Well, I had intended my first blog post to be a brief introduction on why I blog, but events over take me, so here I go:

In his latest column at National Review, Charles Krauthammer argues that McCain will need Sarah Palin to "pull an Obama" so that he can win the election (http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NTE4OTc1NjQxNDFiNzk4OTA0YTllZDhjODU2NGY3YzY=).

By "pulling an Obama", he means that her charisma and star-power could be put to use to gloss over the perceived deficiencies in her résumé. Krauthammer posits that by choosing Palin, McCain has forfeited the one attribute where he has it all over Obama -- experience.

I disagree.

Experience is the major factor of the election, and Obama has none. He has never run anything except his own campaign, and even that is run by others.

Palin has experience -- she was mayor of a town of 6,000 people, and she is the governor of a state. She *has* experience. By criticizing
Palin's experience, the Obama camp merely highlights that whatever experience Palin may have, it is still far greater than Obama's.

The campaign will hinge on experience and judgment -- two areas where Obama falls.

His experience is nil, as Hillary Clinton stated so succinctly: "I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002." (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/04/clinton-mccain-has-more-_n_89758.html -- Hahaha, don't you just love it when you can use the Huffington Post to skewer the Dems?!)

And his judgment is poor -- he was wrong on The Surge, he was wrong about Jeremiah Wright, he was wrong on Michael Pfleger, and he thinks that abortion is above his pay grade... judgment much?

McCain's master stroke was to nominate Palin, who -- even with her limited experience (when compared to McCain, or Lieberman, or Biden) still has more experience than the head of the Democratic ticket, AND she has all the 'regular' qualities one would look for in a GOP VP running mate: good values, good judgment, sound ideology; she is a real conservative and will sure up the right wing of the party.

McCain-Palin is still the experience ticket, any way you look at it.