The Executive Experience Canard

One of the most absurd defenses of Sarah Palin as VP nominee is that “at least she’s RUN something.” Never mind for a moment that that same charge disqualifies John McCain as it does Obama and Biden. Never mind that Palin-watchers in Alaska say she’s poor at delegating responsibility. Never mind that her experience running Wasilla resulted in a disastrous $20 million debt, mostly over a botched sports complex deal. Never mind that this “reformer” is already under state investigation for abusing her power in firing the state Public Safety Commissioner for refusing to dismiss a state trooper involved in a nasty custody dispute with Palin’s sister; and the man hired to replace the Commissioner is already charged with sexual harassment for hugging and kissing his subordinates.

No, forget all that for a moment.

Let’s assume none of that was true, and that Palin was, as her defenders insist, a squeaky-clean Governor and an expert at delegating responsibility.

Would that really matter? Is successful executive experience at the local and small-state level (even for a short time) really more indicative of an effective President of the United States than a Senator (of however much experience)?

Think, for a second, about what being an executive means.

It means you have to weigh decisions and choose between options. It means you have to delegate responsibility to people who are capable of performing the job. It means you must account for all your stakeholders and prioritize your actions accordingly. It means you must grasp the issues at stake and plan for future threats.

Executive experience is more than mere administrative competence, though that is certainly important. Executive experience implies a strong grasp of the limits and extent of the job, and the influence one has over the sphere under control. Executive experience means understanding what you CAN control, and what you CANNOT control.

If you are a CEO of a large company, that means looking after your shareholders. You put aside other issues and concerns and you look after the interests of your shareholders. If you don’t, you get fired.

If you are an entrepreneur, you must look out for how to build your business, sustain it, and grow it. You must develop the infrastructure from scratch, master your existing markets, and plan for expansion into future markets.

Whether a CEO of a big corporation, or a sole proprietor of a small business, you need more than managerial competence. You need VISION, to know what to today and what to do tomorrow.

In government, if you are mayor, you are responsible for managing the bureaucracy of city government, directing a budget, prioritizing city needs, and advancing a vision for the city down the road. That’s why mayors travel around the country so much. They get ideas about how to improve services, attract businesses, or redevelop downtowns.

If you are a governor, your job is to run the state bureaucracy, manage a state budget, appoint the appropriate people for state agencies, and plan for the future prosperity of the state.

In government, like in business, executive leadership requires VISION as well as competency.

So, how does one move up from one level to the next? Not just by showing the ability to “run things” at a lower level, but by developing and advancing a vision for how things should be run at a higher level. When mayors run for Governor, they step beyond the parochial needs of the municipality and press for a vision of the state. Here in Tennessee, for example, Phil Bredesen moved from the Mayorship of Nashville to the Governor’s Chair not just because of his management of Nashville and Davidson County. He moved up because of his plan to fix the state’s broken health program known as TennCare. He had a larger agenda that defined his Governorship.

The same, of course, is true for Governors who run for President. Yes, their competency in delegating authority and managing budgets and priorities is critical to the Presidency of the United States. But to justify the move from the State House to Washington, they must show a vision and agenda for the nation as a whole. The executive responsibilities of the Presidency are so much grander than that of any Governor, and so require an extensive vetting process where the candidate sells his or her ideas across the country and offers a specific plan to implement those ideas. It’s a big task and it often takes years.

So, does Sarah Palin’s executive experience really make her qualified to be President of the United States?

Being Governor of Alaska is perfectly fine; the sparseness of Alaska’s population doesn’t disqualify her.

Even being Governor for 18 months doesn’t totally disqualify her, though it does lessen the number of examples of her supposed executive strength.

Much more problematic is that she has never offered a VISION of the country beyond the parochial needs of Alaska.

She has literally no position on foreign policy and national security. Not wrong positions. No positions.

She has no stated positions on the economy, or ideological outlook for the role of government in managing it.

Her positions on energy policy are driven not by national needs, but by the peculiarities of Alaska. Nowhere has she suggested how those needs may transfer to the country as a whole.

She has offered no position or vision on health care, arguably THE defining issue for Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Again, she doesn’t have a “wrong” position. She has NO position beyond what is required under Alaskan law.

To be qualified to advance from one stage of managerial experience to the next, a candidate MUST demonstrate a grasp of the larger demands of the job and a vision for that job’s future. Sarah Palin’s VP rollout speech in Dayton, Ohio gave no indication of such a vision. None of her speeches up to now give any indication that she understands America’s issues beyond the concerns of Alaska. She has not even tried to make that sale.

And this is where the difference between her and Obama is so stark. Obama may not have run any governmental organization. But he HAS offered a comprehensive vision and agenda for the country. He has also created and managed one of the most professional and efficient political campaigns in recent history; he had no existing state bureaucracy to fall back on if things went sour. Agree or disagree with him, Barack Obama has spent a long time developing and advocating a larger vision for the country. Sarah Palin has not.

Sarah Palin recently suggested in an interview that she does not know what the VP does. Well, here it is. It’s to step in and serve as President of the United States if 72-year old cancer survivor John McCain is unable to serve. With no vision or understanding of what that job – or that higher one – entails, Sarah Palin is woefully unqualified to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.