“Obama has spent the past year and a half running a large organization — as of last December, it had “about 500 employees and a budget of $100 million” — and running it very well.”

I actually agree with Chriswww on this one. Obama showed me something with his leadership and management of his campaign. It was and is extraordinary. Obama's management skills were validated by this experience. Of course, it pales in comparison to the $6.6 Billion dollar budget and 10s of thousands of employees for the State of Alaska that were managed by Sarah Palin over the same time period (with an 80% approval rating from here constituents). But it is a very good start.

When this campaign started, one of my biggest questions about Barack Obama was whether he would be any good at managing things. The President is, after all, the head of a very large organization, and he had better either have good management skills or hire a chief of staff who does. The fact that I didn't know whether Obama had them didn't prevent me from voting for him — none of the other candidates I might have supported had a track record in management either — but I would have been happier had I known whether Obama was any good at running things.

I don't have that problem any more. Obama has spent the past year and a half running a large organization — as of last December, it had “about 500 employees and a budget of $100 million” — and running it very well. It's not just that he and his team beat the Clinton campaign, which started out with enormous advantages. It's not even that he often did so by building effective political machines from scratch in states in which Clinton had locked down the political establishment. It's that every account of the Obama campaign that I've read makes it clear that he has done an outstanding job of constructing and running a political organization.

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2…

And displaying the time frame of holding office as governor as 2006-2008 also shows an attempt to prop up a weak argument because in fact she took office in January of 2007 and using the “year format” with the long year is an attempt to imply two full years of experience and maybe even a touch more instead of a few months shy of two full years. It's an attempt to color perception.

Barack Obama: 12 years of elected government service, including 4 years in Washington, D.C. and 0 years as an executive decision maker. (1997-2004 Illinois State Senator, 2004-2008 Junior US Senator from Illinois)

Overall, the levels of government experience are very similar. Palin’s edge is her experience as an executive decision maker. Obama’s edge is, “knowing the ropes,” in Washington, D.C. But both candidates have very thin resumes and would be doing a lot of, “on the job,” training.

This election should really have been the Hillary-Obama ticket versus the McCain-Palin ticket. Obama and Palin are both impressive rising stars, each in their own party, but neither is ready for the oval office. Despite the need to, “be ready just in case,” it is likely that the person on the bottom of the ticket will have time for learning what is needed before ever having to sit in the hot seat. But the person at the top of the ticket has to be ready on Day One. And now only John McCain can credibly claim that ability.

“Palin has no judgment or vision to critique…” – chris

Oh. My understanding is that 80% of the people of Alaska – who know her best – disagree. But I guess I should accept that because … um… you say so?

Give me a break!

Obama supporters spent all year banging away about judgment taking precedence over experience. But then they criticize a selection of a Governor of a state for lack of experience? When she has more executive experience than Obama?

Experience? Really?

Give me a break!

McCain spent all summer banging away about experience. But then he picked a Veep who was mayor of a small town two years ago!

Good judgment?

This is the thing that the Obama supporters don’t get: You can’t attack Palin’s experience without calling attention to Obama’s. The discussion always always always invokes a comparison between Obama’s experience (POTUS candidate) and Palin’s experience (VP candidate). Exactly like we see in this post comparing Obama to Palin.

There is no way to come away from that discussion without concluding that there is just not that much difference in experience. Even if you look at it and conclude that Obama has marginal more experience than Palin, Obama loses. Because guess who is not even in the argument? The Republican candidate for President of the United States.

I was watching this dynamic all day on the cable news shows with Obama supporters arguing passionately that Obama has more experience than Palin. I kept busting out laughing. The Obama supporters just don’t get it.

So I guess this is what we are going to hear for the next two months. Obama supporters explaining how much more experience their presidential candidate has than the Republican VP candidate. I don’t know if McCain could possibly have anticipated that this is how the pick would play out, but if he did – he’s a friggin’ political genius.

While Palin was taking on corruption in Alaska, Barak Obama was giving a speech. While Palin was running a city and then a governor, Barak Obama was campaigning for the house and the Senate and the presidency of the US>

Im afraid she is a better choice for president then is Barak Obama. I think Hilary said it best. I think Joe Biden says it best.

Barak Obama is not ready to lead this country. I stand by that comment………..

So I guess you could say there's hope for the GOP yet.