Republicans have spent much of the past week scoffing at claims that Sarah Palin’s political experience—which includes six years as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, and 20 months as the governor of the 47th largest state in the union—raises questions about her preparation to lead the United States of America.
In particular, they have played up Palin’s "executive experience," calculating that the repetition of this term will lead voters to ignore or overlook the fact that 87 percent of this experience was in a town with a population roughly three times larger than that of a large college dormitory.
"I find it reminiscent when I hear Democrat party leaders and their surrogates questioning Sarah’s experience," Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle said at the G.O.P. convention last night. "They used the same tactic against me when I ran for governor. They said being the mayor of Maui was insufficient experience to be the governor."
Rhetorically, Lingle’s Maui-Wasilla analogy works just fine. But mathematically, it’s ludicrous. The estimated population of Maui County is 141,320—meaning that it accounts for about 11 percent of Hawaii’s total population. By comparison, Palin’s Wasilla, according to a 2007 estimate, has just 9,780 residents—or 1 percent of Alaska’s total population. Moreover, Wasilla had just 4,600 residents when Palin was elected mayor in 1996, and only 6,311 when she left office in 2002. Lingle, therefore, governed a county that, in terms of population, was equal in size to 22.4 of Palin’s Wasillas (using the highest population figure from Palin’s time in office).
Lingle introduced a second analogy in her speech: "The other side has made the point that Alaska is a small state, but the last time I checked, it had the same number of electoral votes as Delaware. And, you can fit more than 250 states the size of Delaware within Alaska’s border."
True enough, Alaska and Delaware both have three electoral votes. But while Alaska may have more land mass than Delaware, Delaware actually has 183,423 more citizens. That may seem like a quibble, but 183,423 people is the equivalent of 29 Wasillas (again, using the population figures from when Palin left office). That difference swells to 39.9 Wasillas if you use the population figure for Wasilla when Palin won the mayoralty in 1996.
Let’s convert some other American cities of varying sizes into Wasillas — using the 6,311 population figure from when Palin left office:
Omaha, Nebraska
Current population: 432,921, or 68.6 Wasillas.
Mayor (as a service to future Republican VP search teams): Mike Fahey
Tempe, Arizona
Current population: 174,971, or 27.7 Wasillas
Mayor: Hugh Hallman (he’s an expert on Kazakhstan — foreign policy experience!)
San Diego, California
Current Population: 1,256,951, or 199.2 Wasillas
Mayor: Jerry Sanders
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Current population: 81,358, or 12.9 Wasillas
Mayor: Walter Maddox
New York City
Current population: 8,274,527, or 1,311.13 Wasillas
Mayor: Michael Bloomberg
Windham, Connecticut
Current population: 23,503 or 3.7 Wasillas
Mayor: No mayor, but perhaps First Selectman Jean de Smet can provide legislative experience to a future ticket?
Running these cities (well, all of them except Windham) gives each mayor executive experience — and, as Lingle noted last night, "I find it especially amusing that the other party says Governor Palin lacks experience when their own candidates for president and vice president have no executive experience — zero!" So presumably, the G.O.P. wouldn’t say a word if a future Democratic nominee were to offer his or her VP slot to, say, the mayor of Leominster, Massachusetts (which clocks in at a healthy 6.6 Wasillas). Right?
And why stop at cities? As noted above, Warren Towers, a dormitory at Boston University, is home to 1,800 people – or about 3/10 of a Wasilla. But if running Wasilla is no different than running a city 30 or 40 times its size, then is it really much different to administer a slightly smaller dormitory?
Here are some other facilities whose administrators probably have valuable executive experience that would be useful in the Office of the Vice President of the United States:
The Rose Bowl (Pasadena, California)
Capacity: 92,542, or 14.67 Wasillas
Wrigley Field (Chicago, Illinois)
Capacity: 41,118, or 6.5 Wasillas
Bristol Motor Speedway (Bristol, Tennessee)
Capacity: 165,000, or 26.14 Wasillas
Churchill Downs (Louisville, Kentucky)
Capacity: Seating – 51,000, or 8.08 Wasillas; Infield included – 170,000, or 26.94 Wasillas
Mullins Center (basketball arena for the University of Massachusetts)
Capacity: 10,500, or 1.67 Wasillas
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