Is Sarah Palin qualified to be President of the United States?

[TheWildCard]

Still, the VP is far from the President's only adviser and not all administrations function how we like to think the Bush-Cheney admin. functions. We also all probably know McCain and at the end of the day McCain is going to do what McCain is going to do, regardless of what anyone thinks that is why so many Democrats have liked him in the past. Also, I tend to believe that when you have an inexperienced candidate running for President it is almost necessary that someone with experience is chosen. When the person on the top of the ticket has lots of experience in office he can pick someone with experience or without experience, it isn't a necessity.

Agreed. Which is a large part of why I think that Biden and Palin were ultimately picked. Each one helps shore up that candidate's weakness.

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It doesn't completely let him off the hook, but are you really saying that there is no presumption that the VP is supposed to be someone who is ready to step into the numero uno slot if necessary? In making this pick, McCain is, at least to some extent, denigrating the value of experience within his own judgment. He must feel that, while experience may be a plus, it is not absolutely necessary to have more experience than Palin does.

I will agree. To some, very minor, extent he is lessening the value of experience. But it is far from placing less or equal value on experience than the Obama/Biden ticket does.

Although it is funny that 99% of the time we all agree that the VP means nothing and here we are today having 20+ page conversations about them. Quite amusing.

We are converging toward agreement. The Obama/Biden ticket clearly places relatively more value on change.

Yes, I agree. Though, Biden isn't necessarily the type who screams change due to his vast experience in congress. My biggest issue with Obama is that he always mentions change but I do not see it on his track record. Yes you can point to his work in Chicago. I can point to McCain leading the gang of 7 and his all around Maverick status. Yes, you can point out the success of Obama's campaign and I again can point to the fact that winning elections is no more a good indicator of who will be a good President than flipping a coin as we've seen in previous elections (Carter from my party's perspective and W. the your's).

But all of that is neither here nor there in this thread and I'm getting off topic.

Anyway, glad to see that we pretty much agree or disagree only slightly as the case might be.

The gang of 14 doesn't mean much to me when McCain has said that he would kick off half the current Supreme Court for not being sufficiently conservative, and his models are conservative activists like Roberts and Alito.

As for his all around maverick status, he disagrees with his party on a few significant issues. But he agrees with them 80-90% of the time (and he's had a lot longer to find points of disagreement).

And Obama also disagrees with his party's two other nominees on some important issues, such as faith based initiatives, taxes and health care mandates. To me Obama's change represents a few things (1) change within the Democrats- away from the old interest group politics and the battles of the 60s (2) change within the country- electing a guy who has only been in Washington for 4 years and is still basically an outsider and running on very different policies.

In the end I guess its whose policies you agree with more. You basically have a conservative Republican vs a liberal Democrat. The differences are huge, but I think most Americans are looking for a new direction.

I could write a long response but I don't want to hijack the thread. I will agree with you that it depends on what kind of change America wants.

[Beet]

Still, the VP is far from the President's only adviser and not all administrations function how we like to think the Bush-Cheney admin. functions. We also all probably know McCain and at the end of the day McCain is going to do what McCain is going to do, regardless of what anyone thinks that is why so many Democrats have liked him in the past. Also, I tend to believe that when you have an inexperienced candidate running for President it is almost necessary that someone with experience is chosen. When the person on the top of the ticket has lots of experience in office he can pick someone with experience or without experience, it isn't a necessity.

Agreed. Which is a large part of why I think that Biden and Palin were ultimately picked. Each one helps shore up that candidate's weakness.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

It doesn't completely let him off the hook, but are you really saying that there is no presumption that the VP is supposed to be someone who is ready to step into the numero uno slot if necessary? In making this pick, McCain is, at least to some extent, denigrating the value of experience within his own judgment. He must feel that, while experience may be a plus, it is not absolutely necessary to have more experience than Palin does.

I will agree. To some, very minor, extent he is lessening the value of experience. But it is far from placing less or equal value on experience than the Obama/Biden ticket does.

Although it is funny that 99% of the time we all agree that the VP means nothing and here we are today having 20+ page conversations about them. Quite amusing.

We are converging toward agreement. The Obama/Biden ticket clearly places relatively more value on change.

