Mrs. Palin goes to Washington

Having lived my life in film, I can’t help comparing this story to the one about the Senator from Montana.

Supposedly this is going to help the Obama campaign. Now he can say, “hey, she’s even less experienced than I am.” That should be a winner.

I’m with Tyler Cowen on this experience thing:

Rightly or wrongly, many American voters will view Palin's stint as mayor of small town, her background in sports, her role in a beauty contest (yes), her trials raising teenage children, and her decision to stick with her principles and have a Downs Syndrome baby as all very valuable and relevant forms of experience. The more the word "experience" is repeated, no matter what the context, the more it will hurt Obama.

Actually, I think rightly. Do Obama supporters think that Senators get better experience?  Well here's the voice of that experience.

The real question comes down to judgment, which will be revealed one way or the other in the debates and the stress of the campaign.  Maybe she'll even get to make a speech like this. 

Comments

[Garett Jones]

I've worked in the U.S. Senate a little, and for years I've said that small-town mayor is better preparation for the Presidency than time in the Senate.

Why? Because in the Senate, you give speeches and vote, but as a mayor you have to bargain, day in and day out: Haggle with the water department over the budget, negotiate with the police chief about how many cops to have on patrol at inconvenient hours, things like that.

As economist Donald Wittman (author of The Myth of Democratic Failure) might point out, being a mayor is all about Coasian bargaining. Being a Senator is emphatically not.

The big exception, one I've consistently referred to: Senate leadership. The high-level Senate leadership bargains with the WH, with Senators, and with the House all the time.

Committee chairs, not so much, since Senate committees are historically weak. Biden's foreign relations committee and McCain's commerce committee experiences may be exceptions.

By reasonable measures, Obama has less Coasian bargaining experience than Palin. The link in the URL gives another way to see who's good at such bargaining.....