Further sign of conservatives unhappy about Palin

While Powerline declined to mention Sarah Palin’s less than impressive interview with Katie Couric, this morning Paul of Powerline, who has expressed some quiet doubts about Palin from the start, made a very tough comment, not just about Palin, but about McCain’s judgment in choosing her::

Tonight we’ll see if Sarah Palin, without the assistance of thinking and talking about the full range of issues for an extended period of time, can come across as knowledgeable during a debate. I offer no predictions about this. But I do predict that if Palin fails to come across that way, voters will be understandably reluctant to forgive John McCain for putting her on the ticket.

Paul also writes:

Sarah Palin’s fans have had a ready response to those who criticize her addition to the ticket on grounds of inexperience: she has, they say, as much or more relevant experience as Barack Obama.

This argument has considerable merit. However, it overlooks the fact that over the past year and a half Obama the candidate has been thinking and talking about the full range of policy issues that are expected to confront the next president. Palin, by virtue of her status as a new governor and non-candidate, has not been doing this.

This was the key point in my September 16 article, “Why experience matters in a vice presidential nominee.” After indicating that virtually all the vice presidential nominees since World War II have been U.S. senators or had similar experience, I wrote:

A presidential nominee has prepared for a presidential campaign, has studied the relevant issues enough to articulate and take positions on them, has constructed his own platform, and has spent at least a year running for president, during which time he is presenting himself to the country as a prospective president. A governor with significant experience in state government, but with no national experience, supplies the lack in the very act of preparing for his candidacy and being a candidate.

With the vice presidential nominee there is generally no such preparation. In modern times, the VP nominee is simply chosen by the presumptive presidential nominee, often just a few weeks or even just a few days before the nominating convention. He has not spent months developing his candidacy and offering himself as a national leader. Therefore it seems obligatory that vice presidential nominees be individuals who already have had substantial background and experience in national issues. Who better fits the bill than a U.S. senator (or, second best, a congressman), whose job consists in studying, taking stands on, and debating national and foreign policy questions?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at October 02, 2008 09:20 PM | Send