Yes, I agree. Though, Biden isn't necessarily the type who screams change due to his vast experience in congress. My biggest issue with Obama is that he always mentions change but I do not see it on his track record. Yes you can point to his work in Chicago. I can point to McCain leading the gang of 7 and his all around Maverick status. Yes, you can point out the success of Obama's campaign and I again can point to the fact that winning elections is no more a good indicator of who will be a good President than flipping a coin as we've seen in previous elections (Carter from my party's perspective and W. the your's).

But all of that is neither here nor there in this thread and I'm getting off topic.

Anyway, glad to see that we pretty much agree or disagree only slightly as the case might be.

The gang of 14 doesn't mean much to me when McCain has said that he would kick off half the current Supreme Court for not being sufficiently conservative, and his models are conservative activists like Roberts and Alito.

As for his all around maverick status, he disagrees with his party on a few significant issues. But he agrees with them 80-90% of the time (and he's had a lot longer to find points of disagreement).

And Obama also disagrees with his party's two other nominees on some important issues, such as faith based initiatives, taxes and health care mandates. To me Obama's change represents a few things (1) change within the Democrats- away from the old interest group politics and the battles of the 60s (2) change within the country- electing a guy who has only been in Washington for 4 years and is still basically an outsider and running on very different policies.

In the end I guess its whose policies you agree with more. You basically have a conservative Republican vs a liberal Democrat. The differences are huge, but I think most Americans are looking for a new direction.

I could write a long response but I don't want to hijack the thread. I will agree with you that it depends on what kind of change America wants.

That's not what I was saying. I think one represents real change, while the other wants people to think he will represent real change, but a couple years will disabuse that notion. Ok.... must... stop... responding.

[cinyc]

Less than 2 years ago Palin was the mayor of a small town.

This Democrat talking point is wrong.  Governor Palin was mayor of Wasilla from 1996-2002.  After losing the Lt. Governor's race in 2002, she was named to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2003.  She served on that commission until 2004, when she resigned in protest over another member's ethical issues. 

Sarah Palin was elected Governor in 2006.  So two years ago to this date, she was in the private sector, running for Governor of Alaska.  "Less than 2 years ago" (after December 4), she WAS Governor of Alaska.

[bgwah]

To answer the question...No! Of course she isn't qualified. Like John McCain and just about every other Republican on the planet, she is totally and completely unqualified for the Presidency.

[KeyKeeper]

OK, but being a Senate is very different then being a Governor. A Governor is just like a President, but at a local level.

So any executive is more qualified than a legislator to be president or vice president?  That would make Palin more qualified than McCain as well.

Please, don't take my words and twist them around. I have clearly said before she isn't qualified, yet become president. All I was saying is a Governor has to deal with more issues that a President would have to deal with, then a Senator would.

[angus]

and that will only be amplified for someone who comes from a rural area in a remote part of the globe.

hur, hur, hur. rUralz aRe sTupId!!!!11111

Au contraire.  The country mouse is often ridiculed by his city cousin for not knowing that he needs to buy tokens before attempting to board a subway, or for nearly getting killed by not crossing the street with the lights, but rural folks are not significantly less informed than urban ones.  They're just informed about different things.  For example, Nobel laureate Ernest Rutherford was a potato farmer's son from New Zealand.  He was ridiculed as a grad student at Cambridge for his rustic ways and slow New Zealand twang.  But he continued his steadfast arguments against dandy Trinity College physicist, Sir J. J. Thomson, who was convinced that that electrons were dispersed in a positive medium like plums in a pudding.  Rutherford had proposed a "nuclear" model, in which most of the mass of the atom was concentrated in a positive core called the "nucleus" while the electrons were sparse and fuzzy and existed at the perimeter.  To settle the debates, Rutherford directed alpha particles onto a thin gold foil and observed that a small percentage of particles were deflected through angles much larger than 90 degrees.  To dandy, urbane Thompson's thinking, it was as though he had fired a cannonball at a piece of toilet tissue and the cannonball had richocheted!  Not only did New Zealand potato-farmer hick Ernest Rutherford settle the debate about the structure of the atom, but he also calculated the charge on the gold nucleus, paving the way for the modern arrangement of the periodic table of the elements in order of increasing atomic number.  (Mendeleev's original table had them in order of increasing atomic "weight.")  Rutherford was reported to have exclaimed, "That's the last potato I'll ever pick!" when he heard the news that he'd been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

[Gustaf]

Many of you have gotten it all wrong. See, what matters isn't really experience, but JUDGEMENT. To name just one key difference between Biden and Palin - Biden voted in favour of the Iraq war, Palin didn't. What else do you need to know, really?

