Why are Democrats held to such low standards?

5,000! Jeez, I said in my thread that there were a hundred little towns in Pennsylvania the size of the one she governed and none of their mayors would be considered qualified to run for Mayor of Philadelphia. I was wrong, there are several hundred little towns in Pennsylvnaia the size of that one.

Why do any of you care what a bored Brit (Mr. Magoo) has to say about our election. He should be paying more attention to his own country....his politicians are NOT perfect. He has attempted to make an comment to every response in this discussion which would be of more influence if he was an American voter.

Do you really think it matters what McCain's GPA was 50 years ago? I finished community college with a 2.1 GPA. That is no reflection on my intelligence, it's merely a reflection of how skillfully I managed to do the absolute minimum amount of work to get by in classes that bored me. When I was working on my Masters degree and GPA actually mattered, I had a 3.8. As such, his GPA means nothing to me. All that matters is that he graduated. I can't believe you would be so arrogant as to criticize McCain for the fact that his plane was shot down as he was fighting for our country. He risked his life and endured years of torture and you see that as a reason to mock him. Palin and Biden both came from meager backgrounds. She wasn't born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Her mother was a secretary and her father was a science teacher. I'm not going to level criticism for Biden or his experience. I will point out that his experience wasn't valued by democrats when he ran in the primaries. Here in Miami he came in 5 place during the primaries. Of course Florida was disenfranchised by democrats so that didn't really matter. My point was that Sarah Palin's experience as a VP candidate is being criticized as inadequate even though Obama's experience is no better than hers and he's number one on his ticket. If you choose to mock and discount her experience as a mayor, then I can just as easily mock and discount Obama's experience as a state senator. He only represented a fraction of one state, and all he did was vote present most of the time anyway. Unlike a mayor, senators aren't responsible for anything and will get paid whether or not they choose to show up or vote when they do show up. This has worked to Obama's advantage since every time anyone brings up things that happened in his district his minions just say "He wasn't in charge, he was just a senator". God it must be nice to have a job where you're not responsible for ANYTHING.

Indeed, these are hard questions concerning Sarah Palin. They should be asked. I'm glad they are. The poster is making the point that it is a shame that similar hard questions are not being posed concerning the democrats. The poster is making the point that similar hard questions are often ignored concerning democrats. Thank-you for the comment. I can see you take your politics serious. We need more of that.

So what is the hard question you are asking? Are you asking if Palin abused her power as Governor of Alaka? Are you asking if she was truthful in filling out her taxes when she left off a $40,000 gift of travel from lobbist? Are you asking about her foreign experience when she landed for refueling in Ireland or maybe did speed dating at the United Nations? Which of these hard questions were you talking about?

I understand what you are saying about holding the bar high and challenging the other side but who should be challenging the Democrats? It has to be the Republicans. The problem is that as long as the challenge is did Obama pal around with Ayers you aren't digging very deep.

Whose name did I call??? Perhaps you are the Mr. Magoo who can't see too well!!

Whiteheather, I'm just throwing my two cents in (uninvited!), I was reading through responses and comments, and you are name calling Magoo. "Brits" "Foreigners", potentially others but I didn't really look into it that much. It reads as very rude and dismissive, hopefully it wasn't intended that way. Oh, and this is a standard I would hold a democrat to, as well!

Could you please raise your comments a bit higher? If all we are going to do is call names these are going to be very short discussions.

Well if you rate experience as a non-factor, that's your choice and I respect that. I disagree with it, but I respect it. The problem is that the democratic party has been attacking Sarah Palin's experience incessantly just as they did Dan Quayle. However the same people that attack the experience of these republican Vice Presidential candidates, have constantly defended Obama as saying his lack of experience is irrelevant despite the fact that he is running for the highest office in the country.

Mr. Magoo again I shall say thank goodness you can't vote , Brits cannot vote in our election.

Magoo, you can assume she's not intelligent if you want, but you are basing your judgment solely on how she speaks in interviews and I can't see how that is an adequate method of judging intelligence. There are many people who are fantastic speakers, but are otherwise as dumb as a box of rocks. Just look at some of the Hollywood elite who never even finished a real high school.

It's obvious what Colin Powell and Obama have in common.

Ok, so you gave me a nice long paragraph that said one, and only one thing. You hate Sarah Palin. You didn't give a single concrete example to prove any point that you may have wanted to make. I get it. You hate her. The question is, why are democrats saying she's so inexperienced and yet are in no way concerned about their own candidate's lack of experience? Why did they rip Dan Quayle so badly when he had more experience than Obama will have even if he's in office for another 10 years?

