From the American Spectator:
But does Palin have the experience to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency? Palin has been an elected public official since 1992, five years longer than Obama, who first took office as a state legislator in 1997. She has executive experience as a former mayor, and by January, she will have served as a Governor for two years, compared to 4 years in the U.S. Senate for Obama, who has never had any executive experience. (Jimmy Carter was a one-term Governor from Georgia for just four years, and the liberals never doubted his qualifications).
Palin has had a stellar record as Governor that has won her an 80% approval rating. Besides cutting taxes and spending, Palin has already led a multistate agency to win approval and construction for a new pipeline that will bring more natural gas to the lower 48 states, and consequently help lower prices. She has also led an anti-corruption campaign that took on senior officials in her own party. After fingering the Republican state party chairman for ethics violations, she beat in a primary challenge the incumbent Republican governor who tried to cover up the violations. She then went on to defeat a former Democrat Governor in the general election.
In sharp contrast, Obama declined to join challenges to the Chicago Democrat political machine. Instead, he curried favor with the machine, and he won his elections with its support. Obama's former fundraiser Tony Rezko, now in prison, was a party machine man, not an ethics reformer. Obama's legislative record is meager, as he has mostly tried to claim credit for non-controversial initiatives that he supported along with almost everyone else.
PALIN HAS BEEN CRITICIZED as lacking any foreign policy experience, a trait she shares equally with Obama. But as a consistent conservative, she surely understands that diplomacy offers no hope if not backed up by a strong military option. By contrast, can we really trust the consistently left-wing Obama on maintaining our national defense? This is the man who has said that as President he would phase out our nuclear deterrent, a point to be revisited in a future column.
In any event, Palin surely does not entertain the again child-like notion advanced by Obama that he could talk a murderous dictator like Ahmadinejad out of the mass genocide he promises for Israelis or the severe terrorist threat he poses for our own nation. Sound positions on these critical issues are far more important than experience.
But the key decisive factor on the experience question has been overlooked. Palin is running for Vice President. Obama is running for President. Before Palin ever becomes President, she will have served as Vice President of the United States for quite some time. At that point, she will have far superior experience than Obama has today.