[Beet]

Many of you have gotten it all wrong. See, what matters isn't really experience, but JUDGEMENT. To name just one key difference between Biden and Palin - Biden voted in favour of the Iraq war, Palin didn't. What else do you need to know, really?

Har har. Very funny. Of course, did Palin say "I don't oppose all wars, only dumb wars" back in 2002? Heh.

[Lief 🗽]

Many of you have gotten it all wrong. See, what matters isn't really experience, but JUDGEMENT. To name just one key difference between Biden and Palin - Biden voted in favour of the Iraq war, Palin didn't. What else do you need to know, really?

As of 2007, Palin didn't even have an opinion on the Iraq War. What a maverick.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Many of you have gotten it all wrong. See, what matters isn't really experience, but JUDGEMENT. To name just one key difference between Biden and Palin - Biden voted in favour of the Iraq war, Palin didn't. What else do you need to know, really?

As of 2007, Palin didn't even have an opinion on the Iraq War. What a maverick.

Yeah, that kind of fails. Obama gave a speech against the Iraq war before it started. Palin doesn't have a record here.

[Ogre Mage]

The fact is Gov. Palin would be a much better President then Sen. Clinton.

Hillary Clinton:

--Received 17.5-18 million votes for President in the Democratic Primary.

Apparently, that's a good reason as to why someone would be a better President.

George W. Bush received three million more votes than John Kerry did in 2004. Do you think he has been a better President than Kerry would have been?

Bush doesn't have anything to do with a comparison of Clinton and Palin.  The votes Clinton received are a measure of how well she was able to persuade people to commit to where she wanted to go as President.  A direct comparison cannot be made with Palin because Palin did not run in the Republican Primary, but her non-participation is not a point in her favor in terms of her readiness for the Presidency.  If Palin ran, I believe she would have been considered a joke.  If you think otherwise, please explain.

Do you think Palin is more qualified to be President that Clinton?  I would like to see how long Sarah would last in a Presidential debate with Hillary.

[Keystone Phil]

Do you think Palin is more qualified to be President that Clinton?  I would like to see how long Sarah would last in a Presidential debate with Hillary.

Hillary Clinton has been a U.S. Senator for six years. Do I think she has more experience? Sure. Is it as much as people make it out to be? No.

I would like to see how long she would last, too. I love how much you people underestimate this woman. Keep doing it.

[Ogre Mage]

Do you think Palin is more qualified to be President that Clinton?  I would like to see how long Sarah would last in a Presidential debate with Hillary.

Hillary Clinton has been a U.S. Senator for six years. Do I think she has more experience? Sure. Is it as much as people make it out to be? No.

I would like to see how long she would last, too. I love how much you people underestimate this woman. Keep doing it.

Hillary Clinton has been a senator for 8 years.  She was elected in 2000.

[Keystone Phil]

Do you think Palin is more qualified to be President that Clinton?  I would like to see how long Sarah would last in a Presidential debate with Hillary.

Hillary Clinton has been a U.S. Senator for six years. Do I think she has more experience? Sure. Is it as much as people make it out to be? No.

I would like to see how long she would last, too. I love how much you people underestimate this woman. Keep doing it.

Hillary Clinton has been a senator for 8 years.  She was elected in 2000.

Technically a Senator for seven and a half years. 

Yeah, it was a typo on my part.

[angus]

Palin doesn't have a record here.

That's really the point, though, isn't it?  It's not as though McCain needs to pick a serious neocon power projectionist to convince the electorate that he's hawkish enough for Yankee-style imperialism.  In fact, it was Obama, not McCain, that needed a foreign policy expert/defense hawk to balance his own perceived weaknesses.  McCain needed a cultural conservative, a ceiling-crasher, and somebody with a twig up his ass about corruption and profligate spending.  Seems that they both chose fairly well in those regards. 

of the four, Biden, Palin, McCain, and Obama, McCain's the only one who comes close to not being qualified.  But even he's qualified since he was born before the Carter administration.  And since no one, Democrat or Republican, wants to be the one to have to tell every military family that their children can’t be president if they take an overseas assignment while said children are in utero.

