It never even should have been.

All I care about is judgment. You can have all the experience in the world, if you have poor judgment it's not going to matter. Rumsfeld had loads of experience, and even many Republicans can agree that his handling of the war immediately after occupation was an unmitigated disaster and prolonged it unnecessarily (here's a clue: he's the reason we didn't have the "surge" right from the get-go since he wanted to do it on the cheap). And I'm sure that Republicans would heap the same scorn on many Democrats with loads of experience - Ted Kennedy used to be a favorite whipping horse.

It doesn't matter what your affiliation is. The fact is, if we're not using it to bludgeon the other side, the only thing that honestly matters to most people is our sense of a candidate's personal judgment and integrity.

Speaking for myself, a creationist candidate with no understanding of the scientific process, as well as one who would deny a woman the right to an abortion even if she was raped, is far too radical a choice. It's not her lack of experience that I'm opposed to, it's her positions, and that's all that should matter.

Experience is something, but it isn't everything. Faced with two politicians with identical judgment, intelligence, and ideology I'll gladly take the candidate with more experience.

Faced with a choice between the candidate with the edge in intelligence, judgment, and ideology and the candidate with more 'experience' (after all, an edge in 'experience' just means that McCain will be more effective in doing the wrong thing), I'll gladly give up experience.

Agreed. And part of the problem is that how can you really compare experience. Being a community organizer is an experience, as is being a first lady (or a POW). Being a state legislator is different from being a national legislator, which is different from being a governor.

In comparing individuals, they're always going to be unique. Every applicant for a job brings a unique skill set and strengths and weaknesses.

What I don't like about Obama's defender's defense is that some will say that experience doesn't matter at all. I think that's wrong (now, it may be that they're simply using shorthand). He is weak in that area, but I am firmly convinced that he can overcome it (I think he'll be a quick learner from his own experiences and those of others and I think he'll surround himself with good people (for all his flaws, if I wanted to be president, I think Biden would be a good guy to have around. For all Palin's virtues, I can't imagine McCain having any non-political use for her.)

When Hillary supporters (or at least people pretending to be) harp on experence as a reason to support McCain, I think they're wrong, too. Basically, in every operation the two steps are figuring out what to do and figuring out how to do it. Experience offers minimal help in the first (ideology and judgment drive it. Experience is important in the second, but... McCain's wants to drive the bus where I don't want to go. Why does him being a good driver make me more interested in buying his ticket?

I'll shut up now...

I gotta say, you pretty much hit everything I wanted to say but was too lazy to spend the time breaking down like that.

Great post.

I'm not sure that she's ever identified herself as a "creationist" in the popularly understood sense, and as her father was apparently a public school science teacher who "did talk a lot about his theories of evolution" (see <link> one would hope that she gleaned some understanding of the scientific method from him.

While I don't think that a discussion of "creationism" has any place in the biology classroom since its models are not informed by the scientific method, Palin only seems to have taken the stance that discussion of creation "science" shouldn't be disallowed.

While she does seem to take a strong anti-abortion stance, I'm not sure that these positions matter much beyond endearing her to her base--- from what I've read so far, any social agenda has tended to take a backseat to oil an gas-related issues.

Care to wager on that? Because I'd rather not take a chance that someone won't actually use their elected position to put their stated positions into practice. Don't forget the judiciary appointments that the next administration will be making.

As for the creation "science", the reason that discussion should be -disallowed- in a science curriculum is because, as you yourself said, its models are -not informed by the scientific method-.