Barry, I’m sure you really don’t want to go down the ‘experience’ road with this election.  Sarah Palin has a proven track record of success.  In his address to the Republican National Convention, former New York Mayor and presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani said Sarah Palin “already has more executive experience” than Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr. “combined.” 

An examination of the political experience by PolitiFact.com (joint project of Congressional Quarterly and the St. Petersburg Times) of Palin, Obama, and Biden concludes that Giuliani’s assessment is true:

“So Palin has six years of executive experience as mayor of Wasilla and two years of executive experience as governor of Alaska, for a total of eight years.

. . . .Obama has argued that running his national campaign constitutes relevant executive experience. “My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wasilla, has, I think, 50 employees,” Obama told CNN on Sept. 1. “We’ve got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year — we have a budget of about three times that just for the month.”

But we think elected executive experience is what Giuliani had in mind here. And even given Obama’s point, Palin’s years of elected executive experience beat out the rest. . . .So we find Giuliani’s statement True.”

And, a new Rasmussen Reports poll out today shows that Sarah Palin has made an extremely positive impact on American voters.  According to the poll, Palin is now viewed favorably by 58% of American voters – up from 52% before her acceptance speech.  On the issue of ‘experience’ – here’s a very interesting finding:  Even though Palin is the vice-presidential nominee, voters are fairly evenly divided as to whether Palin or Obama has the better experience to be president.  And, the media coverage of Palin did not go unnoticed – 51% of Americans believe that most reporters are trying to hurt Palin’s campaign.

Of course, this is the latest poll – a snapshot of the political landscape.  But this is the first poll reflecting the opinion of American voters since Palin delivered her acceptance speech Wednesday night which was viewed by more than 40 million people.

The debate about ‘experience’ certainly will continue in this 60-day ‘sprint’ to Election Day. 

What I am looking forward to is the series of debates (3 presidential and 1 vice-presidential).  These debates will provide the nation with a critical opportunity to learn more about all of the candidates – and that will certainly include questions about ‘experience.’  Will the debates provide the kind of information we received out of the Saddleback Forum? (See my comments from an earlier post.)  I hope so.  Time is short.  We must take every opportunity to explore the positions and ‘experience’ of all the candidates.  Let the debates begin!