I think all of us here at this site, most intelligent people, everyone in the media and everyone in Washington, whether Republican or Democrat, understands if they are being intellectually honest with themselves that Sarah Palin lacks the experience to be vice president.
But at this point any time we bring that up the retort from the other side is always going to be Obama and Biden lacking executive experience and basically the whole thing just winds up in a stalemate.
What I think Democrats and Obama surrogates really need to do is get to work showing exactly why the Sarah Palin/Gutsy Reformer meme is total B.S. and show the ways that her "maverick" tendencies show her to be just as reckless and out of touch as John McCain and how she is just as connected to special interests as George W. Bush.
Thankfully, it's not hard to do this because it's THE TRUTH.
I am writing this diary because I was disappointed tonight watching Larry King Live that Robert Gibbs didn't hit Sarah Palin on her connections to Washington pork projects and Washington lobbyists, in addition to noting the Washington-style politics her speech exhibited.
I was also disappointed seeing the Obama supporters in the panel commenting on her speech offer little more than be incredulous about her lack of experience the whole time. I say give that a rest for a minute and enlighten the public a little bit more about what experience Sarah Palin actually has.
IT'S TIME FOR SPECIFICS ABOUT WHY SHE IS BAD rather than just her ethereal and intangible lack of experience to make sure the public knows this isn't just about liberal elites putting down a woman who came from a small town or a small state.
We need to connect Sarah Palin to the "more of the same" message for McCain.
I want the Obama campaign and anyone else speaking on his behalf --- that means you Stephanie Miller, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Kiki MacLean, Ed Schultz if you are back tomorrow on Larry --- to get beyond what the public already knows because they can see it for themselves about Sarah Palin being unqualified and inexperienced and INSTEAD use your time to make sure everyone in America knows:
As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million.
-THE AP
For a supposed Washington outsider she sure knows how to squeeze that money out of Washington and work things there, huh? If only my home town of 2,000 had a Washington lobbyist maybe we could get the sewer system our town has been begging federal and state authorities for help funding for at least 20 years.
In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation.
-THE AP
And she has the guts to give a speech before the RNC railing about earmarks? WHAT A CROCK!
While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere.
-THE AP
She was FOR the Bridge to Nowhere, before she was AGAINST it. Keep reminding folks of this!
(In her 1996 campaign for mayor) Palin was a highly polarizing political figure who brought partisan politics and hot-button social issues like abortion and gun control into a mayoral race that had traditionally been contested like a friendly intramural contest among neighbors.
-TIME
She is NOT a maverick. She is an ultra-right wing polarizing figure not interested in reaching across party and ideological lines to accomplish things of substance and always has been that way.
By shrewdly invoking issues that mattered to the ascendant majority, Palin won the mayor's race. But while she may have been a new face, says Naegele, she was no maverick — not yet. "The state party gave her the mechanism to get into that office," says Naegele. "As soon as she was confident enough to brush them off, she did. But she wasn't an outsider to start with. She very much had to kowtow to them."
-TIME
The public NEEDS to know that Sarah Palin hired an Abramoff-associated lobbyist to get money for Wasilla and the public NEEDS to know she raised political money for indicted U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens and the public NEEDS to know that she won her governor's raise in 2006 with a last minute endorsement from indicted U.S. Senator Ted Stevens.
Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them.
-TIME
Trying to ban books is NOT a mainstream position and is possibly the most offensive and disturbing thing I've heard about Sarah Palin so far. I want everyone in America to know that she tried to ban books, what books she tried to ban AND why. Not to mention this attempt to try to fire the librarian for political/ideological reasons is a pattern that follows her throughout her political career AND is very Bush-like.
Mayoral performance. Palin, who portrays herself as a fiscal conservative, racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla — that amounts to $3,000 per resident. She argues that the debt was needed to fund improvements.
-POLITICO
Sounds like just another borrow and spend BUSH REPUBLICAN to me! If she brought her PALINOMICS to Washington that means another $900 Billion added to our country's ballooning debt!
As governor, Palin vetoed wind power and clean coal projects, including a 50-megawatt wind farm on Fire Island and a clean coal facility in Healy that had been mired in a dispute between local and state governments.
-POLITICO
Just like McCain and Bush, Palin does NOT support alternative energy and offers nothing but more of the same dependence on foreign oil.
DEMOCRATS, we all know that the claim of John McCain being a "maverick" is total B.S. yet we have seen the media parrot that claim all these years despite him voting with Bush more than 90 percent of the time because McCain's people sold it so well.
Sarah Palin is no "maverick" either. Let's just make sure the media and the public know the facts this time!