Tuesday, September 02, 2008

LMAO: Obama Claims Campaign For President Gives Him More Executive Experience

Friends, this has got to be one of the dumbest things to ever come out of the mouth of a presidential candidate. Sen. Barack Obama explains why he thinks he has more executive experience than Gov. Sarah Palin:

“Well, my understanding is that Governor Palin’s town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees. We’ve got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, 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,” Obama said.

Yes, you read that right. He believes his experience running a campaign for president is what gives him more executive experience than Gov. Palin. And this is the guy running for the top spot? And they're worried about Gov. Palin saying something stupid? Note that the ever-sexist Obama omits entirely Palin's experience as governor of Alaska in his comparison. In that role, she manages a state budget of more than $10 billion and a state payroll of 24,000 employees. There's a tad more responsibility that goes into running a state than a political campaign, don't you think?

21 comments:

Nick said...

This is beyond hilarious!

Why does his campaign refuse to even acknowledge she is governor? Why is he scared of a woman?

At least she rose to power on her own, without the help of the Daley machine, Bill Ayres and the very Rev. Wright.

Wilson46201 said...

Alaska and CD7 have about the same size population. Julia Carson in 2004 and Sarah Palin in 2006 received about the same number of votes...

Sarah Palin was elected with corrupt Ted Stevens andorsement.

Bart Lies said...

I thought the Campaign Manager ran the campaign.

artfuggins said...

After 19 months, 2500 employees and a budget in one month several times the annual budget of the little village where Palin was the part time mayor, he does have more executive experience that she does and.......he has been successful at it. He hasn't had to contend with any pesky recall petitions like she did. If you really want to LMAO...try this one...Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska is close to Russia. that one didn't fly with the public.

Gary R. Welsh said...

Wilson Allen protests corruption? He worked as a career political hack clerk for the Center Township Trustee's Office. His boss, Julia Carson, opened a high-end clothing store and directed the poor to take their taxpayer-financed vouchers to purchase their clothes from her clothing store. Even with the cheating her clothing store failed. The landlord said she never paid rent.

mackenzie197 said...

Uh, Wilson, you'd be hard pressed to find campaigns where Republican officeholders do not endorse Repubican candidates. Same with Democrats. This is an incredibly weak argument.

Gary R. Welsh said...

art (aka Wilson) said, "After 19 months, 2500 employees and a budget in one month several times the annual budget of the little village where Palin was the part time mayor, he does have more executive experience that she does and......."

Same game Obama plays. Hey, look over here. There's nothing to see over there. You can't ask me about my experience. That's unfair.

Jon E. Easter said...

He's right. McCain nearly ran himself broke before surviving on fumes. Obama and his advisers defeated the Clinton machine by out ground gaming them. It was masterful judgment and organization that put him where he is now.

Gary R. Welsh said...

I cast my lot with anyone who can survive over 5 years in a Vietnamese prison camp over a pampered, primping pretty face whose toughest moment in life was voluntarily choosing to room with an illegal, drug-dealing Pakistani in a rough New York neighborhood and resisting the temptation to become just another statistic.

Anonymous said...

So, any veteran who went through a Vietnam prison camp is qualified to be President. Lame.

Gary R. Welsh said...

And Obama's qualification: "He gave a speech in 2004." Hillary Clinton.

Anonymous said...

"So, any veteran who went through a Vietnam prison camp is qualified to be President."

The answer is no. I just thought this needed to be made clear since it seems to be brought up a bunch.

Even Tennessee Republican Fred Thompson said in his speech this evening on Prime Time Television - "Now, being a POW certainly doesn't qualify anyone to be President." I guess we can put McCain's POW status behind us now, can't we? Or, is McCain (or AI) going to continue the Giuliani talking point - noun, verb, POW - despite the fact the GOP (who once pounced on Wesley Clark for saying so) agrees it provides McCain no experience.

Sean Shepard said...

Well sir. I spent considerable time creating my resume, mailing it out, making follow-up calls, talking to head hunters and going on interviews. In pursuing this neurosurgery position, I believe I have learned a lot that qualifies me for the job despite my lack of skilled training. I have tinkered in my garage on small rodents and think I can very easily make the jump to human beings.

M Theory said...

OMG!

I never thought I would ever see LMAO acronym as a blog title here, Gary.

That's great.

Sarah Palin has a whole lot in common with Diana.

M Theory said...

And Gary...don't forget that Wilson Allen was caught like the red handed liar he is by Abdul for posting comments under fake names to encite fighting.

