Written by Ryan Keen

One thing is clear in this election: Democrats and Republicans absolutely cannot agree on experience. Who has it? Who doesn’t? Who’s ready to lead this country? Ask a Democrat and they’ll tell you Palin wants to be dangerously close to the presidency for someone with zero experience. Ask a Republican and we’ll tell you our vice presidential candidate has more experience than their presidential candidate. Why can’t we agree on one of the most fundamental aspects of this campaign? What leads Democrats and Republicans to arrive at such diametrically opposed conclusions on experience?

The first reason for these differing conclusions is simple: it’s change. This race, like all presidential races, has changed. In the bitter and protracted primary that led to the eventual nomination of Sen. Barack Obama, his opponents were not afraid to point out his lack of experience. Sen. Hillary Clinton put it this way: “I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And, Senator Obama has a speech he gave in 2002.” Concerning Obama’s readiness, Sen. Joe Biden remarked, “The presidency is not something that lends itself to on the job training.”

Then things changed. Obama won. Clinton threw her support behind him. Biden joined his ticket. In the swirling aftermath of the Democratic Convention, McCain tapped Palin, a virtual unknown outside of Alaska, and Democrats saw a chance to pounce, claiming Republicans had opened themselves up to criticism over experience. In just two weeks, everything changed, the race started anew.

To confront this change, Obama supporters needed an attack against Palin that didn’t highlight Obama’s own experience problems. The Democrats immediately charged: Palin has no foreign policy experience. The trouble is, neither does Obama. Thus, the new line that subsequently emerged from this upheaval was to change an old drawback into a new asset. What was once a criticism against Obama, namely that he has spent basically half of his four years in the Senate either preparing to run or running for president, is now his greatest asset. It is this experience that now qualifies Obama to be president, while Palin is mocked for having the audacity to run for vice-presidency.

I first heard this argument from Mort Kondracke, a liberal who co-hosts The Beltway Boys on Fox News. On the night Palin gave her acceptance speech, he contended that Obama is more qualified than Palin because, through his extensive campaigning he has been thinking and arguing about national issues longer than her. Obama has also used the campaigning argument. In order to defend the claim that he has executive experience, Obama pointed to the fact that he oversees his campaign.

I agree with McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds’ analysis of Obama’s claim. To claim one has the experience to be president because they have been thinking about being president, being grilled by the media about being president, and otherwise engaged in activities revolving around running for the office, is both “desperate” and “circular.”

Despite all his campaigning, Obama isn’t ready to be president. But can Republicans say Palin is ready, not only for the office she’s running for, but also the office she may occupy if, God forbid, something happened to McCain? This question leads me to the second reason Democrats and Republicans disagree on the experience issue. When Republicans say Palin has experience, we mean she’s held an office with similar job requirements to the one McCain (and possibly she) is running for. Thinking, arguing, answering questions are all important, but during the time Obama campaigned to fill the role of chief executive officer of a government, Palin actually was one. And unlike Obama, she has a list of accomplishments that bolsters her platform, such as cutting taxes, expanding the supply of alternative energy, and vetoing wasteful spending.

In the end, Democrats and Republicans won’t resolve their differences on experience before the campaigning ends. They’ll continue to think, argue and attempt to answer each other’s questions, but it will be independents and others with only loose allegiance to their parties who actually make the decision over who’s ready to lead this country.