Holy cats! What a weekend for politics. While Hurricane Gustav’s been dominating the news the past few days, we’ve managed to learn a few things about John McCain’s Veep pick.
I won’t spend any time focusing on what’s already known or unknown… there’re lots of places where you can get that info from people much more knowledgeable than me.
But there is one thing that stands out to me: GOP surrogates and early supporters keep trotting out with the news that Sarah Palin is the only person in the race with executive experience.
What a lot of people are forgetting is that the men at the top of the tickets have been the chief executives of their respective campaigns for the last 18 months (give or take).
One campaign has had two leadership shakeups during that time frame. It nearly ran out of money just prior to the first shake up and required some gaming of the candidate’s own legislation to resurrect the campaign. The second one occurred after the campaign failed to capitalize on a three month general election head start in the polls, in fundraising and in on-the-ground organization.
The other campaign has kept the same top team in place, month after month. The operation is often described as “a tightly run ship” and “drama free.”
One campaign, through July 31, has raised $145.6 million.
The other campaign, through July 31, has raised $339 million.
One campaign is relying on its national party organization to handle the majority of its fundraising and GOTV efforts… and only in states it feels it can be competitive. Estimates are that the campaign is talking to three hundred thousand voters a week.
The other campaign has an unprecedented field operation in nearly every state, talking to an estimated hundreds of thousands of voters every day. It relies on its national party organization only nominally, instead using its own paid and unpaid political operation to carry out fundraising and GOTV. And it built the organization from scratch.1
One campaign attached itself to an unpopular political dynasty. And now, just two months from Election Day, it’s attempting to detach itself from it.
The other campaign won control of its party by besting a well-funded, powerful, entrenched, popular and seemingly inevitable political dynasty.
And, if I can paraphrase a person whom I respect, any person who says “well its only a presidential campaign” is either missing the point and they don’t fully understand what it takes to be the head of one, or they are just simply trying to ignore it.
Don’t get me wrong, getting elected governor is a big deal and anyone who’s done the job has has a sturdy leg to stand on. But lobbing out the argument that “she’s the only one in the race who has chief executive experience” isn’t entirely truthful.
If it were, then Palin should be the person at the top of the GOP ticket… and I’ve yet to come across anyone who truly believes that’s where she belongs.
Read elesewhere
- Palin: The Core Contradiction
- Palin’s candidacy is fun to cover but raises serious questions about McCain’s judgment.
Tags: Barack Obama, John McCain, Politics, Sarah Palin
Sphere: Related Content- Just yesterday on AC360, this campaign’s candidate told Anderson Cooper his organization employs 2,500 people and has a $36 million monthly budget. [⇑]
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Thanks for the link to AC360. And thanks for laying these campaign management credentials and contrasts out so carefully. Dems are often accused of drinking “kool-aid” that colors their perspectives toward the rosy side. One wonders what the Republicans have been drinking that allows them to make such ludicrous arguments surrounding Palin’s executive experience.
The term “executive experience” is being used awfully loosely in this case. My CEO has executive experience, but I work in a company of less than 100 people. What I find disappointing about all of this as an independent is that up until this point, it looked like both parties were focusing on the issues that should be our national priorities. Early on, I knew I’d be casting my vote with the Democrats but I was undecided as to whether I wanted to choose Clinton or Obama. I started out supporting Clinton because I believed that her extensive time in Washington, both as a politician and as the First Lady gave her the experience and the history to know how to maneuver there. Then I realized that my choice was borne out of cynicism and I realized that I wanted to stick with what I knew, even recognizing that her history also brought its own baggage. I wanted to believe that it was possible that a politician could rise from the ranks of state and local government to the national level with the good of the country in mind. I believe that about Obama and I believe he’s had enough legislative experience and he’s wise enough to surround himself with the right people to lead our country and to restore a positive image of who we are.
What disappoints me most about the Palin nomination is that there is no rational explanation for it. All I’ve read from the right wing conservatives is that they’re ecstatic that she’s someone who shares their values and that is certainly a weak, weak reason to choose someone. Her positions on nearly everything are in opposition with my own, but that’s okay. This is America people are entitled to disagree about abortion, religion, gun control, etc. But these issues ought to be in the noise level of our national priorities and I have a feeling they won’t be now.
That she’s a woman and that clearly played a huge part in the decision to choose her seems patronizing and offensive to me. But that those issues are likely to become the focus of discussion,
I was hoping that just maybe during this election, our country could show the rest of the world that we’re capable of turning our disastrous foreign policies and relationships around, but I fear this move just makes us look ridiculous.
@Sadie: At this point I’m not certain the GOP knows the recipe for Kool-Aid.
@Lisa: I hear you on the the seeming absence of rationale. Hell, I don’t even see any indication there was any thought at all. As many others before me have said, if they really wanted to choose a woman there’re about a half dozen nationally known in the GOP more qualified than Sarah Palin. If it was a game-changer he was looking for, why not choose Meg Whitman?
I really waffled on whether or not to let this post into the wild… mostly because Obama is still perceived as having an experience gap. But then I read the following from David Frum (h/t Andrew Sullivan):
The rest of the piece is quite good and I suggest reading it all. In any case, after reading that excerpt, I felt pretty good about the post.
The question, then, about experience evaporates and that brings us back to judgment. If this is the way John McCain runs his campaign, do we really want him running our country?
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