When Coolidge was named to Warren Harding's ticket in 1920, he had been governor of Massachusetts for less than two years. His chief previous government experience was as mayor of Northampton, to which he was first elected in 1910 by a Wasilla-like margin of 1,597 to 1,409.
Another year-and-a-half governor to be nominated for the vice presidency: Teddy Roosevelt. It's true that TR, as a former assistant secretary of the Navy, though one wonders what today we would make of a candidate whose proud boast was that he had killed an enemy soldier "like a jackrabbit."
Then there is Harry Truman.
"He had only to open his mouth and his origins were plain,"wrote David McCullough in his biography of the 33rd president, in lines that might also have been written about Mrs. Palin.
"It wasn't just that he came from a particular part of the country, geographically, but from a specific part of the American experience, an authentic pioneer background, and a specific place in the American imagination."The Truman comparison seems especially to rankle Mrs. Palin's critics, perhaps because in many respects it rings true. Take vetting. John McCain may have met Mrs. Palin only once before he offered her the job, but Franklin Roosevelt admitted "I hardly know Truman" in July 1944, the same month the "Senator from Pendergast" was put on the Democratic ticket. [snip]
But as a man who knows whereof he speaks recently observed;
"You can argue that nobody is ready to be president. You can argue that even if you've been vice president for eight years, that no one can be fully ready for the pressures of the office."Wise words, and historically true. If Bill Clinton can offer such a benediction to an inexperienced candidate, surely Mrs. Palin's critics can do so as well...
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