Palin In Comparison

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, chosen by Republican nominee John McCain to be his vice president, is proving to be a big hit. She has so far manage to quell any doubts about her experience and is picking up, not necessarily in any order or importance: women, middle-class voters, conservative voters and (who would have thought)change voters. Any garden-variety political scientist will tell you that it is very difficult for an incumbent party (read: Republicans in 2008) to run on change, especially when the incumbents(read: Republicans in 2008), in the public's mind, have done such a poor job of straightening out the country. Although McCain cannot sell the change-agent story (he has been in Washington for almost three decades)Palin CAN. She is a new face on the national scene, even though she has no "Washington" experience. Indeed, there are several ways to slice and dice the experience argument. On the one hand, one might say she only governed the small state of Alaska, but it would depend on what you meant by the word "small". Alaska has about the same number of people as her competitor Joe Biden's state of Delaware. And, you can fit about 250 Delawares inside one Alaska! In addition, the GOP has gone out of its way to tell Americans Palin got more votes running for Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska and Governor of Alaska than Biden did when he was running for president. Where are we headed with all this? Probably some prime tv-time interviews for Palin in the next few days, when she will have to answer some tough questions about a variety of issues; we will see how she holds up. September 26th: first presidential debate. Stay tuned.

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