I still say it's the presidential candidate that matters, not the VP.  Whatever states Obama wins he does so no matter his second.  Same for McCain.  Just my two cents.

[NDN]

Hillary Clinton has been a U.S. Senator for six years. Do I think she has more experience? Sure. Is it as much as people make it out to be? No.

I would like to see how long she would last, too. I love how much you people underestimate this woman. Keep doing it.

I find it hilarious that so many Obama supporters are complaining about how inexperienced this woman is. Then I realize they're not being ironic and I throw up.

[Gustaf]

Many of you have gotten it all wrong. See, what matters isn't really experience, but JUDGEMENT. To name just one key difference between Biden and Palin - Biden voted in favour of the Iraq war, Palin didn't. What else do you need to know, really?

As of 2007, Palin didn't even have an opinion on the Iraq War. What a maverick.

Yeah, that kind of fails. Obama gave a speech against the Iraq war before it started. Palin doesn't have a record here.

IMO, not having a record shows excellent judgement in politics. But this is not limited to the Iraq war. I'm sure there are thousands of bills where Biden didn't vote like I think he should have and none where Palin did it. So I'm pretty sure she shares my opinions on most vital issues.











(Btw, kudos to Beet for getting it...but doesn't your quote indicate opposition to the Afghanistan war?)

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Many of you have gotten it all wrong. See, what matters isn't really experience, but JUDGEMENT. To name just one key difference between Biden and Palin - Biden voted in favour of the Iraq war, Palin didn't. What else do you need to know, really?

As of 2007, Palin didn't even have an opinion on the Iraq War. What a maverick.

Yeah, that kind of fails. Obama gave a speech against the Iraq war before it started. Palin doesn't have a record here.

IMO, not having a record shows excellent judgement in politics. But this is not limited to the Iraq war. I'm sure there are thousands of bills where Biden didn't vote like I think he should have and none where Palin did it. So I'm pretty sure she shares my opinions on most vital issues.

By that argument, I'm as equally qualified as Palin to be Vice President.

[Gustaf]

Many of you have gotten it all wrong. See, what matters isn't really experience, but JUDGEMENT. To name just one key difference between Biden and Palin - Biden voted in favour of the Iraq war, Palin didn't. What else do you need to know, really?

As of 2007, Palin didn't even have an opinion on the Iraq War. What a maverick.

Yeah, that kind of fails. Obama gave a speech against the Iraq war before it started. Palin doesn't have a record here.

IMO, not having a record shows excellent judgement in politics. But this is not limited to the Iraq war. I'm sure there are thousands of bills where Biden didn't vote like I think he should have and none where Palin did it. So I'm pretty sure she shares my opinions on most vital issues.

By that argument, I'm as equally qualified as Palin to be Vice President.

I know! It's an awesome way of thinking if you're looking for a way to fall in line with your flock without having to think too much!

[Sbane]

Many of you have gotten it all wrong. See, what matters isn't really experience, but JUDGEMENT. To name just one key difference between Biden and Palin - Biden voted in favour of the Iraq war, Palin didn't. What else do you need to know, really?

As of 2007, Palin didn't even have an opinion on the Iraq War. What a maverick.

Yeah, that kind of fails. Obama gave a speech against the Iraq war before it started. Palin doesn't have a record here.

IMO, not having a record shows excellent judgement in politics. But this is not limited to the Iraq war. I'm sure there are thousands of bills where Biden didn't vote like I think he should have and none where Palin did it. So I'm pretty sure she shares my opinions on most vital issues.

By that argument, I'm as equally qualified as Palin to be Vice President.

I know! It's an awesome way of thinking if you're looking for a way to fall in line with your flock without having to think too much!

Gustaf, Obama was a state senator back in 2002 with obvious intentions for higher office(senator). Thus the fact that he spoke up against the war is actually significant.

[Lunar]

Well, sbane, it's an easy decision when all you have to do is win a Democratic primary in Illinois to become elected.  I doubt Durbin sat down and thought about it too long when he opposed it.  The area that he was representing in the state senate was quite liberal and anti-war too, he might have lost his senate seat if he went hawk.

I can't remember the exact year that the Illinois GOP fell apart, it was before 2003, right?