Decius wrote:

flynn23 wrote:
Comparing her to Obama strictly on the level of experience and she wins.

To be perfectly clear, I am talking about comparisons of their overall qualifications for the Presidency...

If you were hiring a business manager, perhaps you might prefer Palin. Obama is a lawyer and like most lawyers has not had large organizations reporting to him. Palin clearly does have more time in an executive role. But thats not what we're doing here. Furthermore, just about any executive at a medium to large sized company anywhere in America would beat out Palin for executive experience. They are not all qualified to be President of the United States. The question is, what qualifies a person to be President.

Chiefly, the President of the United States is responsible for making policy decisions, which is not merely a matter of operational experience in an executive role, but a matter of understanding the long term implications of those decisions and the complicated legal and political context in which they will play out. This requires a deep understanding of our country and of world affairs.

I'll disagree here. Obama's CV looks more expensive but not necessarily more relevant. Yes, being PUSA includes making big sweeping long term policy decisions (ahem... hopefully for the positive benefit of a majority of the populace). But execution is what the President's role in our form of government really is about. That's the reason why it's called the Chief Executive. So yes, there is some strategic leadership needed, but primarily that's the person who is most responsible for building consensus around very specific legislation and getting that converted into law. It's very much like the CEO job of a company. And the closest comparables in public service are governor and mayor. Something Palin has and Obama does not. Besides, you can't have effective understanding of long term implications if you have not actually operated what the hell you are altering.

Those jobs preside over many functions to make a cohesive government work. They work with both elected and appointed officers. They have to cooperate with other sovereign entities, some lower in hierarchy, some greater.

Being a lawyer does not compare. Being a lawyer is all about persuasion. Even as a constitutional prof and editor of a research publication, your job doesn't even come close to what it means to work with those kinds of dynamics. It means you read a lot, think a lot, and have to speak with persuasive authority. It doesn't mean you get shit done.

In fact, I would say that you have less of a chance of seeing what impact your decision making ability has. What's the feedback for being a professor? What's the feedback of being an editor? You might get a failed student or a poor review or some op-ed critique. Fuck up as a governor or mayor and you've got REAL CITIZENS breathing down your neck, to make nothing of the councils and state legislatures that you have to deal with.

As for whether it's a valid comparison between Obama and Palin, I think it definitely is. She could conceivably be the PUSA this term, or at least get set up to run in 2012. I found it ironic that Stephen Colbert parodied this by suggesting the ticket should be Palin/Romney. Indeed.

All that being said, I think that the ticket for this election is about as disappointing as '04. At least '04 had Edwards on the ticket. Someone who actually gives a shit about how the greatest and most wealthy nation in the history of humanity can have poor and starving citizens. I think that if it was Dean/Edwards, that would've won. It's sad to me that someone like Dean has decided to stop fighting and simply take a position as coordinator of the fraud.

It is admirable that a black male has the nomination. It is admirable that a female nearly had it. It is admirable that a female has a shot at being elected to such a supreme office. But like I said earlier in the thread, I think those are apparitions, not indications that America has come to some kind of awakening or crossed some kind of threshold. It's more a symptom of how bad things are and how desperate we're getting to make us FEEL as though we actually have a shot at making something good happen. In another era, it would've been Claudius.

If anything, it's more proof that the system does not give a fuck about where we are going. NONE of these people truly have what it takes to level with the people and tell us that we're in for some really hard times and difficult choices, but if we want to preserve the ideal that the US is supposed to represent, that's what's necessary to put us back as an example of what humanity can ultimately aspire to.

RE: The election is basically over.