Relative Experiences?

Experience.

It is a word that looms large over this year’s presidential election, and certainly merits careful consideration and comparison between the camps involved in the race.

And it is being discussed. Comparisons are being made and talked about. Almost on a daily basis, for example, you can find someone somewhere who is willing to weigh in on the relative experience of Obama/Palin and how it prepares, or fails to prepare, each for the high office each seeks.

On the one hand, there’s Sarah Palin.

Currently, she’s a first-term governor, who has been consistently on the job at the state capital, who has shown willingness to take on corruption in both parties and shake up the established order by taking on wasteful spending in a very tangible way.

Prior to being elected governor, she served in the executive branch of state government, before resigning in protest over corruption in her own party and deciding to take on the incumbent – Republican – governor in an election.

Prior to that, she was a concerned citizen of a town who took it upon herself to get involved, and get elected as the town’s mayor. Notably, all of her government experience has been in the executive branch, which, by the way, does not offer the option of anonymously doing nothing when presented with challenges or tasks.

On the other hand, there’s Barack Obama.

Currently, he’s a first-term senator, who has been vacationing and campaigning for president more than he’s been in the Senate itself. When in the Senate, he has compiled a record marking him as the most liberal member of that body, who has used his time in office to request 330 earmarks, worth nearly a billion dollars, be funded with American taxpayer dollars.

Prior to being elected to the senate, he served in the legislative branch of state government, where he frequently used the option a legislator has to hide behind his desk and vote “present.” Not that the votes he actually did cast do much for his image either – think teaching sex-education to kindergarteners, or refusing to protect the lives of newborn babies.

Prior to that, he was an academic and a community organizer – a position whose responsibilities no one seems to be able to identify with any certainty, the misguided attempts to link it to the Son of God’s work notwithstanding.

You want to talk experience, I’m sure that Sarah Palin welcomes the chance to compare resumes with Barack Obama. Such a comparison is very kind to her.

But wait a minute.

These two aren’t even running for the same office. So why isn’t anyone anxious to compare the experience of Barack Obama – the Democrat nominee for President – to the Republicans’ nominee for President? Could it be because it is generally, and instantaneously, recognized that such a comparison would be even more embarrassing to the young Senator?

It’s understandable that Obama and his supporters don’t want to get into experience comparisons with John McCain. But frankly, they would do well to avoid such a comparison with Governor Palin as well.

Experience can be a fairly quantifiable and tangible commodity. And in this campaign it is clear that, among the four people on the two major parties’ tickets, Barack Obama – Democrat nominee for President of the United States – comes in fourth.