It's not just the experience. As Ed pointed out, there have been excellent statemen with little experience and terrible ones with huge experience. It's probably more the impression someone makes. I don't have a strong preference for either McCain or Obama myself, but if I compare Obama and *Palin*, Obama sure makes a much much better presidential impression, in intelligence, depth, charisma, and statemanship.

Yes, they're impressions, but apparently many people have the same impressions as I do. But who knows, maybe Palin would rise to the occasion and make a fine US president. It seems quite a gamble though.

As far as the Evangelical component: in principle I think you can have a strong president who's also a Born-Again Christian. However, if that president also believes in the imminent End of the World and actually models his/her foreign policy accordingly, then I become very very nervous...
BTW both presidents I know of who were outspoken Born-Again Christians (Carter and W Bush) weren't exactly the strongest presidents in US history...

Sounds like I could make a fortune with a novel about the Unbearable Lightness of Palin's Being...

I think it's much simpler.

She hunts: liberals have been brainwashed to fear both hunting and firearms. Hmm, hunting is good: better for some of the darling doe-eyed Bambis to be shot, than for all of them to starve (via overpopulation). Firearms--even better: they are used positively by more good people than negatively by bad people. Legally armed citizens save lives and deter crime, armed police preserve law and order, and the military preserve all of us. But oh, sorry, there I go again, asking liberals to think.

She has both a career AND a family. Brings to mind that old commercial jingle for, what was it, Anjoulie (spelling?) perfume?--"I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and never never never let you forget you're a man!" Her constituents mostly like her. Her husband is solidly behind her--no desperate housewife here. And she looks pretty good for 44. Damn, no wonder liberal women hate her!

She has been demonized. This is what liberals do when they have no arguments, and they rarely have any arguments to put forth.

Palin represents small-town America, with the typical attitudes of someone from the part of America they disdainfully refer to "fly-over country". For liberals, she can't possibly be right. She didn't go to an elite school, she isn't an intellectual, nor does she even attempt to pose as one. She stands for the kind of America which liberals see in a one-dimensional way, the kind of America which they imagine is uniformly backward, repressive, and regressive. They prefer glitter, surface polish, facile sophistication--and better yet an in-your-face decadence. They'd like her better if she was tattood, divorced, shooting up with Amy Winehouse, and slutting around like Angelina Jolie; if she at least did one hot porn flick like Paris Hilton, or maybe took up aging teenager Hugh Hefner on his offer to show the world her airbrushed fur and morning dew. But no, she stays stubbornly faithful to that, that, oohhh gawd awful MONOGAMY!! For liberals, she can't even pick the right good cause to support--in chorus, I can hear them screaming, "No, Sarah, not special needs kids, talk about The Vagina Monologues and how all men are rapists at heart!" Or she could at least adopt a baby from an approved Third World country, but nooooo! Instead she has the kind of child they say they'd keep, but would abort the instant they got the news from the doctor. To them, she's frightening--ergo, hopeless.

Clearly, for libs, this woman just...isn't...you know, umm...presidential!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"The Institute assumed it might be wise
Not to expect too much from paradise"

--Nabokov, Pale Fire

Way to go with the straw man arguments, Combo_Kid... In case you missed them a few days ago, here are my reasons for not wanting Sarah Palin to be VP:



I'm not thinking that your last comment was addressed to me specifically but you're welcome to try and re-assure me about Palin if you like.

I've often said that the Presidency is basically a beauty contest. And you're seeming to confirm that here. It's not really about Experience vs. Inexperience, it's about how they come across. The image they project. The confidence they inspire. Or don't inspire.

I just find it ironic that Palin is losing a beauty contest.

I once had a friend who insisted that in every Presidential election, the taller candidate had won. I don't know if she was right about that. I know Harrison and Cleveland each beat the other, so were they equally tall? And I don't know why it should matter in the days before TV coverage. And I know that if it was true when she said it, it sure isn't true any more, since Bush beat Kerry. But I do know that it's almost always the case.

You know the story about the Nixon-Kennedy debate, I'm sure, where the radio listeners thought Nixon won, but the TV viewers thought Kennedy won because Nixon looked unshaven. This stuff really does matter.

Hey, Combo_Kid, *excellent* post!!


Chess Fan

These "liberals" you speak of surely sound like weird people. Do you know a single person who actually thinks the things above? Or are you erecting a straw man the size of the Empire State Building?

A more interesting quetion: what is your opinion on the presidentiability(?) of Sarah Palin?

Yeah, I think so. Especially with two new candidates. If one candidate is the sitting President you can actually take his performance in the last 4 years into account, but here noone knows who will actually perform best when it counts, so you have to take a stab at it.

And, SachBinger, what is your opinion on the "presidentiability" of Barack Obama?


Chess Fan

Well, it's mostly based on impressions (and I watch very little TV, so most imrpessions I get are via the newspapers), but here's my take on both candidates (their capabilities, not their standpoints):

Obama: intelligent, well-spoken, well-organized, relatively "clean" fighter.
McCain: very brave, determined, principled, not averse to taking risks.

I think both are presidential material. I have a slight preference to Obama's seemingly more distantiated attitude over McCain's seemingly more emotional and gambling one.

I don't know too much about Biden, but what I saw sofar looked not too strong: a clip where he said people watched President Roosevelt on their TV's during the 1929 crash (the TV could have been a joke, but Roosevelt!?).
Palin didn't make a strong impression, because she hasn't been able to clearly articulate her standpoints on a number of issues that a President should have a standpoint on. No doubt she can learn, and maybe everything will turn out all right, but she certainly seems a weak candidate at this moment.

To summarize: two good presidential candidates, two weak VP candidates. All this the impressions of someone far away in Europe.

BTW, I have a feeling that the polls are not to be trusted, and that the Election itself will be very close with McCain a very possible victor.

So what do you think about Palin's capacities for President (not her standpoints)?

Well, the feeling that I have at this moment is that this 2008 Presidential election is heading towards a possible Obama landslide.


Palin has executive experience, (being governor of Alaska.)

Obama has no executive experience of any kind that I am aware of.

SachBinger, how can you say that Sarah Palin is not qualified enough to be the President, and, in the same vein, you DO think that Barack Obama is qualified enough to be the President??

That makes NO sense at all to me!


Chess Fan