Barak Obama has sealed his fate. He has made the biggest blunder of any presidential candidate since Walter Mondale and has virtually handed the election to John McCain on a silver Palin.
What is it that Obama did that makes me say this? Yesterday on Anderson Cooper 360 Obama was asked about his experience handling natural disasters like Gustav as compared to Sarah Palin’s as governor of Alaska. Realize that Anderson Cooper is not exactly of friend of the Republican Party and probably thought he was throwing Obama a softball. Well, talk a swing and a miss. Obama’s answer was:
“My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We've got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month.”
Never mind the obvious, that Obama is using his experience in running a political campaign as his only example of executive experience and is comparing it not to her current job but the one she held previously, as mayor of her home town. That shows really bad judgement that he would highlight his lack of executive experience by using his campaign as his one experience running something – never mind that he doesn’t really run his campaign, the campaign manager does.
And never mind his belittling of small town life and the responsibilities inherent in being the person in charge. And also never mind the fact that in Alaska Palin oversees a $9 billion budget and over 25,000 state employees. Considerably more money and personnel than Obama has ever managed.
Let’s put all that aside, because none of that was the fatal error that Obama made. The fatal error was this. In a campaign where experience has been an ongoing issue Obama has just reduced himself to competing on the level of the vice president. It’s as if he decided that he just can’t compete with McCain on experience (and he can’t) so he might as well try to show that at least he’s got more experience than McCain’s second in charge.
He is actually asking the American people – who are notorious for not taking the long term view – to think ahead and say to themselves, “Well, McCain might have the most experience, but he’s old and if he should die in office at least Obama has more experience than Palin.”
Of course, which of the two has more experience that would apply to the position of chief executive is debatable. Very debatable. And many people, including some republicans, think that Palin’s relative inexperience has taken the experience issue off the table. If that was true, Obama thrust it right back on the table with this silly comparison.
So let’s encourage Obama and others to keep making the Obama-Palin comparison. And if Obama wants to keep touting his ability to handle being vice president then let him run on that.
It can only benefit McCain, accentuating how he is in such a different class when it comes to leadership and experience. Now all we need is a date for the Obama-Palin debate. Unless they still plan to have their other guy debate her. What’s his name again?
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written by Andrew Roman , September 03, 2008
As with Senator Obama's profound lapses in judgement - stating, for instance, that a vehemently anti-American reverend is the most influential man in his life and his more-than-casual association with a known terrorist - I fear that his latest bone-headed comment will not have the effect it SHOULD have.
Robert, you are not incorrect. Your piece is well-taken and well-written. The ever-articulate, silver tongued orator - er, teleprompter reader - that is the Democratic nominee for President has once again shown how ill-prepared for off-the-cuff, cue card-free interchange he is. My concern is that because the media has already annointed him the all-time savior of human history, it simply won't matter. You're right in that this painfully stupid comment by Obama SHOULD have sealed his fate ... but it hasn't. No one, outside of bloggers and some talk radio people, are paying it any mind.
As I stated in another thread, Senator Obama's achievements do not make him any more qualified to be President than Governor Palin's achievements make her to be Vice President. Obama's gaffe here - and his inability to express himself without speaking in endless commas - under normal circumstances would have been enough to blow a big hole in the side of Ship Savior.
Unfortunately, I don't think it will.
He is Obama, after all.
Andy Roman
Brooklyn, NY
written by Jay Golub , September 03, 2008
i don't see that comment as a fatal error, Robert. It's a minor blip.
It does show that he's not as good at the normal give-and-take with the media, which i assume will hurt him as time moves on, but, as Andy said, the media has to call him on it once in a while for it to be problematic.
Seems to me that since the nomination process ended, with Hillary's departure from the scene, Obama has been like a fish out of water - without any idea of what direction he should go - attack with specifics or continue to speak in the vague fashioin he has over the last few months.
