As I See It
Lenny Mirra
October 02, 2008 03:58 am Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are being accused of having too little experience by their opposing parties in an attempt to get you to vote against them. But we're talking about two very capable and successful people who have plenty of experience, just not all of it as politicians. Obama had several jobs in the private sector including law professor and attorney. This to me is more valuable than "working" as a politician for most of one's adult life because being in office too long makes people forget how things work in the real world. Say what you will about lawyers, at the end of the day they have to produce enough profits to keep their firm afloat. They can't just raise taxes to pay themselves. Republicans discredit him by pointing out his few years as an Illinois state legislator and even fewer years as a U.S. senator. By this measure Abraham Lincoln was not qualified to be president because he also was a lawyer who served as an Illinois state legislator and then as a U.S. representative. He failed in his run for senator before becoming one of the greatest presidents ever. Palin worked as a sports reporter and for her husband's family commercial fishing business, and was part owner of a car wash in Anchorage. Just a typical American trying to earn a living for her family, an experience that I would argue is MORE valuable in preparing someone to fix government's problems than feeding at the public trough for several decades. Maybe the Democrats would prefer a candidate that spent a few years in the U.S. House, as well as the Senate, and maybe a couple terms in the White House as VP. Those are the very impressive credentials of Richard Nixon, and his "experience" produced a terrible president. After Watergate we wanted "change" and elected Jimmy Carter. Anyone calling Bush the worst president in our lifetimes must have forgotten the '70s or they're just plain dishonest. I hope the next president gives us a GDP that's just as high and an unemployment rate that's just as low, while at the same time preventing another terrorist attack. The experience needed for fixing most of our problems is not, as I see it, gained by having spent the last several decades in that millionaires' club known as the U.S. Senate as Biden and McCain have. It comes from running a business, or just working for one, and having to deal with all the red tape government makes us cut through in order to function. It also comes from giving almost half our pay to fund government, more than we spend on food, clothing and housing — combined! When Palin became governor, she sold the jet purchased by the previous governor, an item any normal person (i.e., not a politician) would recognize as an absolute waste of taxpayer money. Eliminating this kind of waste, fraud and abuse has to be the first thing the next president does before he even talks about spending more on anything. (Good luck with that Pelosi-led Congress.) She also made sure the oil companies paid the right amount in taxes when gas went up to $4 and they were raking in huge profits. This resulted in a huge tax surplus for the State of Alaska and what she did with it is unheard of around here: She gave it back to the taxpayers. Every qualified Alaska resident got a check for $1,200 to, as she put it, help pay those higher heating bills. If voters believe that our problems include runaway government spending, high taxes, high heating costs, corrupt officials in office, and oil company gouging, then Palin has all the other guys beat in the experience department. While everyone else was complaining about these things, she actually did something about them. Finally there's the issue of educational experience. Democrats will cite Obama's Ivy League experience and his degrees from Columbia and Harvard while Palin "only" graduated from the University of Idaho. (And they wonder why normal people call them elitist!) It's a matter of opinion which education would give the best educational experience, but I tend to agree with the late, great William F. Buckley, who famously quipped, "I'd rather live in a society governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone directory than in one governed by the 2,000 members of the Harvard faculty." ¬¢¬¢¬¢ Lenny Mirra is a single dad who enjoys shooting target practice at his home in West Newbury.
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