That was great when Abdul busted Wilson. Even you have to hand Abdul that one.

varangianguard said...

Oh. I'd kinda been wondering what you'd been up to lately Sean.

Jason said...

I think there's a stark contrast between running a campaign and running a government. For one, with the campaign people are voluntarily giving you money, it doesn't work that way for the government (unless he plans on charming people into donating their paychecks.)

In addition, if things were being run that smoothly he wouldn't be accepting contributions from unidentified sources and hate-merchants like the Kos crowd.

Chris Worden said...

Sean:

I respectfully disagree with your take in the following respect: Obama won the nomination, so he's not leaving dead rats around (unless you want to call Clinton and the other Democrats that, and I NEVER would!).

I don't expect to convince anybody on this blog, but I don't see Obama's claim as so preposterous. Running a campaign CAN help test and refine a particular skill set that benefits anyone in the White House. Here's a list of campaign skills that, in my opinion, are transferable to the White House:

(1) The ability to communicate a message (becomes the ability to use "the bully pulpit").

(2) The ability to inspire others into action (anybody heard that Kennedy fellow's remark about "Ask not..." that got us to the moon and created a sense of something bigger than ourselves)

(3) The ability to assess talent and hire good people (Love them or hate them, George W. Bush, Sr. and Bill Clinton pulled together some good folks. This is Pres. Bush's greatest weakness, so I'm not saying simply winning a campaign tells the whole story because governing is different... but it can assist in assessing a candidate).

(4) The ability to delegate (Anybody remember Jimmy Carter? Just by reading about his campaign, we should have known we were doomed. He wanted to be "hands on." In contrast, read the Atlantic Monthly piece on how smoothly Obama's campaign has run and compare that with Clinton and McCain's operations.

(5) The ability to manage financial resources (to make tactical decisions on how to get the most bang for a buck)

(6) The ability to act rapidly in crisis (being able to pick up and move an entire field operation based on some overnight political development sure seems like a valuable ability when a president might have to respond to overnight intelligence and deploy our military or respond to a natural disaster. Seriously, our government was caught with its pants down during Katrina, even though we have a whole agency devoted to rapid response. I'd trust David Axelrod, Obama's political consultant, to handle a natural disaster more than anybody George Bush has picked out of a hat based on their donor history. At least Axelrod has managed bad situations before.

I'm sure I'll think of more examples, but I think we should not automatically discount "campaign" experience because we also minimize the value of similarly massive ventures, be they capitalist, not-for-profit, or military.

For example, I'd say Peter Ueberroth has more experience for VP by virtue of organizing the 1984Olympics in L.A. than Sarah Palin has gotten in 2 years in Alaska, and the Olympics planning didn't last as long as a political campaign. I also think somebody who has successfully turned around a failing Fortune 500 company could do well as a chief executive, and to me at least, running that company IS experience for a chief executive.

(As an aside, somebody needs to remind McCain that the key point in the last sentence was SUCCESSFULLY before he nominates Carli Fiorini for a cabinet post. She ran Hewlett Packard into the ground).

Also, I remember Eisenhower referring to World War II as a "campaign." What about leading a "campaign" qualified him to be president? It wasn't ONLY that he would take seriously sending men to war because he had seen it. It was the fact that he was the head of a monstrously large but still pretty damn successful organization? If anything, Eisenhower's accomplishment is LESS about him than about a steely U.S. resolve. From the moment the first bomb hit Pearl Harbor, we ALL chipped in to make Eisenhower (and the other U.S. generals) successful. Obama started with NOBODY on his side. Now he has, I'm told, 2,500 paid staff and tens of thousands of volunteers. If that's not experience for the White House, it has to be experience for some job. What would that be? Head of the Red Cross?

Just food for thought.

www.ipopa.blogspot.com

Bart Lies said...

Obama's experience has shown him we have 57 states. I suppose 56 adn 57 were Kenya and Indonesia and thereby we establish his citizenship?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMo0WlSvrIY

varangianguard said...

I agree with IPOPA that there are a lot of intangibles that can factor in towards making someone a successful PotUS. Remember, there isn't a Harvard School for Future Presidents, after all (though sometimes it seems like Harvard thinks it does).

That said, I would like to clarify about Eisenhower. He was where he was because he was a politician, not for any military prowess he might have had. All military leaders who achieve four star (or higher) rank fall into the same category. They might be good politicians or mediocre politicians, but they all are politicians, nevertheless.

Jason said...

IPOPA, I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but you made some very cogent points. I shall visit your blog.