All of the sudden, democrats want to talk about the importance of experience. Sarah Palin has no experience they say and that takes experience “off the table”. What they now want to point out is that Palin has no foreign policy experience and less than two years as governor. The funny thing is governors, as a rule, don’t get involved in foreign policy. In 1992, Bill Clinton had no foreign policy experience. Ditto for George W. Bush in 2000, and Ronald Reagan in 1980. That’s right! Our last three two-term presidents had no foreign policy experience in elected office before they were elected president.

            Why is it that we seem to elect governors or vice-presidents? This will be the first time in 48 years we have elected a sitting senator, and only the second time in history (Harding and Kennedy). Mike Huckabee seemed to say it well on Friday. He offered that he made more decisions as a governor in one month’s time, than a senator will make in two years. If that’s close to accurate, Sarah Palin is 40 years ahead of Barack Obama in experience. (Obama has not really shown up for the last two years out of four he’s been in the Senate).

            Governors are actually responsible for the executive branch of an entire state. This entails similar duties to what a president has and offers a record of success or otherwise. Governors oversee law enforcement, propose and balance budgets working with the legislature, and have to take the blame when things go wrong like any CEO. Governor Palin’s approval rating is around 80%.

            Legislators like Obama look forward to lobbyists and recesses. I’m not sure why we’re comparing Obama and Palin. Did we compare John Edwards to George Bush in 2004? Oh that John Edwards brought a wealth of gravitas with his one term in the U.S. Senate. In fact, the three major contenders on the democrat side for 2008, Edwards, Clinton and Obama brought a total of  approximately 16 years in the U.S. Senate when they started campaigning, and not one day of executive experience for any of them.

            Obama can claim experience over Palin in only one area – campaigning nationally. He has been through a long campaign to this point. He gives a great speech. But his acceptance speech was very telling. In the midst of all the “I will’s” that we heard on Thursday night (and I stopped counting at over two dozen), there were few “I did’s”. Obama has no compelling story of actual accomplishments.

Less than 14 hours later Governor Sarah Palin was telling her story, a remarkable truth of how a hockey mom came from nowhere to take on the corrupt establishment in her own state and her own party to clean up government in Alaska. On second thought, let’s go ahead and make that comparison between Palin and Obama, regardless of how irrelevant it is.