“But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed … when the roar of the crowd fades away … when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot – what exactly is our opponent’s plan?”
–Sarah Palin at the 2008 Republican National Convention

When Barack Obama was asked about his executive experience on Anderson Cooper’s 360, he claimed that running a Presidential campaign was more “executive” experience than Governor Sarah Palin’s tenure as mayor of a town in Alaska.

Aside from the fact that Obama deliberately left out Palin’s current executive experience as Governor of our largest state, Alaska, Obama’s answer seemed to imply that voters were unable to distinguish the difference between a politician running a campaign, and a person already elected to an executive office with actual experience under their belt, such as Palin. It brings to mind Obama’s fake presidential seal. A cheap imitation of the real deal, just like his “executive” experience is a cheap imitation of the real experience of Palin’s.

We did a check and failed to find anyone who backed up Obama’s claim, that running a campaign should be considered the same as being mayor or governor in regards to executive experience, even Joe Biden has remained silent.

From Anderson Cooper’s 360:

Cooper:

Some Republican critics have said that you don’t have the experience to handle a situation like this, they’ve in fact said that Governor Palin has more executive experience as mayor of a small town and as Governor of the big state of Alaska. What’s your response?

Obama:

Well, my understanding is that Governor Palin’s town of Wasilli, has I think, 50 employees, we’ve got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year. We have a budget of about three times that, just for the month. So I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute, I think has been made clear over the last couple of years.

While Obama focused on Palin’s tenure as a mayor he deliberately failed to mention Palin’s executive experience as Governor of the largest state in the nation, Alaska.

The Page’s Mark Halperin published this quote from the McCain campaign:

“For Barack Obama to argue that he’s experienced enough to be president because he’s running for president is desperate circular logic and it’s laughable. It is a testament to Barack Obama’s inexperience and failing qualifications that he would stoop to passing off his candidacy as comparable to Governor Sarah Palin’s executive experience managing a budget of over 10 billion dollar dollars, and more than 24,000 employees.” —Tucker Bounds, spokesman John McCain 2008

As silly as Obama’s answer to Anderson Cooper about Obama’s “executive” experience was, Cooper brought up Obama’s campaign experience once again in the CNN post-Sarah Palin speech coverage at the Republican Convention.

From Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech at the RNC:

“Now, I’ve noticed a pattern with our opponent, and maybe you have too. We’ve all heard his dramatic speeches before devoted followers, and there is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it’s easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or even a reform, not even in the state senate. (Cheers, applause.) This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting and never use the word “victory” — except when he’s talking about his own campaign.”

Cooper noted Palin’s reference to victory in this particular quote and then stated that Obama could legitimately claim a “victory” because his campaign, which had a couple of thousand of employees, had “won” Obama the Democratic nomination.

We’ve found another example of the Obama campaign as “executive” experience being touted on the Drudge Report:

“Obama has spent the past year and a half running a large organization– nearly 1000 employees and a budget exceeding $100 million– and running it very well. Obama has built “an amazingly strong machine,” says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, president of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute at the Yale School of Management.”
–Drudge Report

Politifact weighed in on the Obama-McCain-Biden-Palin executive experience issue and found that all totaled Palin had 8 years of executive experience. McCain had 13 months executive experience leading a Navy unit of 1,000 men while in the Navy.

Niether McCain, Biden, nor Obama had held the office of mayor or governor. Politifact also discounted Obama’s “campaign” experience as “executive”.

Byron York of the National Review had this observation:

“Just for the record, Alaska’s FY2008 operating budget is $11.2 billion, and the state employs approximately 15,000 people. Those certainly aren’t huge numbers in federal terms, but they’re a good bit bigger than the Obama campaign.”

Yural Levin of the Corner also weighed in on the “absurdity” of Obama’s comment:

“But the comment is also utterly absurd for another reason. A campaign, after all, is directed entirely to advancing the interests and needs of the candidate. A Senate office is too. A state government exists to serve the people and manage a bureaucracy that deals with very complicated problems of public policy. It presents the chief executive with challenges that go very far beyond how to make himself look as good as possible that day. Running for office certainly counts as political experience—as some here have mentioned—and political experience is important. But that he would argue that running for office is executive experience suggests Obama has no idea what he’s in for if he’s elected president.”

We couldn’t find where any politician, in particular Joe Biden, Obama’s VP running mate, had stepped forward and affirmed Obama’s asseration that running a campaign was to be considered by voters as the equivalent of “executive” experience. But we did find this on Youtube:

We discovered this little jewel which highlights the problem Democrats are facing when asked to name some of Obama’s “legislative” accomplishments:

Executive experience, legislative accomplishments, these are criteria used by voters to ascertain whether a candidate is qualified to fill the position of President of the United States. Rather than admitting he has no prior executive experience in elected office Obama chose to serve up his campaign as “experience” when compared to the actual executive experience of Sarah Palin. He not only used his campaign but also chose to obfuscate the fact that Palin is also the current governor of the largest state in the Union. Obama instead referred to Palin’s stint as mayor of a small town in a thinly veiled attempt to shore up his rather shaky credentials.

Come November 4th, Obama may discover that voters prefer substance over style when electing a person to office of President.

By LBG

Image – Obama Presidential Seal
Source - DBKP – Invesco, Denver: DNC Obama Show Pictures
Source – CNN Political Ticker