8.29.2008

Alaska is Small

Of course it's a big state. But when we talk about leadership experience, about executive experience, we are talking about people, not land. How do you lead people? How do you manage competing interests of the population? Certainly, a small-town mayor has to deal with competing interests, but we generally believe that you need to know how to manage something bigger than a small town- like a state.

But Alaska, let us remember, is about 680,000 people. Riordan, mayor of Los Angeles, city of over 3,800,000, would have been a better pick- a city more than four times larger than Alaska. Certainly, George II won with Cheney, from a state with fewer people than Alaska. But let us remember that not only did Cheney have ample experience leading on the national level, but also that he was not being touted as bringing executive experience to the ticket, as George II had already been governor of Texas.

Truly, people vote the top of the ticket, not the bottom. But the argument that she brings executive experience is baseless. We now have a candidate who has more international experience than any other Presidential candidate in history. Obama has grown up overseas and in the multiethnic state of Hawaii. He is the son of Kenyans. He uniquely understands the needs of the rest of the world, and we have seen that he can uniquely restore America's positive perception in the world. It's about international Hawaii, and not Alaska. Obama: the voice of leadership and experience.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jedidiah,
Your humility in the subtitle of your blog would win my vote for you over Senator Obama. Heroes are hard to come by these days ... I appreciate that you didn't blast Sarah Palin as I've seen her be blasted. Experience and leadership of the nature we need in today's world seems short on supply all the way around. I'm praying for a miracle.

Jed Carosaari said...

How funny to see you on this blog, Debbie! Hardly anyone I know personally visits here.

I suppose the extreme left will blast her, but I haven't seen much of it. Someone accusing her youngest child of being that of her daughter, but those kind of stupid extremist arguments are in the same category as those that accuse Obama of being a Muslim.

I saw something rather interesting on Electoral Vote.com a couple months ago- a graph comparing the amount of experience vs. those considered the greatest or worst Presidents in US history. There was no positive correlation- or negative correlation. But those roundly considered the best ever, like Lincoln, often had the least experience.

Anonymous said...

I just found your blog and wanted to let you know that it has been very encouraging. I am a Christian and I am totally fed up with the right wing bent of evangelical Christianity. It's just sick.
Obama '08!

--Christy

Anonymous said...

And you're a TCK too! Even better. :)

--Christy