Philjas, you are right on. Have you heard the latest that Buckley was kicked of the National Review for supporting Obama? The latest I heard was that after this debate tonight that Colin Powell might indorse Obama? Now if all of these people are saying the ticket is not a good one, how is that the base has so much trouble seeing it is not a match made in heaven.

That was a completely pointless post. It had absolutely nothing to do with the topic and more closely resembled a temper tantrum by someone who doesn't like hearing from anyone who supports the other candidate. This thread was about standards for choosing a candidate and why democrats praised Obama's inexperience while criticizing Palin's. If you can't address the topic of a thread, you open yourself up to criticism. You also make it clear that you are fully incapable of defending the hypocrisy of democrats who ignore Obama's lack of experience while criticizing Palin's.

There are, and always will be, double standards. We can certainly agree on that. I just wish some people would apply the experience bit equally. For many Obama supporters they kept insisting that experience was meaningless for months until McCain chose Palin as his running mate and suddenly experience is the most important issue to them... except when applied to Obama.

I also find that ridiculous, people I heard defending Obama's experience were months later jumping on Palin. The argument was it was the kind of experience. I feel they should just suck it up, and admit that yeah, maybe they HAD questions about Obama's experience. Who in their right mind wouldn't? But that ultimately it was not the number of years served in any particular office that got Obama their vote. And maybe give Palin the same forgiving lens they gave Obama when they first encountered him. On my end, the lack of experience isn't a huge issue. There are other reasons I don't like Palin (and I have to say, it is her presence that made me fully decide to vote Obama, while I've been planning to vote democrat a couple months now, I really would have been happy with either candidate). But it's not Palin's experience that swayed me.

Those are some very interesting points. I don't agree with the preservers and changers labels, but I'm sure most democrats do so I can see the perceptions and the different criteria for candidates. That said, do you think these same democrats are especially angry now because they feel that Sarah Palin has stolen their thunder as a young agent of change? Do you think that Joe Biden theoretically hurts their claim to be agents of change when he's been in Washington for 30 years?

I don't think Sarah Palin has stolen anyone's thunder really. From what I hear about her, and what I've read so far, she seems more like an extreme Republican. She wants change alright, but think reverting to Puritan times. Frankly I think the Democrats are having a field day with her, watching as she singlehandedly alienates more voters. Those alienated voters have to go somewhere. ;) Biden to me seems like another Al Gore. Just someone to stand there and smile, a puppet if you will. Which is truly the role of the VP, absorb and mimic presidential decrees until such time as you might be called upon to act as such. So I do not believe that he will hurt anything for the Democrats, as he mostly is just echoing Obama and standing with him. While Sarah Palin runs off and does her own thing. I hope I answered your questions. Truly I am not the most informed person, but I've seen enough to form some serious opinions on things. :)

The idea that she wants to revert to Puritan times is just ridiculous. Aside from internet rumors, there is nothing to support such an idea. People want to take her religion and pretend that it will somehow lead her to force her religion on the country. There's nothing to back that up. She's brought more support to McCain and truly energized the campaign. She gave him his first lead. I disagree about Biden. I believe that he sees Obama as weak and sees an opportunity to play him like a marionette. I think people are giving him a free ride since he's the least interesting of anyone in the race. He knows Obama isn't ready to be president. He's said it himself more than once. He took the VP job to make sure Obama didn't ruin the country with his poor judgment and lack of experience.

George Washington had over 9 years of extensive military leadership, including being Commander in Chief, before he became president. Ronald Reagan was governor of California, the most populous state in the country, for 8 years. He also served in the military for 8 years and achieved the rank of Captain. The claim that John F. Kennedy was extremely inexperienced is one of the biggest myths that gets spread. He served 4 years in the Navy achieving the rank of lieutenant. He also served 6 years in the House of Representatives and 7 years in the Senate before being elected president. He was not inexperienced by any stretch of the imagination and the words "extremely inexperienced" could not possibly apply when compared to Barrack Obama. That said, I respect your opinions. As with spalladino, I disagree with you and think experience is important, but what bothers me is the hypocrisy of those who said experience was irrelevant with regards to Obama, but stress it as being EXTREMELY important when discussing Sarah Palin.

Taskr, I was agreeing with what you said. I'm sorry you disagree with my example.