Is "Experience" Overrated?

Way to go, John McCain, for turning the political world on its head and stealing press time from Barak Obama :-).  I leave for Labor Day Retreat to find out who the Maverick picked to be his running mate for 2008... a little known Alaskan Governor by the name of Sarah Palin.  My first response was:  HUH?  Who is she?  Wait a minute, a Republican picked a "she?"  Now, this IS John McCain that we're talking about (the Maverick is his own man, why would he follow the conventional Republican "wisdom"), so the fact that he made an unconventional pick didn't surprise me... but I was still wondering "what the heck?"  

So, on the way to LDR, I had a chance to read up on what was being said about her and her history on the NY Times iPhone site... I started to warm up to her (as if I was anti-SP in the first place, I just didn't have a clue who she is yet)... hunts and skins moose, husband owns a commercial fishing business, five kids (self-professed "hockey mom"), and came into the Alaskan state government as a reformer who challenged the corrupt, incumbent REPUBLICAN Governor, beat him and then beat the Democratic opponent in the election... then proceeding to clean up the State government on her way to an 85% approval rating, the highest of any governor in the country.  Okay, I'm impressed... I can't wait to see what she talks about in her speech... it really does have to be a home run I believe... just because she's so new on the scene and apart from people like me who are now somewhat enamoured with her she needs to prove herself to the voting masses, which I imagine she will (I'll repent later if her speech tonight falls flat ;-) haha) .  

Of course, the opponents on the Blue side of the aisle are attacking her for her lack of experience and the "fact" that she "wasn't fully vetted by the McCain camp."  Okay, so what?  So was your Presidential candidate... the media has been treating Obama with kid gloves and you don't hear us whining about that too much (of course we do, what would partisans be without whining?  Besides, I think Hillary Clinton did more whining about that that most Republicans this year and she's now, perhaps begrudgingly, campaigning for Barack now... oh well)  So, Palin is a Veep candidate and has 2 years of executive experience running a state... Obama is a Presidential candidate and has less than 4 years of exposure in the US Senate, has given a lot of inspirational speeches, and managed to trademark the word "hope."  So, let's just call the experience base even (since Palin has run an executive government and Obama has merely ran a campaign)...

I do think, however, that "experience" is probably negligible in the race for the Presidency anyways... nothing quite prepares you fully to take that office.  It is, in a way, a job unlike any other in the world.  In fact, the past two presidents didn't come in with a wealth of National experience... Bush was a partner for the Texas Rangers baseball team before becoming governor of Texas (a position with little real authority, by the way) for 6 years before being elected President.  Bill Clinton was the governor of a fairly insignificant state before being elected in 1992, and beat a man that may have been the MOST experienced in foreign policy ever to hold the Presidency in the 20th Century (Bush 41 ran the CIA under Nixon and was VP for 8 years under Reagan).  And, for the most part, the country didn't fall apart under either of them even though their political opponents would try to make arguments to the contrary.  

What matters more so than "experience" (even though I don't want to fully discount experience, I'm just saying that past presidents have survived without much of it) is "character."  And... character is revealed by the decisions that an individual has made in the past... in a sense past behavior is an indicator of future actions.  In that sense, to borrow from JFK, "ask not what your candidate has said or promised, ask what they have done for their country."  And... that's why I'm nervous about Obama (and to an extent Palin but she's a Veep)... we've heard a LOT of great inspiring speeches from him and he's proposed some interesting (albeit somewhat vague) ideas, but we don't really know too much about what his record is.  To quote/paraphrase .. "don't pay attention to what I say, my actions speak louder than my words."  That's so true, and we're talking about the most influential leader of the most powerful nation on earth.  Do we want to trust it to someone we don't know fully yet?  Not that we shouldn't vote for Barack, but we should know him fully and let all of the good and bad come out to make a real decision.  I can deal with a lack of experience, but if a lack of character (or amazing character) is there and it's not fully vetted before November, we're doing ourselves a disservice.  

That goes for Sarah Palin too... but from what I've seen she's been more transparent than her Presidential candidate counterpart representing the reformer-change-outsider role in this election.