Gov. Ed Rendell held a press conference at Franklin & Marshall College this afternoon on the eve of John McCain and Sarah Palin’s visit. Most of Rendell’s conference was spent attacking Republicans for misleading the American public on Barack Obama’s tax policies, which Rendell is largely accurate. When the conference was opened up to questions from the media, I asked Rendell about the experience factor. All weekend, I heard from your average, homeowning, working Republicans who swear that Palin’s executive experience as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a town of less than 7,000 people when she served, and her partially completed term as governor of Alaska trumped Obama’s experience in the U.S. Senate.
Here’s what Rendell had to say:
I’ve actually waiting for somebody to ask me that question.
Do you all remember when Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia was on the short list for Senator Obama’s vice presidential choice? The Republican attack machine and the McCain campaign sent out a news release to all of the media attacking Tim Kaine. Here’s what they said: How preposterous is it that they would consider Gov. Tim Kaine to have the requisite experience to be vice president. He spent 8 years as mayor of the 105th largest city in the country, deriding his 8 years of experience because Richmond was only the 105th largest city in America.
Well I know Gov. Palin and I like her … but she spent less time than Gov. Kaine as mayor of the 50,000th largest city in America, and then they derided Gov. Kaine because he had less than two and a half years of experience as governor of Virginia, one of the top 20 most populous states in America. And yet Gov. Palin has less than 2 years experience as governor of Alaska, one of the smallest 10 states in the union in terms of population.
So you don’t have to ask me what I think. The McCain campaign thinks her credentials are totally inadequate and totally inefficient to be President of the United States. If that’s what they said about Tim Kaine, they certainly have to mean it about Gov. Palin.
And listen, we can’t kid around. That’s their words. They attacked Tim Kaine for being inexperienced. It’s just disgraceful that they engage in those kinds of tactics.
Can we go back to one of the reasons you, Rendell said we should vote for Hillary over Obama? That's right, you were one of the "they" people who highlighted Obama's inexperience but you're still able to come out in public and gin up unbelievable (literally) passion and outrage over this. You can do this because you're a typical professional politician who needs to be swept out of office pronto. What it means is every time you highlight Palin's inexperience and support Obama you're being a hypocrite, you're kidding around and worse because if experience was high on your list and you were a statesman you would support McCain, hands down! There I'm fully awake! 
The point being they're more alike than different anyway.
