Friday, August 29, 2008

Is She Experienced?   [Ramesh Ponnuru]

An email from one of my regular correspondents:

I think [NRO’s editors] got it right: not pretending that we don’t wish that she had been governor longer or that it isn’t a problem for the McCain campaign, but putting the issue in perspective. Here’s another way of looking at it. McCain and Palin have different and complementary kinds of experience. He has the foreign-policy experience and she has the executive experience. She had more executive experience than Obama and Biden put together when she was still mayor! And the ticket combines their strengths appropriately, unlike the Democrats, who put their most experienced guy on the bottom. One other thing, we should probably stop talking about “experience” so much as “accomplishments.” She beats the top of their ticket on that too.

One thing that strikes me now that I’ve had time to nap on the plane from Denver: The Biden pick may have shored up Obama’s weaknesses but did not do much to reinforce Obama’s strengths. Palin reinforces McCain’s reformer, anti-corruption, and maverick themes. In that sense among others it was a less defensive choice than the one Obama made.

08/29 06:35 PMShare