If he has made a fatal error, it's in the fact that he's been without real direction. His staff will need to start to be more aggressive, but it's my feeling they are waiting until the GOP convention ends to see what direction they will need to go...
written by Andrew Roman , September 05, 2008
For those who may have thought that the effectiveness of the “inexperienced candidate” arguments being leveled at Senator Obama were somehow neutralized and rendered lame with the announcement of Governor Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate, don’t fret. There is a pulse and it is steady and strong. (It shouldn’t be, but it is). Indeed, conservatives were probably more than willing to veer away from that plan of attack after the vibrant and young Palin joined the McCain ticket, but thanks to the American left, it is very much alive - and conservatives don’t even have to go on the offensive! They only need respond.
Sam Harris, celebrated atheist and card-carrying leftist, in a recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece asked, “Is Palin remotely qualified to be President of the United States?” He, of course, answered his own question with a resounding, “No.”
What a deliciously original angle.
Harris went on to excoriate (and mock) a possible Sarah Palin presidency in the event of John McCain’s death in office, taking a page from the American Elitist’s Handbook, writing, “Don’t look now, but our Cousin Sarah just became leader of the free world! Tune in next week and watch her get sassy with Pakistan!”
How enlightened. How progressive.
The other story here is the blatant unabashed elitism coming from Harris and so many others on the left. You can almost hear Mr. Harris’ eyeballs click into place as he peers down the slope of his nose to make his point from on high. From the blogosphere to the main-stream media itself, Sarah Palin has been called everything from “redneck” to “white trash,” and they weren’t intended as pet names. How ironic it is that such rhetoric come from those who profess to support the ideology of the party that still claims to be the most open-minded, the most compassionate, the most tolerant, the most welcoming and the most representative of everyday Americans.
To Harris, Sarah Palin is, at best, a quaint good old girl who can get “sassy.” How delightfully condescending. After all, Palin hunts, fishes, is a member of the NRA and believes in all that God stuff.
It gets better.
Harris asserts, “Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority.”
I wonder if anyone would be kind enough to let Mr. Harris know that “average” people often – and more times than not - elevate themselves to positions of great authority in this most accommodating nation – military commanders, plant managers, police captains, bank presidents, etc. However, to the leftist elites, it’s not just “Cousin Sarah” that rates as painfully under qualified for the highest elected office of the land – it’s every “average” American. After all, “great authority” can only be achieved successfully by the university educated, socially conscious upwardly mobile liberal.
Remember, leftist bigotry and prejudice is meant to unite.
Without question, to raise one’s self to the level of accomplishment that Sarah Palin has is certainly above-average. It is not the average mother of five who can claim the achievements she has. This “average” woman, I would remind Mr. Harris, served two terms as Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska and currently serves as the Governor of Alaska - which includes being the Commander of the Alaska National Guard. Perhaps most notably, Palin assumed one of the most difficult (and dangerous) tasks one can undertake in the political arena – that is to openly battle and ultimately defeat rampant corruption within her own political party, eventually resulting in the crushing of an incumbent Governor.
These are no small tasks – and hardly “average.”
It’s funny. I thought whistle-blowers were heroes to those on the left. I thought reformers made leftists salivate.
If Palin were a Democrat and believed in bigger government, endorsed lenient abortion laws, opposed the war in Iraq and still defeated a corrupt Republican government, there would already be three bridges to nowhere named after her and we’d be talking about an Obama/Palin dream ticket.
To that end, I once again return to the original point … What has Mr. Obama achieved that elevates his own level of qualifications from the ranks of “average?”
Andrew Roman
Brooklyn, NY
written by alice Lemos , September 09, 2008
(which is code for communists) have shown their true colors time and time again. They hate small town America; they hate religion; they hate children; and yes, they especially hate special needs children because they are eugenicists who believe in survival of the fittest. They hate Governor Palin because she would not abort baby Trig or drive Bristol to the abortion clinic. That is a slap in their collective faces because life's hardhips are an "inconvenience" to be dealt with as quickly as possible. Elitists like Mr. Harris could not understand parents' sacrificing for their children or grandchildren when they could spend time in San Francisco at one of the colorful "parades" that pass for "diversity" and "tolerance". And yes, they hate women as Harris has proven.
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