McCain: False claim about experience

REPUBLICAN presidential candidate John McCain says his vice-presidential pick, Sarah Palin, was already an experienced government official while his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, was working as a community organiser.

She wasn’t. Palin was finishing college, getting married and working as a TV sportscaster when Obama was directing a church-based community group on Chicago’s south side in 1985-88.

McCain sought to make the comparison in an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, criticising Obama as too inexperienced to be in the White House despite his choice of a running mate who’s also being called too unseasoned for that role.

Challenged about his vice-presidential choice, McCain said as governor of Alaska for the past two years, Palin “has had enormous responsibilities, none of which Senator Obama had.” He said: “as a governor, she has had executive experience. She didn’t sit in the state legislature.”

It’s true that in recent years, more presidents have come from governorships than from legislative bodies. But it’s a stretch to argue that running the statehouse in a small state is ideal preparation for the issues that will confront the next president.

In the same interview, McCain continued: “when she was in government, he was a community organiser.”

That’s incorrect. When Palin was first elected to the town council in Wasilla, Alaska, in the fall of 1992, Obama was wrapping up work in Chicago on a voter-registration drive. He then joined a Chicago law firm and became a lecturer at the University of Chicago law school.