federal government. As such, states have their own laws and codes, collect their own taxes, and control their own budget. The governor, in-turn, is the head-of-state for a “mini-nation”.

Further, the governor heads the executive branch of the state and plays a primary role in state legislation and all governmental affairs.

This experience is like being president on a small scale.

Of the four candidates, Sarah Palin is the only one with such experience and achieved it in a deliberate, sequential fashion. She was on the city council, then mayor, then governor. Meaning she earned a bit of executive power, then earned a little more, then more…and so on. You can’t ignore the relevance of such a voter-condoned and stimulated increase of authority.

The Path to Governor

For this section, you’re really going to have to reflect on the social circumstances of your own experiences.

Think about what it would require to become governor in your state. If you wanted to run for governor in the next election, where would you begin?

Speaking for North Carolina, you would have to win over a lot of difficult, influential, “well-connected” people to get elected. How would you meet and impress the “fat-cats” and community leaders from all of the different communities? Raleigh, Wilmington, Greensboro, Wilson/Rocky Mount, New Bern, Charlotte, Asheville, Durham, Winston-Salem. It seems like a difficult crowd.

And then the different groups of people around the state…the middle class, the blue-bloods, the nouveau riche, the ECU fans, Raleigh bankers, professors at UNC and Duke, soldiers in Fayetteville, Jacksonville, Havelock, and Goldsboro, …it’s a long list of people with opposing views, opposing needs and expectations.

I assume this is similar in most states. I’m not going to write a lot about this. It’s your responsibility to reflect on what difficulties it would take to become merely the Mayor of your town, then extrapolate that to the difficulty of becoming governor.

Oh, just one other reflection to add…

Becoming a female governor of Alaska doesn’t seem like an easy feet. My guess is there are a lot of tough men that aren’t extremely liberated and open to women leaders. To beat other candidates for the job, Palin, at least, must be assertive, aggressive, confident, and not easily pushed around…if so stronger candidates would have easily beaten her to the governor’s mansion.

Foreign Policy

This is a really strange issue. I’ve seen the most radical statements against Sarah Palin in regards to US foreign policy. I would like to respond to this, but the claims against Palin are so non-specific (and exaggerated) that there isn’t really anything to which to respond. I just see claims saying she is: awful, terrible, ridiculous, an embarrassment, etc. Sadly people, these words are not arguments. If someone makes a specific claim or criticism as to what it is Sarah Palin will damage specifically, please let me know and I will respond to this.

A question I’d like to have answered: What does it mean to have a successful foreign policy? Does it mean that the US has successfully appeased the other nations of the world? That we can give into our friends? That we know how to conform to the popular view?

OR does it mean that we can stand on our own in spite of unpopular opinion? That we can influence nations to “see it our way”?

A successful negotiator is not one that changes his mind to the other side…that gives into the opponent, but is one that gets the other side to change their mind.

If you work in sales, you’ll understand that giving away your product is not a sign of success and if you merely drop your price to make your customers happy, you are a failure. To the contrary, one that can sale the value of their product at a premium is the success.

Finally, I’d like to see someone build an actual “dangerous” scenario that would occur if Sarah Palin became president. For example, is it that you think because she most likely doesn’t know the capital of Nepal that the Nepalese are going to invade the US? Do you think that the Iranians are waiting to settle a personal vendetta against her for not wearing those funny masks force their women to wear?

This is all ridiculous. In reality, the world would be encouraged and their leaders impressed that the US finally had a female head-of-state. They would welcome her with open arms.

Proximity of Alaska to Russia

Many people tease Governor Palin for commenting on having foreign experience based on the proximity of Alaska to Russia. Had you ever lived in a border state or town, you would know this is a serious claim. For those laughing at her affirmations, I assure you, the joke is on you.

Examples include Texas/Mexico, Florida/Cuba, Florida/Haiti, Florida/Puerto Rico, California/Mexico. El Paso/Juarez City. San Diego/Tijuana AND Alaska/Russia, Alaska/Canada

Had you ever lived in one of these towns, you would know there are quite a few issues that arise between the border state and the other country: Immigration issues, illegal workers, border disputes, etc. A person in Miami is much more exposed and adept to Cuban life (their culture, their politics, their food) than a person in Kansas. Similarly, a person in San Diego or Los Angles is much more affected by the proximity of California to Mexico than someone in Salt Lake City.

For Alaska specifically…Palin borders Canada and Russia. This gives her both friendly and semi-hostile experience. Does this mean that Palin and Putin are on daily conference calls? Definitely not, but she most likely has dealt with many Russian governors/officials as well as Canadian officials. True, I don’t think this is the same level of communication expected from a US president. However, I think this is better exposure than many governors who became successful presidents had when they were governors. It’s surely enough not to make her “scary” as her critics imply.