ABOUT CNBC GUEST BLOG
- Crescenzi: Claims Level Suggests End to Job Losses
- Schork Oil Outlook: Gas Bulls Pinning Hopes on Mother Nature
- Busch: The Debt-Interest Rate Paradox
- Busch: Markets Smell a Country Rat
- Schork Oil Outlook: Mission Impossible For The Bears?
- Losey: Asset Allocation At Retirement
- Farrell: Obama Hectored, Ignored and Restricted?
- Don't Dwell on Investment Mistakes; Move on, Like Buffett
- Hirschhorn: Greed...or Fear
- Schork Oil Outlook: Some New Hope For Nat Gas Bulls
MOST SHARED
- Chinese Overcapacity is Worsening, EU Chamber Warns
- US Mint to Suspend American Eagle Gold 1-Ounce Coins
- The Executive Job Search
- Gold Retreats from New High Above $1,194
- Hyundai-Kia Targets Rapid China Growth in 2010
- China Unveils Carbon Target Ahead of Copenhagen
- Black Friday: Bargain or Bust?
- Wal-Mart Price Pressure Hurts China Workers: Report
- Oil Friday
- 4 Thanksgiving Week Buys For Your Portfolio: Market Pros
- There's a 'Great Chance' For a Double-Dip Recession: Strategist
- Revenge of the Gangsta Nerds
- Will TCU See The "Flutie Effect?"
- Retail Earnings and Sales to Improve in Q4: Analyst
- Consumers Catching the Holiday Spirit
- It's Beginning To Look A Lot More Riskless
- Crescenzi: Claims Level Suggests End to Job Losses
- Hedge Funds Take Early Lead in Warren Buffett's 'Big Bet'
- Fannie Mae to Tighten Lending Standards: Report
- Share Trading on London Stock Exchange Resumes
- China Overcapacity Worsening, EU Chamber Warns
- Investing in Good Karma – and Making a Profit
- UK Retail Sales Pick Up in Nov., Strong Dec. Seen
- Black Friday to Avoid Red Ink; Greenback Gets the Blues
- Wal-Mart Price Pressure Hurts China Workers: Report
- Bankruptcies Jump, Hitting Highest Level in Four Years
- Steepest Black Friday Discounts, Revealed
RSS FEED
CNBC Guest Blog
Text Size 
The angry left: Daily Kos, Atlantic Magazine; Maureen Dowd have their long knives (and claws) bared and ready for Alaska Governor and McCain V.P. pick, Sarah Palin. Faked pregnancies, hair criticism; breast pump references…ugly, ugly, ugly. They had plenty of practice slapping Hillary around, so it got nasty rather quickly. Apparently, beating up on a woman comes easier with practice.
Barack issued words of restraint to the army of left commentary that constitutes a kind of isolated-from-the-chain-of command militia for his campaign. That’s a gimme. He had no other options. However he blew it comparing his CAMPAIGN staff to Sarah’s mayoral staff. Dumb. He had to jump to her previous job in order to get his resume to surpass hers in experience. He has a campaign staff of 2,500 in his current job, he told CNN, while she ran a mayoral staff of 50. The problem is that she currently runs a state with a payroll of 15,000 state government employees. And state government is a far tougher management environment too: civil service and unions. I’m quite sure all of Barack’s employees are ‘at will’, so no lawsuits alleging improprieties every time you let someone go. Her employees make life and death decisions: arrest bad guys; fight floods; put out fires. His employees issue press releases; call donors; put up banners.
There’s a big difference between a Senator and a Governor. Senators go to Washington. They breathe DC air and drink in the DC mindset. They take a Chevy Suburban a couple of blocks down the street to enter a studio and be on a national talk show like Meet the Press. Governors are farther away, in Sarah’s case, much farther away, in fly-over territory. There’s a visibility gap.
There’s also an authority gap, in the other direction. Governors are more important than Senators: there are only 50 governors, but 100 Senators. It’s automatically a more elite position. Senators (like John Corzine) run for governor, generally, not the other way around. Senate is stepping stone to Governor; Governor is a stepping stone to President. Under normal circumstances he would be getting ready to run for her job, governor, in Illinois. Four of our last five presidents were governors; the fifth was the chief executive of the CIA.
Yes, Sarah is still in her first term as governor, but my friend, Larry Kudlow made a great point on CNBC this week about glass ceilings and experience. There’s no way you get women at the top if you make ‘experience’ the summum bonum of leadership. You need merit, not time-served to break racial and gender boundaries. Seniority is the oldest discriminatory trick in the book. When black workers started migrating north in the early 20th century, unions pushed the ‘seniority’ issue as a way of protecting white workers from harder working black new entrants. Irish, blacks, Jews, women and other leadership newcomers have been barred using the ‘experience’ excuse from the very beginning. Liberals used to know things like this, but the now seem to suffer from some kind of mass amnesia. The voters, however, are not.
For More Discussion about Palin and Media Criticism, See the Video
What are other CNBC.com guest commentators saying?
________________________
 |
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes